An open letter from Nobel laureates

In a move that recalls the infamous attack of Nazi Germany on Poland in 1939 (using similar tricks of feigned provocation) and on the Soviet Union in 1941, the government of the Russian Federation, led by President Putin, has launched an unprovoked military aggression — nothing else but a war — against its neighbor, Ukraine. We choose our words carefully here, for we do not believe the Russian people have a role in this aggression.

We join in condemning these military actions and President Putin’s essential denial of the legitimacy of Ukraine’s existence.

There is always a peaceful way to resolve disputes. The Russian invasion blatantly violates the United Nations Charter, which says “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” It ignores the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which obligated Russia and others to respect the sovereignty, independence, and existing borders of Ukraine.

Russia’s security concerns can be addressed within the framework of the UN Charter, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, and the 1990 Paris Charter. To make war, as President Putin and his collaborators have done, is an unwarranted, bloody, and unproductive way to a future.

The Russian invasion will stain the international reputation of the Russian state for decades to come. It will pose barriers to its economy and inflict hardships on its population. The sanctions imposed will restrict the ease of movement of its talented and hardworking people in the world. Why raise this fence between Russia and the world now?

Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers, Russian soldiers, and Ukrainian civilians, including children, have died already. It’s so sad, so unnecessary. We gather in this appeal to call upon the Russian government to stop its invasion of Ukraine and withdraw its military forces from Ukraine.

We respect the calm and the strength of the Ukrainian people. We are with you. Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all, Ukrainians and Russians, who have died and been injured already. May peace come to this piece of our beautiful world.

Peter Agre
Frances H. Arnold
Paul Berg
Thomas R. Cech
Martin Chalfie
Emmanuelle Charpentier
Aaron Ciechanover
Elias James Corey
Robert F. Curl Jr.
Johann Deisenhofer
Jennifer A. Doudna
Jacques Dubochet
Gerhard Ertl
Joachim Frank
Richard Henderson
Dudley R. Herschbach
Avram Hershko
Roald Hoffmann
Robert Huber
Brian K. Kobilka
Roger D. Kornberg
Yuan T. Lee
Robert J. Lefkowitz
Jean-Marie Lehn
Michael Levitt
Tomas Lindahl
Benjamin List
Roderick MacKinnon
David W.C. MacMillan
Paul L. Modrich
William E. Moerner
Ryoji Noyori
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Jean-Pierre Sauvage
K. Barry Sharpless
Dan Shechtman
Hideki Shirakawa
Sir James Fraser Stoddart
Sir John E. Walker
Arieh Warshel
M. Stanley Whittingham
Kurt Wuthrich
Angus S. Deaton
Robert F. Engle III
Eugene F. Fama
Oliver Hart
Bengt Holmstrom
Finn E. Kydland
Eric S. Maskin
Daniel L. McFadden
Robert C. Merton
Paul R. Milgrom
Roger B. Myerson
Edmund S. Phelps
Alvin E. Roth
Robert J. Shiller
Kazuo Ishiguro
Elfriede Jelinek
Herta Muller
Orhan Pamuk
Wole Soyinka
James P. Allison
Harvey J. Alter
Werner Arber
Richard Axel
David Baltimore
Bruce A. Beutler
Elizabeth H. Blackburn
Michael S. Brown
Linda B. Buck
William C. Campbell
Mario R. Capecchi
Andrew Z. Fire
Joseph L. Goldstein
Carol W. Greider
Jeffrey Connor Hall
Leland H. Hartwell
Harald zur Hausen
Jules A. Hoffmann
H. Robert Horvitz
Sir Michael Houghton
Tim Hunt
Louis J. Ignarro
David Julius
William G. Kaelin Jr.
Eric R. Kandel
Barry J. Marshall
Craig C. Mello
Edvard Moser
May-Britt Moser
Ferid Murad
Erwin Neher
Sir Paul M. Nurse
John O’Keefe
Yoshinori Ohsumi
Ardem Patapoutian
Stanley B. Prusiner
Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe
Charles M. Rice
Sir Richard J. Roberts
Michael Rosbash
James E. Rothman
Bert Sakmann
Randy W. Schekman
Gregg L. Semenza
Phillip A. Sharp
Hamilton O. Smith
Jack W. Szostak
Susumu Tonegawa
Harold E. Varmus
Eric F. Wieschaus
Torsten N. Wiesel
Shinya Yamanaka
Michael W. Young
Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo
Shirin Ebadi
Leymah Roberta Gbowee
Tawakkol Karman
The 14th Dalai Lama
Maria Ressa
Oscar Arias Sanchez
Juan Manuel Santos
Kailash Satyarthi
Jody Williams
Hiroshi Amano
Barry Clark Barish
J. Georg Bednorz
Steven Chu
Jerome I. Friedman
Andre Geim
Reinhard Genzel
Andrea Ghez
Sheldon Glashow
David J. Gross
John L. Hall
Serge Haroche
Klaus Hasselmann
Gerardus ‘t Hooft
Takaaki Kajita
Wolfgang Ketterle
Klaus von Klitzing
J. Michael Kosterlitz
Anthony J. Leggett
John C. Mather
Michel Mayor
Arthur B. McDonald
Gerard Mourou
James Peebles
William D. Phillips
H. David Politzer
Adam G. Riess
Brian P. Schmidt
Donna Strickland
Joseph H. Taylor Jr.
Kip Stephen Thorne
Daniel C. Tsui
Rainer Weiss
Frank Wilczek
David J. Wineland