We, the scholars of Eastern Europe, Russia, and Eurasia at the City University of New York (CUNY) and members of the CUNY REEES Workshop, condemn the Russian Federation’s military invasion of Ukraine. 

It hits close to home for us, as part of the public university for the city with the largest populations of Russian- and Ukrainian-Americans in the United States. As scholars, we are appalled and angered by President Putin’s use of historical distortions to justify Russia’s attack on Ukrainian sovereignty by calling it a war of de-Nazification against fascism. We see this attack on Ukraine as an attack on humanity, democracy, and the rule of law, and that it poses an extraordinary threat of wider war.  

We call on the U.S. and other NATO countries to send more defensive weapons to Ukraine, to provide it with intelligence information, to provide reception centers and documents for refugees, and to prevent further annexations or the dissolution of the country. We stand with the people of Ukraine, whose lives and hopes for democratic self-governance have been upended by this vicious assault, and with the brave citizens of Russia and Belarus who oppose their authoritarian regimes and protest the illegal actions of their governments.

February 28, 2022