At least 70 Ukrainian scientists have fallen on the battlefield.
Hundreds of others have been forced to give up their academic work and move to other countries – one of them is Natalia Moroziuk who came to Sweden.
– My biggest dream is to return to Ukraine and hopefully be able to contribute
to the reconstruction of society, she says.
Natalia Moroziuk has a doctorate in economics and has for more than 15 years researched the topic of community planning in Ukraine. But when Russia attacked two years ago, she was forced to flee.
– My apartment survived, but my neighbors’ apartments were destroyed when the Russians bombed Irpin around the clock, she tells TV4 Nyheterna.
It wasn’t money or or her actions that she thought about first when she escaped. Something else was more important.
– What I took with me from the apartment was all the data. That was the first thing I thought of
to bring with me from Irpin. It was incredibly important, she says.
Ended up in Sweden via researcher website
Via the platforms Science at risk and Scholars at risk, where both are about saving researchers, Natalia Moroziuk ended up first in the Czech Republic and then in Sweden and a research position at KTH.
Professor Nina Wormbs is responsible for part of the help for vulnerable researchers.
– The war is terrible. But we also quickly realized that here we would probably get quite a few colleagues who came out to Europe and also to Sweden, she says.
Funding takes place via various foundations, individual donations and the universities. But it is also important to know that real researchers are coming. Some of the graduates live under threat and Nina Wormbs says that if they need a protected identity, they get it.
– From the Swedish perspective, they are security tested before we hire them. So we don’t have to worry, she says.
Want to return to Ukraine
According to the Science at Risk network, at least 70 scientists have been killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Nina Moroziuk works with community planning and has many years of collected data on the change processes taking place in Ukrainian municipalities. And she has a strong desire.
– My biggest dream is to return to Ukraine and hopefully be able to contribute
to the reconstruction of society, she says.