It’s difficult to do a normal blog post today. I’ve known and worked with a number of Ukrainian chemists over the years. The country’s chemical suppliers are familiar to anyone in the field because they’ve done such a good job of expanding into the world market for fine chemicals and intermediates. For that matter, I’ve worked with many Russian scientists who I am sure do not approve of what’s happening – the word “Russia” is not some monolithic proxy for whatever is going on in the mind of Vladimir Putin, whatever the hell that is at the moment.
The Ukrainian people have suffered horribly in the past from decisions made by Russian leaders – that parade of thieves and autocrats who have inflicted so much suffering on the Russians themselves. And in recent years, Ukraine has been trying to lift itself out of that history – a nightmare, as Joyce put it, from which it is struggling to awaken. Both nations – and the rest of the world – deserve more than this. The first decades of the 21st century have been far too much like the first decades of the 20th, with wars and pandemics. It was going to be better; it should be better. And we should keep trying to make it better, however we can.
For me, that means opposing (however I can) what’s happening in Ukraine right now. I’d like to request that any readers who think otherwise to please stay out of the comments here and find some other means of self-expression – I’m truly not in the mood.
