The following is a letter signed as of March 5, 2022, by 7,500 students, graduates, and teachers and other staff of the prestigious Moscow State University, Russia’s oldest university, stating they “categorically condemn the war that our country unleashed in Ukraine.” The original in Russian can be found here. Translation is by World-Outlook.

Community of Lomonosov Moscow State University against war

We, students, graduate students, teachers, staff and graduates of the oldest university in Russia, Lomonosov Moscow State University, categorically condemn the war that our country has unleashed in Ukraine.

Russia and our parents have given us a strong education, the true value of which is to be able to critically evaluate what is happening around us, weigh arguments, hear each other and be devoted to the truth – scientific and humanistic. We know how to call a spade a spade, and we can’t stay away.

The action by the Russian Federation, which its leadership calls a “special military operation,” is a war, and in this situation there is no room for either euphemisms or excuses. War is violence, cruelty, death, loss of loved ones, powerlessness and fear, which cannot be justified by any goal. War is the most brutal act of dehumanization, which, as we have studied within the walls of schools and the University, should never be repeated. The absolute values of human life, humanism, diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of contradictions, which we absorbed at the University, were trampled and thrown out in an instant when Russia treacherously invaded the territory of Ukraine. The lives of millions of Ukrainians have been threatened every hour since the invasion of Ukraine by the military forces of the Russian Federation.

We express our support for the people of Ukraine and categorically condemn the war that Russia has unleashed against the Ukrainians.

As graduates of Russia’s oldest university, we know that the losses inflicted during the six days of the bloody war—first of all, human, but also social, economic, cultural—are irreplaceable. We also know that war is a humanitarian catastrophe, but we cannot imagine the depth of the wound that we, as the people of Russia, are inflicting on the people of Ukraine and on ourselves right now.

We demand that the Russian leadership immediately cease fire, leave the territory of the sovereign state of Ukraine and end this shameful war.

We ask all Russian citizens who are not indifferent to its future to join the peace movement.

We are against war!

#нетвойне (#NoWar)