When Ukrainian forces retook the site of the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory in September 2022 after forcing a Russian retreat, they found the facility still standing—but just barely. Collapsed ceilings, charred walls and emptied shelves reduced the once proud observatory to ruins. The scars of occupation were everywhere; Russian troops had converted part of the site’s partially built Giant Ukrainian Radio Telescope (GURT) into a makeshift kitchen and had dumped trash among the high-precision electronics.
The destruction seemed particularly gruesome given that the observatory had been built some 75 kilometers outside the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv as a monument to the nation’s astronomical research, dedicated to the peaceful exploration of the universe using one of the world’s largest radio telescopes. Now it was yet another casualty of the ongoing conflict, another entry in the ever-growing list of things to be repaired and rebuilt.
More than four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the war has consumed everything. “I used to dream of becoming a scientist and returning to my village one day – visiting the school, talking to children about how incredible and mysterious the universe is,” says Olena Kompaniiets, a junior researcher at the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. “But now the school is gone, and so is the village. There’s nowhere to go back to.”
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“I am happy to be Ukrainian and to support Ukraine in its terrible times,” says Daria Dobrycheva, a cosmologist at the Main Astronomical Observatory. “I feel proud of our country, which is fighting one of the greatest armies in the world. It is just a great sin that the blood of the best sons and daughters of our country is being shed for our independence.”
Before the war, Ukraine was a serious player in international astronomy and space science. The nation hosted its fair share of science heroes, such as Klim Churyumov, who helped discover the comet visited by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, or Nikolai Barabashov, who co-authored the paper that reported the first ever image of the moon’s surface in 1961. And of course, there was the father of Ukrainian rocketry and Sovi Korolev, the father of Ukrainian rock. The Union’s space program.
The country was once dotted with observatories and radio telescopes. Perhaps the greatest astronomical prize was the Ukrainian T-shaped radio telescope, second modification (UTR-2), completed at the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory in 1972. UTR-2 is the largest ultra-low-frequency radio telescope in the world, consisting of more than 2,000 individual antenna elements of more than 01 square meters in total, covering more than 01 square meters of a total of 050 meters. area. Constructed alongside UTR-2, GURT was designed as a more modern facility that was intended to extend the primacy of its older partner.
Rather, that was the plan before the invading Russian army seized the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory for use as a temporary base, destroyed much of UTR-2’s scientific equipment, and used GURT’s parabolic reflectors as a mess hall. The ruin left behind after Ukrainian forces regained control was shocking, but typical of modern warfare: Of the 17 buildings originally on the site, all but one sustained extensive damage. Virtually everything of value, from computers to cabling, had been looted. Even the specialized copper cooling systems were removed from the instruments, presumably to be sold as scrap metal. Mines and ammunition were strewn around the property, making many areas no-go zones until they were properly cleared.
The war’s astronomical devastation was not limited to Braude, of course. In June 2025, the central building of the Main Astronomical Observatory, located in the center of Kyiv, was damaged by an explosion nearby. Some research and training centers, such as those belonging to the Astronomical Observatory of Odesa National University, have been abandoned due to their proximity to active combat zones. The overall result has been the collective destruction of Ukrainian astronomy. The raw statistics compiled in a recent report co-authored by over a dozen Ukrainian astronomers, including Kompaniiets, paint a grim picture:
A total of 1,443 buildings at 177 institutions: damaged.
Public research and development budget: halved.
More than 10,000 researchers and professors: displaced.
The total number of research staff still in Ukraine is less than half of what it was before the war. And more than 1,500 Ukrainian scientists temporarily live in other countries as members of the war diaspora.
Ruins lie in front of a phased array antenna at the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine on November 16, 2023. The facility, which includes one of the world’s largest radio telescopes, was extensively damaged by Russian occupation forces before being reclaimed by Ukraine in September 2022.
Oleksandr Stavytskyy/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
The country’s entire research pipeline will take generations to recover, with observatories and universities struggling to pass on the institutional knowledge that has kept astronomy going for millennia. The number of researchers in their early career is down more than 40 percent from pre-war levels; most young people have either fled the country or joined the war effort. The few students who remain now often spend some of their lecture time in bomb rooms, not in classrooms.
“There is a Ph.D. student from our department who has been fighting since the first days of the war,” notes Dobrycheva. “He has a thesis ready to defend, but the war began, and he went to the front … You can imagine – our army consists of all the people of Ukraine …, where you can see graduate students, bakers, hairdressers, lawyers, judges and teachers.”
But the flame of Ukrainian space science has not been extinguished.
Despite the devastation—the loss of equipment, the flight of brilliant minds, and the diversion of resources to the war effort—thousands of astronomers remain in the country and continue their work.
“The war has touched all of us,” says Kompaniiets, but “like me, they can’t imagine their lives anywhere else.” Both her husband and father serve in the army, and she and her friends run a volunteer organization that assembles tactical first aid kits for soldiers on the front lines. Her once peaceful nights studying distant galaxies at the telescope are now more hectic, sometimes disrupted by power outages or heavy shelling. And an academic co-working space in Kiev that she used to frequent now no longer exists after a rocket struck nearby, severely damaging the surrounding buildings.
For Kompaniiets and her peers still in Ukraine, astronomy has offered a strange kind of solace. “Being an astrophysicist was my childhood dream – a dream that in these dark times helps me persevere and move on. My research has become a kind of meditation for me. It calms, inspires and helps me to continue,” she says.
No one expects the war to end soon. Russia has only redoubled its efforts to seize the country, and international support has wavered with the shifting political winds within and among Ukraine’s allies. But hope for the future still shines like the stars. After a year of repairs and demining, the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory reopened in October 2023 and returned to taking data. In the absence of a stable power grid, the staff managed to install a small solar power station to keep the heart of the GURT telescope beating.
Despite the danger, society persists. “In 2024, the Council of Young Scientists … started the holding of a scientific school,” explains Dobrycheva. “For me, this is a special reason for pride: even during the war, we managed to involve small businesses in supporting science … The school was not held online; everyone was present at the event. This direct communication gives joy and inspires strength.”
The scientists who were forced to disperse from their offices have now found new homes and shelters. And whether in Ukraine or elsewhere, some of them are involved in making post-war plans to rejoin the international community.
It won’t be easy. The repair of scientific and university infrastructure will cost an estimated $1.26 billion. But with that work can also come renewal – even rebirth. Now the astronomers see new opportunities to build deeper ties with their European neighbours. Already the war diaspora has brought thousands of young researchers to receptive host institutions across the continent; the end of the war will hopefully allow them to return home, where they can take advantage of their newfound relationships.
As the war rages, plans emerge for the post-war modernization of Ukrainian observatories, many of which were built during the Soviet era. Discussions are already underway for a “progressive recovery plan” to be presented at the European Astronomical Society 2026 conference. The effort aims to move Ukraine away from its Soviet-era technical legacy and towards full partnership with the European Southern Observatory, Europe’s largest and best astronomy consortium.
“I think this war will last for many years,” Dobrycheva concludes. “And what I can say for sure is that if I survive and see our victory, I will definitely drink a glass of alcohol, smoke a cigarette and cry – and then start working even harder. It’s hard now, but it will be even harder later because we have to rebuild Ukraine.”
As soon as they can, scientists and engineers across the country will try to take the faint but lasting flicker of science and ignite it into something even brighter. “Right now our state is focused on defense and survival. But in order to have something to rebuild after the war, we have to preserve it during the war,” says Kompaniiets. “Science is no exception. I believe that without science a strong country is impossible.”
