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 stood—but barely. Collapsed roofs, charred walls and emptied shelves all reduced the once-proud observatory to ruin. The scars of occupation were everywhere; Russian troops had converted part of the site’s partially built Giant Ukrainian Radio Telescope (GURT) to a makeshift kitchen and had discarded trash among the high-precision electronics.
The devastation seemed especially cruel, given that the observatory had been built some 75 kilometers outside of 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 repair and rebuild.
More than four years after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the war has consumed all. “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 is nowhere to return to.”
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“I am glad to be Ukrainian and to support Ukraine in its terrible times,” says Daria Dobrycheva, a cosmologist at the Main Astronomical Observatory. “I feel proud for our country, which is fighting against one of the biggest armies in the world. It is only a great pity 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 co-discovered the comet that was visited by the Rosetta mission of the European Space Agency, or Nikolai Barabashov, who co-authored the paper that reported the first-ever image of the farside of the moon in 1961. And of course, there was Sergei Korolev, the Ukrainian rocket engineer and founding father of the Soviet Union’s space program.
The country was once dotted with observatories and radio telescope arrays. Perhaps the greatest astronomical prize was the Ukrainian T-Shaped Radio Telescope, second modification (UTR-2), completed at 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 covering a grand total of more than 150,000 square meters of collecting area. Constructed alongside UTR-2, the GURT was designed as a more modern facility that was intended to extend its elder partner’s preeminence.
Rather, that was the plan before the invading Russian army seized the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory for use as a temporary base, destroying much of the UTR-2’s scientific equipment and using the 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-site, all but one suffered extensive damage. Practically everything of value, from computers to cabling, had been looted. Even the specialized copper cooling systems were stripped from the instruments, presumably to be sold as scrap metal. Mines and munitions were strewn about the grounds, making many areas no-go zones until being properly cleared.
The war’s astronomical devastation wasn’t limited to Braude, of course. In June 2025 the central building of the Main Astronomical Observatory, located in downtown Kyiv, was damaged by a nearby blast. Some research and training centers, like those belonging to the Astronomical Observatory of Odesa National University, have been effectively abandoned because of their proximity to active combat zones. The overall result has been the collective ravaging of Ukrainian astronomy. The raw statistics collated 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 who are still in Ukraine is less than half of what it was prewar. And more than 1,500 Ukrainian researchers temporarily live in other countries as members of the wartime diaspora.
Rubble lies 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 occupying Russian 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 along the institutional knowledge that has kept astronomy going for millennia. The number of early-career scientists is down more than 40 percent from prewar levels; most young people have either fled the country or joined the war effort. What few students remain now often spend some of their lecture time in bomb shelters, not classrooms.
“There is a Ph.D. student from our department who has been fighting since the first days of the war,” Dobrycheva notes. “He has a dissertation ready to defend, but the war began, and he went to the front…. You can imagine—our army is made up 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 destruction—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 persist in their work.
“The war has touched every one of us,” Kompaniiets says, but “like me, they cannot imagine their lives anywhere else.” Both her husband and her 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 fraught, sometimes disrupted by power blackouts or heavy shelling. And an academic co-working space in Kyiv that she used to frequent now no longer exists after a rocket struck nearby and severely damaged the surrounding buildings.
For Kompaniiets and her peers who are still in Ukraine, astronomy has offered a strange sort of solace. “Being an astrophysicist was my childhood dream—a dream that, in this time of darkness, helps me endure and move forward. My research has become a kind of meditation for me. It calms, inspires and helps me carry on,” she says.
Nobody expects the war to end soon. Russia has only doubled down on its efforts to take the country, and international support has wavered with the shifting political winds within and between Ukraine’s allies. But hope for the future still shines like the stars. After a year of repairs and demining, in October 2023 the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory reopened and returned to taking data. Lacking a stable power grid, the staff managed to install a small solar power station to keep the GURT telescope’s heart beating.
Despite the danger, the community persists. “In 2024 the Council of Young Scientists … initiated the holding of a scientific school,” Dobrycheva explains. “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 live communication gives joy and inspires strength.”
The scientists who were forced to scatter from their offices have now found new homes and shelters. And whether in Ukraine or elsewhere, some of them are involved in crafting postwar plans to rejoin the international community.
It will not be easy. The scientific and university infrastructure repairs will cost an estimated $1.26 billion. But with that work can also come renewal—rebirth even. Now the astronomers see new emerging opportunities to build deeper ties to their European neighbors. Already the wartime diaspora has brought thousands of young scientists to receptive host institutions across the continent; the war’s end will hopefully allow them to return home, where they can capitalize on those newfound relationships.
As the war rages on, plans are emerging nonetheless for postwar modernization of Ukrainian observatories, many of which were built in 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 heritage and toward full partnership with the European Southern Observatory, Europe’s biggest and best consortium for astronomy.
“I think this war is 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 will have to rebuild Ukraine.”
As soon as they can, researchers and engineers across the country will try to take the feeble-but-enduring flicker of science and kindle 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 must preserve it during the war,” Kompaniiets says. “Science is no exception. I believe that without science, a strong country is impossible.”
