When Ukrainian forces recaptured the site of the Brud Radio Astronomy Observatory in September 2022 after forcing Russian forces to retreat, they found the facility still standing – but barely. Collapsed roofs, charred walls and empty cabinets all laid waste to the once-proud observatory. Traces of occupation were everywhere; Russian troops had turned a portion of the site’s partially constructed Giant Ukrainian Radio Telescope (GURT) into a makeshift kitchen and dumped trash among the high-precision electronics.
The destruction seemed especially cruel, given that the observatory was built about 75 kilometers from the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv as a monument to the country’s astronomical research, dedicated to the peaceful exploration of the universe using one of the world’s largest radio telescopes. Now it was another casualty of the ongoing conflict, another entry in the growing list of things to repair and rebuild.
More than four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, war has taken everything to an end. “I dreamed of becoming a scientist and one day returning to my village – visiting schools, talking to children about how incredible and mysterious the universe is,” says Olena Kompaniets, 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 no place to return to.”
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“I am happy to be Ukrainian and to support Ukraine in its terrible times,” says Daria Dobricheva, cosmologist at the Main Astronomical Observatory. “I am proud of my country, which is fighting against one of the greatest armies in the world. It is a matter of great sadness that the blood of our country’s best sons and daughters is being shed for our freedom.”
Before the war, Ukraine was a serious player in international astronomy and space science. The nation has hosted its fair share of science heroes, such as Klim Churyumov, who co-discovered a comet spotted by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, or Nikolai Barbashov, who co-authored the paper reporting the first image of the far side of the Moon in 1961. And of course, there was also Ukrainian rocket engineer and founder of the Soviet Union’s space program Sergei Korolev.
The country was once full of observatories and radio telescope arrays. Perhaps the greatest astronomical prize was the Ukrainian T-shaped radio telescope, second modification (UTR-2), completed in 1972 at the Bradt Radio Astronomy Observatory. UTR-2 is the world’s largest ultra-low-frequency radio telescope, consisting of more than 2,000 individual antenna elements, covering a total collecting area of more than 150,000 square meters. Built alongside UTR-2, GURT was designed as a more modern facility intended to increase the primacy of its larger companion.
Rather, this was the plan before the invading Russian forces seized the Brood Radio Astronomy Observatory for use as a temporary base, destroyed most of UTR-2’s scientific instruments, and used GURT’s parabolic reflectors as a mess hall. The ruins left behind after Ukrainian forces regained control were shocking but typical of modern warfare: all but one of the 17 buildings originally on the site were extensively damaged. Practically everything of value, from computers to cabling, was looted. Even the special copper cooling systems were removed from the devices, presumably to be sold as scrap metal. Mines and munitions were scattered around the field, making many areas no-go zones until properly cleared.
Of course, the war’s astronomical devastation was not limited to the Brood. In June 2025, the central building of the main astronomical observatory located in downtown Kyiv was damaged by an explosion nearby. Some research and training centers, such as those belonging to the Astronomical Observatory of Odessa National University, have been effectively abandoned due to their proximity to active war zones. The overall result is the mass destruction of Ukrainian astronomy. Raw data collected a recent report The study, co-written by more than a dozen Ukrainian astronomers, including Kompaniets, paints a grim picture:
A total of 1,443 buildings of 177 institutions were damaged.
Public research and development budget: halved.
Over 10,000 researchers and professors displaced.
The total number of research staff still present in Ukraine is less than half of the pre-war level. And more than 1,500 Ukrainian researchers live temporarily in other countries as members of the wartime diaspora.
Debris lies in front of a phased array antenna at the Brood Radio Astronomy Observatory in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine on November 16, 2023. The facility, which contains one of the world’s largest radio telescopes, was extensively damaged by occupying Russian forces before being reclaimed by Ukraine in September 2022.
Oleksandr Stavitsky/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 advance the institutional knowledge that has sustained astronomy for millennia. The number of early career scientists has declined by more than 40 percent from pre-war levels; Most of the youth have either fled the country or joined the war effort. Now the few students left often spend part of their lecture time not in classrooms, but in bomb shelters.
“There is a PhD student in our department who has been fighting since the first days of the war,” says Dobricheva. “He has a dissertation ready to defend, but the war started, and he went to the front… You can imagine – our army is made up of people from all over Ukraine…, where you can see graduate students, bakers, hairdressers, lawyers, judges and teachers.”
But the flame of Ukrainian space science has not 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 remained in the country and continued in their work.
“The war has affected every one of us,” says Kompanyets, “but like me, they cannot imagine their lives anywhere else.” Her husband and her father both serve in the military, and she and her friends run a volunteer organization that assembles tactical first aid kits for frontline soldiers. His peaceful nights studying distant galaxies with a telescope have now become more frightening, sometimes interrupted by power cuts or heavy gunfire. And an academic co-working space in Kiev, where she frequented, no longer exists because a rocket landed nearby and severely damaged nearby buildings.
For Kompaniets and his comrades still in Ukraine, astronomy has provided a strange kind of solace. She says, “Becoming an astrophysicist was my childhood dream – a dream that helps me endure and move forward in these times of darkness. My research has become a kind of meditation for me. It calms, inspires, and helps me move forward.”
No one expects the war to end soon. Russia has redoubled its efforts to annex the country, and international support has wavered due to 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 excavations, the Brood Radio Astronomy Observatory reopened in October 2023 and returned to taking data. Due to the lack of a stable power grid, staff managed to install a small solar power station to keep the GURT telescope’s heartbeat.
Despite the danger, the community persists. “The Council of Young Scientists in 2024 … took the initiative to open a scientific school,” explains Dobricheva. “For me, this is a special reason for pride: even during the war, we managed to involve small businesses in support of science… The school was not conducted online; everyone was present at the event. This live communication gives joy and inspires strength.”
Scientists who were forced to flee their offices have now found new homes and shelters. And whether in Ukraine or elsewhere, some of them are involved in formulating post-war plans to rejoin the international community.
It won’t be easy. Repairs to the scientific and university infrastructure will cost an estimated $1.26 billion. But with that work can also come renewal—even rebirth. Now astronomers are seeing new emerging opportunities for deeper connections with their European neighbors. Already wartime emigration had brought thousands of young scientists to receptive host institutions across the continent; Hopefully the end of the war would allow them to return home, where they could take advantage of those new relationships.
As the war progressed, plans emerged for the postwar modernization of Ukrainian observatories, many of which were built in the Soviet era. There are already discussions underway on a “progressive recovery plan” to be presented in European Astronomical Society 2026 Conference. The effort aims to move Ukraine away from its Soviet-era technological legacy and toward full partnership with the European Southern Observatory, Europe’s largest and best consortium for astronomy.
“I think this war will last for many years,” Dobricheva concluded. “And what I can say for sure is that if I lived and saw our victory, I would definitely drink a glass of wine, smoke a cigarette and cry – and then start working even harder. It’s hard now, but later it will be even harder because we have to rebuild Ukraine.”
As soon as possible, researchers and engineers across the country will try to take the faint-but-enduring flicker of science and make it even brighter. “At the moment our state is focused on defense and survival. But in order to do something to rebuild after the war, we have to preserve it during the war,” says Kompanies. “Science is no exception. I believe that a strong country is impossible without science.”
