The following statement is issued on behalf of the entire Keough School of Global Affairs community:
The academic community of the Keough School of Global Affairs condemns Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. The invasion is criminal; it violates international law as well as those moral standards that shape the possibility of peace. The political order of Europe and, indeed, of the world, is at stake.
The Keough School’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies has a long term partnership with the Catholic University of Ukraine (UCU) and its president, Archbishop Borys Gudziak, who received the Notre Dame Award from University president Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C, in Lviv in 2019. The vice rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Taras Dobko, is a visiting scholar at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies this semester.
We have many friends in Ukraine with whom we interact in academic contexts, but also, more importantly, on a human level.
The testimony of faith of the community of the Ukrainian Catholic University is inspiring and humbling.
We express our prayerful solidarity with the Ukrainian people and with all people around the world who do not support this invasion. We are committed to work with our partners in Ukraine to provide the support that we can give them.
We express our hope that peaceful and diplomatic tools will be used, also from the US side and NATO, in collaboration with the UN General Assembly, to bring this war to an end. This is not a local conflict; this is a global affair.
Scott Appleby
Marilyn Keough Dean
Keough School of Global Affairs
University of Notre Dame