18/03/2022
OFFICIAL OPEN LETTER
Dear Mr. Andreas Demetriades, the EANS President,
Dear EANS Board Members!
The Russian Federation has been continuing the war in Ukraine for more than 3 weeks.
Regular Russian troops treacherously attacked Ukraine, a sovereign, independent, united, and free country. The Russian military have been dispassionately killing civilians, women, elder people, and children, destroying their homes, schools, and hospitals. More than 120 children were killed. Every day, peaceful cities suffer shelling and bombing with different types of bombs and missiles.
You cannot just watch the genocide of Ukrainians as a spectator. You are the elite of medical science.
The UN Security Council's resolution recognized Russia as an aggressor country and ordered Russian troops to immediately leave Ukraine. No Russian scientists, including neurosurgeons, has criminated the unleashed war or advocated peace and cessation of hostilities. The Doctor is the one who must save every human life! The world has turned its back on Putin and imperialism, not on the Russians. However, the silence of the Russian people is beyond our understanding!
It is also painful for us to realize that Serbia as a state and the Serbians support Putin’s dictatorial and bloody regime and the war against Ukraine.
Dear President and Members of the Board!
We ask and urgently demand that you obligate the Russian (President, Aleksandr N. Konovalov, akonovalov@nsi.ru) and the Serbian (President, Lucas Rasulic, lukas.rasulic@snss.org.rs) Associations of Neurosurgeons to publicly criminate the Russian Federation’s military actions in the territory of the independent state of Ukraine.
Otherwise, we:
1. Demand to exclude the Russian Association of Neurosurgeons from the collective members of EANS (National Member Societies) until the last Russian soldier leaves Ukraine. We will not object to the individual membership of Russian neurosurgeons in EANS. National Olympic Committee is a good example.
2. Demand a moratorium on this year’s EANS convention in Belgrade, Serbia, on October 16-20. This congress could be held online, as was the case last year in Hamburg. Or the venue could be any city liberated from the Russian N**i invaders, such as Mariupol, Kherson, Sumy, Kharkov, or Kyiv.
3. Ukrainian neurosurgeons, both EANS members and non-EANS members, will boycott participation in the congress in Belgrade this year.
Remember! Silent support of the Russian and Serbian neurosurgeons who approve the policies of the governments of their countries is in fact the support of the criminal war crime – the genocide of the Ukrainian people in the center of Europe in the 21st century.
We appreciate all your efforts and aspirations for the development of neurosurgery in Europe.
But at the same time, we ask you to show human qualities and clear civic position, support the fundamental principles of democracy, and the entire Ukrainian people in such a difficult time.
With deep respect and gratitude, Individual member of EANS,
Andrii Sirko, President of the Ukrainian Neurosurgical Association (https://una.org.ua/),
Honored Doctor of Ukraine, Professor
Dnipro, Ukraine, March 18, 2022
P.S. Information about the presidents of the Association is taken from the official EANS website https://www.eans.org/page/societies
