Looking back

Science as a way of life in wartime: the testimony of a Ukrainian scientist

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Published on 03 February 2026

"I was once asked what the impact of the war was on scientific activity in Ukraine.
The most obvious answer would be: negative. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this answer was too simple — almost wrong.

Science is not just a profession. For many of us, it's a way of life. And life, even in wartime, doesn't stop abruptly. What I want to tell here is neither an institutional report nor a statistical analysis, but a true story—that of a scientist who continues to work while her country is at war.

A place, a life, a science

My life is closely linked to the city of Zaporizhzhia, a large industrial and scientific city in southeastern Ukraine. I was born in a small military town where my father served, but Zaporizhzhia is the city of my ancestors and where my adult life began. Between Zaporizhzhia and Berdiansk lie many villages that hold the history of my maternal family.

It was in Zaporizhzhia that I studied, entered research, and where science became my life.

Since finishing my studies, I've worked at a small research institute—the same one to this day. I wish I could say "for life." Many of us hoped so. But the war scattered people to the four corners of the world. The science remained, but the community dwindled.

When did the war begin?

For many, the war began in February 2022.
For us, it began much earlier.

In 2012, our institute finally had a progressive director, convinced of the need for development, cooperation between institutes, and integration into European science. For us, it was a breath of fresh air after years of stagnation. We organized field days, conferences with researchers from other regions, and many young scientists defended their theses, published, and envisioned their future.

Then came the year 2014.

At first, the war didn't feel like a war. It felt more like politics, like demonstrations, something distant. I realized it wasn't "just that" when a very politically active colleague left abruptly for Crimea, saying he felt threatened. At the time, I didn't grasp the significance of it.

Shortly after, my former thesis supervisor—who had become much more than just a mentor to me—tried to return to Ukraine from Russia, where he was staying with his family. He crossed the border in mid-July 2014. He never arrived.

After days of calls, searches, and police refusals ("it's not your relative"), I was finally contacted: a body had been found in Melitopol. I went for identification. It was him. Officially: a stroke, the summer heat. No investigation. No answers.

This was my first personal loss related to the war — before the bombs, before the front lines.

Science continues — until it can no longer

We continued working. The crops flourished, the experiments continued, the articles were written. We even went to the seaside for a weekend to mark the end of a hybridization season. But on the roads, military vehicles were becoming more and more common. Something was changing.

At the end of 2014, another war began — an internal war.

A man presented himself as our new director: the son of the former one. No official appointment, no documents. What followed was a three-month occupation of our institute. Armed groups entered the building. Windows were smashed. The police came dozens of times—but never intervened.

We lived in the institute. We guarded the entrances. We wrote articles between shifts. A colleague finished her doctoral thesis during this time, writing chapters on her laptop, sitting in a corridor, near barricaded doors.

It wasn't heroism. It was stubbornness. We refused to abandon science or cede state lands to private interests.

In the end, we held firm. The attempted takeover failed. But the price was high. An academic sent to "resolve the situation" returned to Kyiv by train—and suffered a heart attack on the journey. He never left the hospital.

Another victim of the war, even if no one counted her as such.

Between two wars

For a few years, the situation stabilized. We submitted Horizon projects, obtained national funding, created new varieties and hybrids, established European collaborations, and participated in conferences. Then came the COVID pandemic—another crisis, another adaptation.

A young director was appointed — one of our own, having gone through all the previous trials with us. We had plans, ideas, momentum. Then came 2022.

Large-scale war

On the second day of the invasion, we all met at the institute—frightened, disoriented, but together. Zaporizhzhia was bombed. Territorial defenses were organized. Telegram became our main source of information.

Our institute hosted military units. We brought mattresses, kettles, and food. There was no heating. No guarantees. One of our researchers joined the army and is still serving there today.

The Academy sent us forms to fill out: "How did you help the army?"
We didn't write anything. Not because we hadn't done anything, but because disseminating such information during wartime is dangerous. This, too, is often misunderstood abroad.

Institutional collapse during the war

Our director's contract expired during the war. Elections were forbidden. Contracts weren't renewed. He had a family, young children, and bombings near his home. A university in another region offered him accommodation and a position. He left.

Shortly afterwards, a missile destroyed a neighboring building. Our institute lost some windows, but officially "suffered no damage".

Since then, the direction has been temporary, fragmented, and often far removed from scientific reality.

Meanwhile, we adapted to air raid alerts, power outages, drones, explosions, working in the fields under sirens, and writing reports after sleepless nights. One day, a projectile landed in an experimental field—a crater three meters in diameter. Fortunately, planting had just been completed elsewhere.

What war does to science

The damage is not only material.

Some experiments become impossible. A biotechnology colleague refused to continue a long-term project: without a stable electricity supply, maintaining cultures is futile. Seeing years of work die because of the cold and darkness is devastating for scientists.

Young people are leaving—abroad or for other professions. Specialists are going to the front lines. Managers are finding better salaries elsewhere. What remains are researchers between 50 and 70 years old, working more out of loyalty to science than out of hope.

Science continues. But it ages, becomes exhausted, and slowly disappears.

What remains

We are still sowing.
We are still measuring. We are still harvesting. We are still writing reports.

But the real question is no longer how war affects science .
The real question is: how long can science survive like this ?

And when the war ends, will there still be anyone left to rebuild it?"

LOOKING BACK - Origin of Male Sterilities and Sunflower Hybrid Varieties in France and Worldwide

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Published on 21 April 2022

by: Bernard VIVIER, INRAE – Agri-Obtentions, Clermont-Ferrand, France (retired)

"The edible oil most widely used in France before 1970 was obtained from imported groundnuts. During the 1960s, the French government decided to develop oil crops that could be produced in France, to replace these importations. INRAE was asked to undertake research programmes concerning rapeseed and sunflower. The latter species was not grown in France at this time, except for small areas in South-Eastern France, mainly for bird feed (mostly the variety Gris Strié de Provence) and in gardens during World War 2, to provide a small amount of oil. In the 1960s, the sunflower crop was most important in the USSR, mainly in southern Russia and Ukraine, using open pollinated varieties bred for their high oil contents by V. PUSTOVOIT at Krasnodar.

Discovery of Genic Male Sterility

Simone LENOBLE, who was in charge of the sunflower programme at INRAE, Clermont-Ferrand, contacted the VNIIMK at Krasnodar to obtain samples of their different varieties. Collaborations were implemented with the French Association of oil seed multipliers (USGOS/AMSOL) and the CETIOM (now Terres Inovia), the technical institute, to multiply, test and distribute this material. In 1962, the first samples were grown in the INRAE sunflower nursery, and one plant producing no pollen was observed, it was male sterile. Such plants are very rare and its observation was the equivalent of some medical discoveries.

This male sterile plant showed no particular coloration (it was described as “green”). An old French variety, “Nain Noir”, present in the 1962 sunflower nursery, showed red coloration on stems, petioles and leaf edges, due to the presence of anthocyanins (defined as “red”). Pollen from this variety was applied on the male sterile plant. The seeds obtained were sown in the greenhouse in October 1962. At emergence, all the seedlings showed the red coloration. This character was therefore considered to show dominant inheritance.

In February 1963, I joined the sunflower laboratory at INRAE, Clermont-Ferrand. With S. Lenoble, when the plants in the greenhouse flowered, we observed that they all produced pollen (they were male fertile). They were self-pollinated, by covering the heads with bags. The seed harvested was sown in spring 1963 and at flowering, the ¾ plants, which were all “red”, were all male fertile whereas the ¼ plants which were “green” were all male sterile. The two characters followed the laws of Mendel for major genes and were very closely linked genetically. This was the discovery of what is known as genic male sterility in sunflower, marked by the presence or absence of red coloration (Leclercq, 1966). However, since the male sterile character shows recessive inheritance, it was not possible to obtain a progeny with 100% male sterile plants. To permit crossing with another line to produce uniform hybrids, it was necessary to remove all the “red” plants before flowering. Lines developed from various Russian and Bulgarian varieties were used as male parents to pollinate the male sterile plants. To permit research and breeding on a larger scale, the sunflower team was enlarged with the arrival of two technicians.

Development of the First Hybrid Variety

Field trials to compare the yield and oil content of the experimental hybrids led to the registration in 1970 on the French Official Catalogue of the first sunflower hybrid in the world, INRA 6501. In the same period, a very early open pollinated variety, ISSANKA, was registered by INRAE at Montpellier.

Large scale cropping of sunflower in France started in about 1968 using the open pollinated varieties imported from the USSR by USGOS/AMSOL and recommended after study by CETIOM/Terres Inovia. Production of INRA 6501 and field trials of other hybrids were developed by collaboration between INRAE and seeds firms in areas of France with climates adapted to sunflower: Limagne, Rhone valley, western and southwestern France.

Pollination of sunflowers is mainly carried out by bees, which can collect pollen and nectar quite far from their hives. Large scale hybrid seed productions and checks of the uniformity of the seed produced made it possible to determine the distance, about one kilometre, necessary to isolate hybrid production from other sunflower crops.

Multiplication of the female parent required the seed to be sown very densely before removal of all the « red » plants in the bands designated « female », from which the seed was harvested and all the « green plants » in the bands designated « male » which produced the pollen. This required a large amount of manual labour as was also the case for the female parent in commercial hybrid production.

Discovery of Cytoplasmic Male Sterility

At the same time as the commercial development of « genic hybrids », under the direction of André CAUDERON, Patrice LECLERQ, who succeeded Simone LENOBLE (who transferred to Lusignan to work on forage crops), made some interspecific crosses in the nursey, between cultivated sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and related wild species, samples of which were provided by the American scientist C. HEISER.

From a cross between the wild species Helianthus petiolaris and H. annuus, he obtained plants with a cytoplasmic male sterility (a character determined in the cytoplasm, under maternal inheritance). Published by Leclercq (1969), this male sterility gives progenies with 100% of the plants producing no pollen, and thus largely simplifying hybrid seed production. The male parents of cytoplasmic hybrids must carry restorer genes, which were obtained from several Helianthus species (Kinman, 1970, Leclercq, 1971). The first cytoplasmic hybrid in the world, registered in France in 1973 was called RELAX to indicate the simplicity of its production.

This cytoplasmic male sterility, distributed with no limitation or patent is still used freely and almost exclusively used throughout the world and has been the basis of an enormous extension of the sunflower crop in very many countries (Vear 2010). This development was also helped by pioneer research in sunflower agronomy and mechanisation.

Conclusion

These discoveries of male sterilities in sunflower made it possible to obtain hybrid varieties showing much more uniform height and maturity dates, compared with the old open-pollinated varieties, simplifying agronomic procedures. They also made possible more rapid progress in breeding for characters such as disease resistance and oil quality which can be rapidly fixed in parental lines (Vear 2016). They were the basis of the many breeding programmes developed in Europe, North America, South America and, more recently Asia.

The sunflower crop should continue to have a good future as it requires few inputs other than seed, is quite drought resistant and produces several sorts of edible oil much appreciated by consumers."

Bernard Vivier in an advertisement for an INRAE variety in about 1978

References

Kinman ML. 1970. Letter to Participants. Proc 4th Int Sunflower Conf, Memphis, TN, USA, June 23–25, 1970

Leclercq P. 1966. Une stérilité male utilisable pour la production d’hybrides simples de tournesol. Ann. Amélior.Pl. 16 :135-144.

Leclercq P. 1969. Une stérilité mâle cytoplasmique chez le tournesol. Ann. Amelior.Pl. 19: 99–106.

Leclercq P. 1971. La stérilité mâle cytoplasmique du tournesol 1. Premières études sur la restauration de la fertilité. Ann Amélior Pl. 21: 45–54.

Vear F. 2010. Classic Genetics and Breeding. In “Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Sunflower” ed. Kole C. Science Publishers Inc. Jersey, N.H, USA. : 51-77.

Vear F. 2016. Changes in sunflower breeding over the last fifty years. OCL 2016, 23(2) D202.