How easy it is to forget that Ukraine was a nuclear power. And I don't mean just that it had nuclear weapons, but that it was instrumental in Russia's entry into the nuclear game. Ukrainian physicists in Ukrainian physics institutes independently came up with knowledge that was crucial to the nuclear game. In many ways, Ukraine was the seat of much of the USSR's advances in physics.
Now, they are devoting that intellectual resource to help Ukraine prosper, not the USSR.
They are a phenomenally intellectually advanced country that Canadian Universities will do well to partner with.

