1 year since the arrest of the Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
Exactly one year ago, the Ukrainian socialist and leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists was arrested by the Ukrainian Secret Service.
Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists•
Demand the freedom of Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist Bogdan Syrotiuk!
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On Thursday April 25, 2024, Bogdan Syrotiuk – a socialist opponent of the fascistic Zelensky regime and the NATO-instigated Ukraine-Russia war – was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU, in his hometown of Pervomaisk in southern Ukraine.
Bogdan, who is 26 years old and in poor health, is being held in a prison in Nikolaev under atrocious conditions on fraudulent charges of serving the interests of Russia. In fact, Bogdan is an intransigent opponent of the capitalist Putin regime and its invasion of Ukraine. He fights for the unity of the working class in Ukraine, Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union.
If found guilty by a kangaroo court of these charges, Bogdan is threatened with a prison sentence of 15 years to life, which is equivalent to a death sentence.
The arrest of Bogdan is the latest example of the Zelensky’s regime’s brutal repression of left-wing movements, whose opposition to the war is finding a growing response within the Ukrainian working class.
The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site have initiated a global campaign to demand the immediate release of Bogdan Syrotiuk. The fight for Bogdan’s freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
This report, delivered to the Eighth Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US), introduced a resolution to Free Bogdan Syrotiuk. It explains the political foundations of the defense campaign and the political development of Bogdan Syrotiuk and the organization he founded, the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists..
On Thursday, June 13, this letter from the Socialist Equality Party and the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site was delivered to Oksana Markarova, the Ambassador of Ukraine, in Washington, D.C.
The fraudulent charge of treason brought against Syrotiuk is aimed at intimidating and suppressing growing opposition among Ukrainian workers and youth to the imperialist-backed Zelensky regime and the escalating war against Russia.
On Thursday, April 25, Bogdan Syrotiuk—a socialist opponent of the right-wing Zelensky regime and the NATO-instigated Ukraine-Russia war—was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU, in his hometown of Pervomaisk in southern Ukraine.
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Voices of support
Free Bogdan Syrotiuk, Thank you David North for Exposing Zelensky for what he is.
Roger Waters, Pink Floyd
According to all the information available to me, the court proceedings and the conviction against Bogdan Syrotyuk are based on purely political premises. Such an approach must be firmly rejected! Bogdan Syrotyuk is an active Trotskyist. Even those who do not share his political stance should know that Leon Trotsky and his comrade-in-arms Christian Rakovsky, the first communist prime minister of Ukraine and later a victim of Stalin, both advocated a policy that amounted to an independent socialist Ukraine. At that time, the term Union of Soviet Socialist Republics meant nothing else. The persecution of Syrotyuk is harming Ukraine’s struggle for freedom today in the same way that the persecution of the Trotskyists, anarchists and Communist Party-Oppositionists during the Spanish war harmed the cause of the Spanish people.
Mario Kessler, Historian, Germany
It is clear that he has been arrested because the ruling Ukraine regime is engaged in suppressing his leftist and anti-war voice and oppressing the anti-war voices of workers and youths.Accordingly, our organisation urges Ukrainian authorities to immediately release Bogdan Syrotiuk and that they respect his democratic right to advocate for his anti-war views.
Siritunga Jayasuriya,General Secretary of the United Socialist Party, Sri Lanka
The Socialist People’s Forum in Sri Lanka strongly condemns the arrest and detention of Bogdan Syrotiuk, a leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists which is an active Trotskyist organisation in the former Soviet Union including, in Ukraine and Russia. ...Further the Socialist People’s Forum believes that the reason for his arrest is that Syrotiuk was fighting for a global perspective against Zelensky’s and Putin’s capitalist ruling regimes and the complicity of the US and NATO in the brutal war which is being carried out and is destroying tens of thousands of lives of Ukrainian and Russian people.We consider that the imprisonment of the 25-year-old Comrade Bogdan on bogus accusations is not merely an anti-democratic attack on an individual but an attack on the international working class as a whole....
Dharmasiri LankapeliPolitical Committee, Socialist People's Forum, Sri Lanka
I strongly condemn this act of the Ukraine government. I demand the Ukraine government release our comrade unconditionally. Bogdan Syrotiuk did not do or say anything wrong. What he did was fight for the sake of the international working class. He fought and is fighting for workers’ power (soviets). We have to fight against such frame ups to protect the workers from injury. This is all the more necessary, as Bogdan’s health is not in good condition. And I appeal again for the release of our comrade Bogdan Syrotiuk.
Amarjeet, Jailed Maruti Suzuki worker, India
The Permanent Revolution Collective (CoReP) supports the demand for the immediate release of comrade Bogdan Syrotiuk, who has been arrested by the Ukrainian authorities for allegedly “supporting Russian interests” and faces a prison sentence of up to 15 years if convicted. In reality, the Ukrainian government and its secret service are persecuting Syrotiuk because he calls himself a Trotskyist and cooperates with the World Socialist Website (WSWS). Even though we have big differences with the Ukraine position of this current ...we defend Bogdan against the repression of the bourgeois state of Ukraine, as we defend all proletarian class war prisoners.
Permanent Revolution Collective in Austria, Argentina, France, Spain and Turkey
Free him immediately!! Warmongers should be questioned. World leaders should sit together and argue, not promote wars. Less spending on arms and wars. Spend on education, peace, health care, social issues. Bogdan wants this as well as all ordinary working people.
Vera from Hungary
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Combat Repression strongly condemn the wrongful arrest of Bogdan Syrotiuk. According to the unanimous opinion of the Foundation’s experts, Bogdan’s case has all the signs of a politically motivated persecution. In this regard, the human rights defenders of the Foundation for Combating Repression join the petition and call on the Ukrainian authorities to immediately release the young man from custody and drop all charges against him.
Foundation to Combat Repression, Russia
We, Youth for Change, the youth organisation of the Frontline Socialist Party in Sri Lanka, condemn the above-mentioned repressive actions of the Zelensky regime and demand the immediate release of our brother Bogdan Syrotiuk, who is facing hateful false charges!Moreover, we call upon youth around the world, revolutionary and progressive youth movements, and leftist parties to unite in the establishment of a revolutionary struggle and movement against the imperialist capitalist forces that are the architects of the Ukraine-Russia war!
International Committee of the Youth for Change, Sri Lanka
The deplorable detention of Comrade Bogdan by President Zelensky’s military camarilla is a crime against the international working class. We will not rest until he is freed. We will re-energise the motto of Big Bill Haywood amongst the world’s workers & youth—An injury to one is an injury to all! Hands off Bogdan Syrotiuk! Release Comrade Bogdan at once!
Simon from UK
While we do not share the views of the World Socialist Web Site, we express solidarity with the activist group [YGBL]. Let’s remember that repression in one country feeds repression in another and vice versa.
Rabkor.Ru, Russia
Bogdan’s jailing is part of the increasing repression of opposition to the brutal Ukrainian government as they try to send more Ukrainian workers to their deaths in the war against Russia. The war must be stopped and Bogdan released.
Stephen from Australia
Articles and speeches by Bogdan Syrotiuk
This speech was delivered by Bogdan Syrotiuk on behalf of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists to the 2022 International Online May Day Rally on May 2, 2022, a few weeks after the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine and the beginning of the US-NATO war with Russia.
Based on original interviews, this article by Bogdan Syrotiuk, published under the pseudonym Stepan Geller, provides a unique and chilling account of the crimes of the Ukrainian fascists of Stepan Bandera against working people and youth of Ukraine.
These two speeches were delivered by Bogdan Syrotiuk and Andrei Ritsky, the leaders of the Young Guard of the Bolshevik Leninists in Ukraine and Russia, to the 2023 International Online May Day Rally.
This article documents the glorification of the Nazi collaborators of the Waffen SS Galicia division on Ukrainian television in the wake of the Canadian parliament’s standing ovation for the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Yaroslav Hunka.
On November 28, 2023, the long-standing American Trotskyist leader Helen Halyard passed away. In this statement, submitted on behalf of the YGBL, Bogdan Syrotiuk pays tribute to Halyard and outlines the significance of her struggle for the building of the Trotskyist movement in the former Soviet Union.
In this statement, Bogdan Syrotiuk draws a political balance sheet of the outcome of the 2014 Kiev coup that was backed by US and German imperialism and played a central role in preparing the ongoing NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.
Recent developments in the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk
A provocation that failed: On Alex Steiner’s attempt to discredit the ICFI’s defense of Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk
The WSWS rejects Alex Steiner's dishonest and evasive explanation of his decision to post false information provided by an anti-communist provocateur, aimed at disrupting the defense of Bogdan Syrotiuk.
WSWS Editorial Board•
State prosecution fails to present evidence in trial against Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
Several months into the trial, the prosecution has failed to present evidence for its charges of "high treason" that served as the basis for Syrotiuk's arrest.
Clara Weiss•
Trotskyism on trial in Ukraine
Prosecution presents its case against Bogdan Syrotiuk
Bogdan is charged not for any action committed or planned but for his Trotskyist ideas, a “thoughtcrime."
Clara Weiss•
A Ukrainian youth in Germany•
Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists•
Socialist Equality Party (UK)•
Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists•
Andrei Grozov•
Democratic rights under attack in Ukraine
Ukrainian secret service SBU arrests anti-war youth in multiple cities
The World Socialist Web Site, the organ of the International Committee of the Fourth International, demands the immediate release of the prisoners.
Clara Weiss•
An interview with anti-fascist blogger Moss Robeson
On the history of Washington’s ties to the Ukrainian Banderites and their role in the war against Russia
Moss Robeson is a young, independent researcher in New York City who has run a prominent blog “Bandera Lobby,” about the history and contemporary political role of the movement associated with the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
Clara Weiss•
"It’s no longer considered shameful to avoid military service"
Underground journalists speak on war fatigue and the slide to dictatorship in Ukraine
The World Socialist Web Site recently conducted an interview with journalists from the Kharkov-based underground journalist collective assembly.org.ua who oppose the war in Ukraine and support the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk.
Clara Weiss•
Ukrainian government bans World Socialist Web Site
On Monday, June 3, the Ukrainian government banned the World Socialist Web Site across the country, issuing an order commanding all internet service providers to block access to the WSWS indefinitely.
Eric London•
Jason Melanovski•
Maxim Goldarb•
Maxim Goldarb•
Clara Weiss•
Clara Weiss•