Madam Ambassador:
On April 25, 2024, the SBU — the state security service of the Ukrainian government — arrested Bogdan Syrotiuk, the 25-year-old leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists, a Trotskyist organization active in Russia, Ukraine and other countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.
For the past seven weeks, Comrade Syrotiuk has been held incommunicado in a prison in Mykolaiv. He has been prevented from securing adequate legal representation to oppose the mendacious allegations that have been brought against him by the government you represent. Lawyers in Kyiv and Mykolaiv with experience in fighting politically motivated prosecutions and frame-ups by the Ukrainian government withdrew their offer to represent Syrotiuk following threats of retaliation that led them to fear for their own personal safety.
The allegations against Bogdan Syrotiuk are without the slightest factual substance. The claim that he has been engaged in treason is based entirely on his public opposition to the Ukraine-Russia war, which he has expressed in articles posted on the World Socialist Web Site [wsws.org].
In a desperate attempt to criminalize Syrotiuk's exercise of his democratic right of free speech, the SBU frame-up artists claim in their charging documents that the World Socialist Web Site is "a Russian propaganda and information agency."
There is not a shred of evidence to support this outrageous allegation. The absurdity of this lie is obvious to every reader of the World Socialist Web Site, let alone to those who are familiar with the history and politics of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), which is based on the socialist internationalist principles defended by the Trotskyist movement since its founding in 1923.
In hundreds of articles posted on the World Socialist Web Site since the outbreak of the war, the ICFI has made its opposition to the military policies of both the Ukrainian and Russian governments absolutely clear. On February 24, 2022, the day of the Russian invasion, the WSWS, the voice of the International Committee, declared:
"The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site denounce the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. Despite the provocations and threats of the US and NATO powers, Russia's invasion of Ukraine must be opposed by socialists and class-conscious workers. The catastrophe that was set in motion by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 cannot be averted on the basis of Russian nationalism, a thoroughly reactionary ideology that serves the interests of the capitalist ruling class represented by Vladimir Putin."
The state police of Ukraine know very well that they cannot substantiate their charge of treason against this young and courageous socialist. They must, therefore, resort to the sort of lies used by the Stalinist regime of the Soviet Union in the era of the Terror and Moscow Trials, when it denounced its Trotskyist opponents as agents of Nazi Germany. Notwithstanding the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in Ukraine, the methods and spirit of the Stalinist police agencies live on.
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