We are publishing here the fourth of five resolutions adopted unanimously by the Eighth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), held September 26–29, 2026. The first is published here, the second here, and the third here. The fifth is “AI and the fight for socialism,” published here, which was previously adopted by the Ninth National Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US).

1. The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) demands the immediate and unconditional release of Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 27-year-old Ukrainian socialist and leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), who was sentenced on August 10, 2026, to 15 years in prison by a district court in Pervomaisk, in the Nikolaev region. The sentence includes the confiscation of his property and the destruction of his socialist books, leaflets and programmatic documents—methods of a fascist regime. Bogdan, whose health was poor at the time of his arrest in 2024, has been denied urgently needed medical treatment. A 15-year sentence in a Ukrainian prison is a death penalty.

2. Bogdan was convicted of “high treason.” The sole evidence consisted of six articles published on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) and his communications with the editors who published them. These writings make explicit Bogdan’s opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to the capitalist regime of Vladimir Putin, while calling for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers against the war and the system that produces it. The court has criminalised this principled socialist and internationalist position.

3. The verdict is for a thought crime. The court outlawed Bogdan’s exposure of the official rehabilitation and celebration of Nazi collaborators implicated in the mass murder of Jews and Poles. Independent forensic linguistic analyses found no evidence in Bogdan’s writings of support for Russian aggression. This ruling exposes the fraud of NATO propaganda, according to which the war is being fought in defence of “democracy.” Ukraine is a dictatorship, ruled by a president whose term expired in May 2024 and who governs by decree under permanent martial law without elections.

4. The government of Volodymyr Zelensky is carrying out this attack to silence and intimidate growing opposition to the war. Over 300,000 soldiers have been prosecuted for desertion. Sixty-six percent of Ukrainians favour a negotiated end to the war. Left-wing politics has been outlawed, opposition parties banned and the WSWS has been prohibited in Ukraine since June 2024. The Zelensky regime is intensifying repression while preparing for the direct entry of NATO powers into the war.

5. The SEP condemns the deliberate blackout of Bogdan’s case by the corporate Western media. This conspiracy of silence is a conscious act of war propaganda, aimed at suppressing any information that contradicts the official narrative of a war for democracy. In Australia, this blackout is sustained while the Albanese Labor government ranks among the largest non-NATO backers of the imperialist war against Russia.

6. The fight to free Bogdan Syrotiuk is inseparable from the broader fight to end imperialist war. The genocide in Gaza, now nearing the end of its third year, continues. The United States and Israel have launched a criminal war of aggression against Iran, the opening salvo of which included the assassination of Iran’s head of state. The US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine escalates toward direct confrontation between nuclear-armed states. And the central conflict of the epoch remains the long-planned war against China, toward which the American ruling class is accelerating its military preparations. These interconnected fronts in an emerging world war threaten a catastrophe for humanity. Ending war requires the mobilisation of the international working class against its source: the capitalist system and the nation-state framework through which it organises its violence.

7. The Socialist Equality Party is intensifying the campaign initiated in April 2024 when Bogdan was first arrested. We:

• Demand the immediate and unconditional release of Bogdan Syrotiuk and the annulment of his sentence
• Call upon the international working class, youth, students and all supporters of democratic rights to mobilise in his defence
• Encourage the widest circulation of this resolution among workers’ organisations, trade unions, student and youth groups, civil liberties organisations, political parties, journalists, artists and intellectuals
• Reaffirm that the fight for Bogdan’s freedom is a fight to build an international antiwar movement based in the working class, armed with a socialist and internationalist program, to halt the imperialist descent into barbarism.

Authorised by Cheryl Crisp for the Socialist Equality Party, Level 1/457-459 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW, 2010, Australia.