Fascist Ukrainian court sentences Bogdan Syrotiuk, socialist opponent of war, to 15 years in prison
The sentencing of Bogdan Syrotiuk is aimed at terrorizing opposition to the NATO-backed war against Russia.
WSWS Editorial Board•
Demand the freedom of Bogdan Syrotiuk, sentenced to 15 years in prison for opposing the war in Ukraine!
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On August 10, 2026, a Ukrainian court sentenced Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 27-year-old Trotskyist and opponent of the US-NATO war against Russia, to 15 years in prison on charges of “high treason” under martial law. The court also ordered the confiscation of his property and the destruction of the program, brochures and leaflets of his organization, the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL).
On August 10, 2026, a Ukrainian court sentenced Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 27-year-old Trotskyist and opponent of the US-NATO war against Russia, to 15 years in prison on charges of “high treason” under martial law. The court also ordered the confiscation of his property and the destruction of the program, brochures and leaflets of his organization, the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL).
Bogdan committed no crime. The sole evidence presented against him consisted of six articles published on the World Socialist Web Site and his communications with the editors who published them. Writing for a socialist publication has been declared treason.
When Bogdan was arrested by the SBU on April 25, 2024, the state claimed he was an agent of the Russian government. In more than two years, no evidence of any kind was produced to support that allegation. The articles cited in the verdict themselves make explicit Bogdan’s opposition to the Russian invasion and the Putin regime. A 65-page report by Yuri Irkhin, one of Ukraine’s leading criminologists, found in Bogdan’s writings no “statements, phrases, sentences, or word combinations that have signs of propaganda aimed at supporting the armed aggression of the Russian Federation.” The court never answered it.
The verdict will be appealed. Under Ukrainian law, the appeal must be filed within 30 days. The European Court of Human Rights accepted Bogdan’s case in the spring of 2025.
Bogdan’s life is in danger. His health was poor at the time of his arrest, and he has been denied urgently needed medical treatment for over a year, despite repeated promises from the prison administration. In a penitentiary system whose overcrowding, denial of medical care and rising deaths in custody have been documented by the United Nations and the Council of Europe, a 15-year sentence is the equivalent of a death sentence.
We demand that the verdict against Bogdan Syrotiuk be overturned and that he be released immediately!
Fight for Bogdan’s freedom!
- Sign and circulate the petition demanding Bogdan’s freedom and submit a statement in his support!
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- Issue public statements of protest.
- Donate to support the campaign and Bogdan’s legal defense!!
- Share Bogdan’s case with co-workers, classmates, artists, journalists and intellectuals.
On August 10, Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 27-year-old Ukrainian socialist and opponent of the US-NATO war against Russia, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The verdict, handed down by a district court in the Nikolaev region, also orders the confiscation of his property and electronic devices and the destruction of the socialist books, leaflets and programmatic documents taken from him.
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
Leftists who claim the mantle of internationalism must speak out against the reactionary nationalism that the Russian and Ukrainian regimes are using to crack down on dissent. Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk has been imprisoned for a year now for criticizing the proxy-war in Ukraine. He must be released immediately!.
Left Voice, US
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
New expert opinion deepens debacle for prosecution of Bogdan Syrotiuk
In the case against 26-year-old Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk, a third linguistic expert opinion requested by the court further undermines the case of the prosecution, based on charges of “state treason under martial law”.
Clara Weiss•
After devastating expert report
Ukrainian state intensifies pressure on Bogdan Syrotiuk by withholding medical care
With the case of the prosecution against Bogdan Syrotiuk shattered, the Ukrainian state is deliberately withholding urgently necessary medical care.
Clara Weiss•
Expert report shatters fraudulent case against Bogdan Syrotiuk: Deepen the international campaign for his freedom!
The campaign to free Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk has reached a decisive turning point with the publication of a forensic linguistic analysis that shatters the fraudulent case against him.
Johannes Stern•
Clara Weiss•
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Democratic rights under attack in Ukraine
Ukraine blocks website of daily newspaper junge Welt
junge Welt has come into the crosshairs of the Ukrainian censors because it reported on the government’s close collaboration with fascist forces, contradicted the NATO war narrative and informed readers about repression inside the country.
Justus Leicht, Christoph Vandreier•
Ukrainian secret service SBU arrests anti-war youth in multiple cities
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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.
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"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.
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Eric London•
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Maxim Goldarb•
Maxim Goldarb•
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