Funny how the people who won’t shut up about democracy always seem to have a blind spot the exact size and shape of a paycheck.
On August 10, a court in the Nikolaev region of Ukraine sentenced a 27-year-old named Bogdan Syrotiuk to 15 years in prison. His crime? He wrote six articles. Six. Published on the World Socialist Web Site. The court called it “high treason under martial law” and ordered the confiscation of his property, his electronic devices, and the destruction of his organization’s books, leaflets, and programmatic documents. They are literally burning his papers and billing him 178,000 hryvnia for the forensic exams they used to convict him. Ask yourself what kind of government needs to incinerate pamphlets to prove it’s a democracy.
The SBU grabbed Bogdan off the street in Pervomaisk on April 25, 2024. The state claimed he was a Russian agent. Two years later, they produced zero evidence of espionage, sabotage, or collaboration with any military force. Ukraine’s own criminologist, Yuri Irkhin, wrote a 65-page report finding nothing in Bogdan’s writings that constituted propaganda for Russian aggression. The court’s response was to order a new examination from a state institute, which still couldn’t find calls to overthrow the government or alter Ukraine’s borders. They convicted him anyway. The verdict even names “David North,” chairman of the WSWS editorial board, as the man who gave Bogdan his “instructions.” Writing for an international socialist publication is now a criminal conspiracy.
http://www.president.gov.ua/ (CC BY 4.0) via Wikimedia CommonsAnd what were these treasonous articles? One exposed the crimes of Stepan Bandera and the OUN, Nazi collaborators who helped Hitler invade the Soviet Union and participated in the mass murder of Jews and Poles. Another was a May Day speech calling for unity between Russian and Ukrainian workers. The court listed his offenses as “non-recognition of Ukraine’s legitimately elected political leadership” and “negative assessments of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.” That “legitimately elected leadership” is Volodymyr Zelensky, whose term expired in May 2024. He’s been ruling by decree for over two years. Elections canceled. Opposition parties banned. Communist symbols outlawed since 2015. The WSWS itself has been blocked in Ukraine since June 2024.
Here’s what should make your blood boil. Your government has shoveled well over $100 billion into this regime. Every talking head on television tells you this war is about defending freedom. The same Congress that holds hearings about disinformation can’t be bothered to mention a man locked in a cell for the crime of having opinions. The UN Human Rights Office documented 20,000 criminal cases under Ukraine’s treason and collaboration statutes, including people prosecuted for picking up garbage in occupied territory. Human Rights Watch called the laws “overly broad and vague.” Gallup found 69 percent of Ukrainians want a negotiated end to the war. Over 300,000 criminal cases have been opened against Ukrainian soldiers for desertion or going AWOL.
None of this makes the evening news. Ask yourself who benefits from that silence.
Ben Sale from UK (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia CommonsThe European Court of Human Rights accepted Bogdan’s case in spring 2025. His appeal will be filed within 30 days. His health is failing. He’s been denied medical treatment for over a year. In Ukraine’s prison system, where the UN has documented overcrowding, starvation rations, and deaths in custody, 15 years is a death sentence delivered in polite language.
The establishment wants you to believe this is complicated. It isn’t. A man wrote articles his government didn’t like. His government put him in a cage. Your government paid for the cage. And the people who tell you they care about human rights looked the other way because the money pipeline can’t be disturbed.
Every politician who waves a Ukrainian flag on the Capitol steps owes you an explanation for this. They won’t give you one. They never do.