The sentencing of Bogdan Syrotiuk and the fraud of the “war for democracy” in Ukraine

The savage treatment of Bogdan and the kangaroo-court character of the proceedings explode the official narrative that has dominated the governments and media of the United States and Europe: that Ukraine is an embattled democracy, fighting to defend freedom against an unprovoked invasion. The prosecution of Bogdan exemplifies the real state of affairs in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian state has outlawed left-wing politics and suppressed all independent political and trade union activity. In March 2022, the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suspended 11 opposition parties and merged the major national television channels’ news into a single state-run broadcast. That June, the courts banned the largest opposition party in parliament. Strikes are prohibited under martial law, and wartime labor legislation has suspended collective agreements and stripped basic protections from the majority of the workforce. Elections have been suspended since Zelensky’s own term expired on May 20, 2024. He rules by decree.

All of this is systematically suppressed in the American and European media. In the interests of promoting the war, a fascistic government is palmed off as a paragon of democracy. Predictably, the sentencing of Bogdan Syrotiuk has not been reported in a single capitalist publication.

On the very day of the sentencing, however, the New York Times—among the most ferociously pro-war publications—carried an extensive report on the suppression of antiwar opposition in Russia. Russia’s Supreme Court, in a hearing convened one working day after the suit was filed, struck the liberal bourgeois party Yabloko from the ballot for the September parliamentary elections, ruling on a lawsuit—nominally over copyright infringement—brought by the nationalist party Rodina. The report ran under the headline “Russian Court Bars Country’s Only Antiwar Party From Running for Parliament.”

The ruling, the Times wrote, was “the latest sign that the Kremlin will not tolerate any political forces that question its determination to continue fighting in Ukraine.” It noted that Yabloko’s deputy chairman, Maxim Kruglov, was sentenced in June to seven years in prison for a 2022 social media post about Russian atrocities outside Kiev, and that statements condemning the invasion “have landed hundreds of Russians in prison on criminal charges linked to war censorship laws.”

The Russian government is, without question, authoritarian, and the barring of Yabloko is an attack on democratic rights. But the repression the Times denounces in Russia does not remotely compare to that in Ukraine, about which it is silent. In Russia, a liberal party has been struck from the ballot; in Ukraine, every left-wing party has been banned outright—and there is no ballot at all, because elections themselves have been abolished.

In response to the article and the media’s silence on Bogdan’s case, David North, chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board, wrote on Tuesday to Philip Pan, the Times’ international editor, urging the newspaper to cover the case:

"Ms. Vasilyeva’s article treats the exclusion of Yabloko from an election as significant evidence of the Russian government’s suppression of antiwar opposition. It also reports that Yabloko deputy chairman Maxim Kruglov was sentenced in June to seven years in prison over a 2022 social media post criticizing Russian war crimes.

"Yet, as of this writing, I have seen no report in the Times that a Ukrainian socialist who opposes the war has now received a 15-year prison sentence—more than twice the sentence imposed on Kruglov.

"There can be no credible basis for presenting Bogdan’s socialist opposition to the war as support for Vladimir Putin. The World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International denounced the Russian invasion immediately after it began. On February 24, 2022, we stated explicitly that 'Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be opposed by socialists and class-conscious workers.'

"… The issue I am raising with the Times does not depend upon agreement with our political analysis of the war. It concerns the consistent application of the principles of democratic rights and freedom of political expression. … If the suppression of antiwar political activity in Russia warrants extensive reporting—and it certainly does—then the sentencing of a Ukrainian socialist to 15 years in prison for activities that include publishing antiwar articles warrants no less serious scrutiny."