A Ukrainian court this month found Bohdan Syrotiuk, a Trotskyist, guilty of high treason and jailed him for 15 years – solely for words he wrote about the war.
This assault on free speech should be challenged, otherwise the decision could turn out to be the thin end of the wedge.
The court, in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region, south eastern Ukraine, convicted 27-year-old Syrotiuk on the basis of texts published on the World Socialist Web Site.
The judgement asserted, without foundation, that the texts supported the Russian war effort and subverted Ukrainian statehood.
The court’s conclusions are overwhelmingly political, stating that Syrotiuk’s articles “delegitimised the political leadership of Ukraine and denied the democratic processes at work in Ukraine” and, with reference to the Bandera movement, “devalued national heroes, historical national figures of Ukraine, turning them into criminals”.
While this judgement is especially severe, it is part of a broader repressive trend against which human rights advocates and others are speaking out.[1]
To clarify the dangerous nature of the judgement, I have summarised it below. Here are three points, by way of introduction.
First. The context for this judgement, and other human rights abuses, is a defensive war that Ukraine has been forced to wage by an imperialist aggressor, Russia – a war in which the deaths and injuries are counted in hundreds of thousands, and the destruction wrought overwhelmingly on Ukraine’s civilian population is incalculable.
The scale of the attacks in Ukraine on human rights, including the freedom of speech, can in no way be compared, quantitately or qualitatively, with the orgy of repression by the Russian state that has accompanied its offensive war. The Russian regime kills or jails all who make the slightest protest against the war. Russia’s tinpot dictatorships in the occupied areas of Ukraine, not far from Mykolaiv, are especially savage.[2]
In the bigger scheme of things, Syrotiuk could be seen as a victim of this war. But the war does not excuse, justify or minimise the blow against free speech struck by his conviction.
Second, calling for this conviction to be overturned does not mean endorsing Syrotiuk’s politics, his distorted view of the war’s causes, or the campism of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists, of which he is a member. (See citations from his articles below.) One does not have to accept his arguments to understand that they can not be characterised as treasonable.
Punishing these views with a prison sentence deters everyone’s freedom of speech, not just Syrotiuk’s.
Third, it is Syrotiuk’s misfortune that his case has been taken up by the WSWS, a divisive sect whose activities are often damaging to the labour movement and to internationalism.
The WSWS campaign in defence of Syrotiuk – directed more at providing their supporters with a martyr to pity than at building a case for his release – may not help him.
It began with an exaggerated denunciation of Ukraine as “fascistic”, which does indeed chime with Kremlin narratives, linked with a bizarre assertion that repression is more severe in Ukraine than in Russia.
Attention can be drawn to Syrotiuk’s case, and the implicit danger to free speech, without reference to, or involvement with, these political freeloaders.
The threat carried by the judgement is not to them, but in the first place to Ukrainian socialists, including the majority of socialists who recognise Ukraine’s war as just and, in many cases, participate actively in the war effort. For example, Maksym Shumakov, an organiser of the student union Priama Diia, currently faces the threat of prosecution under Ukraine’s “decommunisation” laws. (Details here in Ukrainian.)
But the threat goes wider than that: if unchallenged, the Pervomaisk court’s decision endangers the free speech of trade unionists, students and all in Ukrainian civil society who – even in difficult wartime conditions – insist on the right to question and challenge government decisions.
That right is central to the democracy for which so many Ukrainians believe they are fighting.
What Syrotiuk has been convicted of
The conviction is under Article 111.2 of the criminal code, high treason, defined as “an act wilfully committed by a citizen of Ukraine to the detriment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defence capability, and state, economic or information security of Ukraine: joining the enemy under martial law or armed conflict, espionage, assistance in subversive activities against Ukraine provided to a foreign state, a foreign organisation or their representatives”.[3] Paragraph 2 states that, under martial law, the sentence is 15 years to life, rather than 12-15 years as stated in paragraph 1.
The court judgement refers as proof of guilt only to articles published on the World Socialist Web Site, and Syrotiuk’s part in writing, translating, circulating them or being quoted in them.
Towards the end of the court decision, the court summarises. It says that four of the articles cited in evidence express “non-recognition of the presence in Ukraine of a legitimate and internationally recognised political leadership, based on the majority of the citizens of Ukraine”; the articles seek to “delegitimise the political leadership of Ukraine and deny the democratic processes at work in Ukraine, particularly since 2013” and “deny the existence of the state in internationally recognised borders, including retrospectively”. The articles also “deny the unilateral status of the Russian Federation as the aggressor state with respect to Ukraine” and claim this is “linked to the assertion of the absence of the Ukrainian state’s right to independent decision-making and the subordination of Ukrainian state power to foreign powers, especially the USA”. The articles “compare Ukrainian citizens with fascists and Nazis from the time of the second world war”, and they “devalue national heroes, historical national figures of Ukraine, turning them into criminals”.
The court then refers to the expertise brought before it, and concludes that the prosecution has proved its case, with the single exception of charges brought with respect to the article “The military is grabbing draft evaders everywhere”. It adds that there are no mitigating circumstances, and sentences Syrotiuk to 15 years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property.
The court decision
The court decision is published on a state repository of documents. The text describes the prosecution case, the defence case and the judges’ conclusions. It is the sole primary source of information about the hearing that I have been able to access.
Firefighters in Pervomaisk tackling damage from Russian bombing, August 2024. Photo: Ukrainian National News
The prosecution case consists mainly of citations from Bohdan Syrotiuk’s articles (see below). In addition to these, the prosecution presented to the court a letter from the Centre for Countering Disinformation of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine that it claimed proved that the WSWS was an “information agency of communist orientation” that “circulated pro-Russian narratives, connected to Russian military aggresion against Ukraine”. The Centre found seven articles written or circulated by Syrotiuk that included “fragments, statements, assertions and phrases that indicated approval of” Russian military action, and thereby harmed Ukraine’s state and information security.
Both prosecution and defence presented linguistic expert analysis of the articles, that reached broadly opposite conclusions. The court then asked the Odessa Institute of Jurisprudential Scientific Research to examine the articles. The experts there found not only “fragments, statements, assertions and phrases that indicated approval of” Russian military action, but also “non-recognition of the presence of an elected leadership in Ukraine”; “contempt and ridicule” of Ukraine’s political leadership; “the transformation of heroes and historical figures into criminals”; denial of Ukraine’s democratic processes and of the Ukrainian population’s control over government; “negative evaluation” of the Ukrainian armed forces; and denial of the existence of the Ukrainian state.
The judgement repeatedly, when referring to Syrotiuk, adds the adjectival phrase “acting to implement the directions of representatives of a foreign organisation, realising his subversive intention and preliminary criminal agreement with other members of the organisation he leads, the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists”.
The defence argument in court
The court judgement states that, at the hearing, Syrotiuk “denied his guilt of the crimes for which he is incriminated. He refused to make a statement or answer questions. When speaking in debate, he emphasised that he is a Ukrainian patriot and an opponent of the ‘Putin regime’. He said that he condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and denied any intent to betray the state. He denied having caused harm to the state and information security of Ukraine, and denied that he had given assistance to a foreign organisation in undertaking subversive activities against Ukraine. He stated that he is a socialist by conviction, and that the World Socialist Web Site, on which he had published articles, is published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, and its editorial activity is conducted not in Russia but in the USA.”
The court judgement recorded that the defence lawyer said that Syrotiuk was accused of treason, by means of giving help to a foreign organisation and its representatives in undertaking subversive activity against Ukraine. Under Article 17 of the Ukrainian criminal code, the burden of proof of the existence of such a foreign organisation, and its subversive intentions, lay on the prosecution – and there was no such proof in the case file. No evidence had been produced that a relevant structure lay behind the World Socialist Web Site; no evidence, either, of intention to undertake subversive activity. The case relied entirely on analysis of publications on the internet. The requirements of the criminal code Articles 84, 85 and 86 regarding proof had not been met; neither had the Article 62 of the Constitution, that states that criminal prosecution can not be based on presumption.
The defence lawyer (as reported in the court judgement) pointed out that, in the publications used in evidence, there were no calls to subvert national security, to liquidate Ukrainian statehood, to destroy Ukrainian identity, to undertake subversive activity, to overthrow the constitutional order or seize the state’s borders, or to seize the state’s borders by military aggression. There was no propaganda advocating war or the breaching of the foundations of Ukrainian national security in the information sphere. “The overwhelming majority of the court expert’s conclusions in the criminal case are evaluations of political, historical, ideological and other public statements, which are themselves protected by Article 10 of the Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [commonly known as the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Ukraine is a signatory].”
The articles Syrotiuk wrote
Of the articles written by Syrotiuk under pseudonyms, or quoting him, on the WSWS web site, one that summarises his view of the war is a May Day greeting he gave to an on-line meeting in 2023. He said:
This war was unleashed by US imperialism, NATO, and the Putin regime. It is an imperialist war, waged not in the interests of the proletariat of Russia, Ukraine and America but in the interests of capital in these countries. This war is the result of capitalism, a system stricken with a deadly disease. In anticipation of its impending death and bristling with weapons of mass destruction, capitalism is digging a grave for all living things, to bury them before they bury it.
Is it true that all the people of Ukraine support this war? My answer is: No! The claim that all Ukrainians support this war is a brazen lie. The main prop for this war is not the proletariat and the Ukrainian population, whose situation is appalling. The main prop for this war are the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists and those they serve.
We, the orthodox Trotskyists of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists, do not support this war, either in Ukraine or in Russia.
Yes, there are those in Ukraine who sincerely believe that American imperialism can stop this war. They believe that the weapons supplied to the regime established by the 2014 coup d’état and now represented by Zelensky can lead Ukraine to victory and end this war.
But in fact, US imperialism is fuelling this war and inciting a third world imperialist war. The fomenting of this third imperialist war involves not only America, NATO countries and the Kyiv regime represented by Zelensky but also the bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists, who serve these regimes. These forces call themselves supporters and ideological followers of the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). They have unleashed terror against the people and national and political genocide on the territory of western Ukraine. They have sowed death, fear, grief and tears on Ukrainian soil. They have poured blood into peasant huts and filled wells with corpses.
Another article referred to prominently in the court decision, “The crimes of the Banderovites”, published in April 2023, stated:
The Nazi accomplices of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its paramilitary wing, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and their leaders were involved in many crimes, including against the Ukrainian people. Yet today, to many in Ukraine, their ominous names are not synonymous with criminals, but with the names of national heroes. Streets, stadiums and cafes are named after them, and monuments are erected in their honour throughout the country.
Syrotiuk then questioned the Ukrainian “bourgeois nationalist” assertion that the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was never a legitimate state. He referred to the civil war of the late 1940s and concluded:
Today, just as then, the crimes of those who call themselves the ideological successors and followers of Bandera are almost too numerous to count. Like then, they are a bloody pack of jackals in the service of capital, running from one capitalist to another. But in changing their paymasters, they do not change their essence. There is nothing but backwardness and animal hatred in their faces and minds. Their ideas are reactionary.
Yet these very ideas of Bandera are today promoted not only by the imperialists and the bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists who want to justify the crimes of OUN-UPA, but also by those who call themselves Ukrainian national-communists, who want to justify all these horrors, by claiming that all this was caused by the policy pursued by Stalin in Western Ukraine.
In my view, these two passages summarise the key political points expressed in other ways in Syrotiuk’s other articles; these include nothing more “pro Russian” than what is cited here.[4] Readers can check the World Socialist Web Site for themselves.
Some incidental points
□ The court judgement mentions that Syrotiuk was in contact with citizens of the Russian Federation, presumably members of a Trotskyist organisation there also linked to the WSWS. The judgement also mentions once, in passing, in the prosecution’s description of Syrotiuk’s contact with the WSWS, that he received a monthly payment for his work. Friends have asked whether this might indicate that Syrotiuk was, knowingly or unknowingly, being funded by Russia. My view is that:
The investigating officers were aware that Syrotiuk was paid. It beggars belief that they did not look into the source of these funds, and that the prosecutors did not attach significance to it, if they thought these payments might have come from Russia. The court has not found Syrotiuk guilty of being in the pay of any foreign organisation. It was not mentioned in the summing-up. The court was concerned solely with words spoken, written or circulated by Syrotiuk.
Whether we like it or not (I don’t), the world is full of so-called socialist organisations in rich countries who fund or partly fund activity by their fellow thinkers outside the rich world, for motives that I view as ranging from good to terrible. It beggars belief that the Russian state would be stupid enough to fund the WSWS, or that the WSWS would be stupid enough to accept that funding. In any case, Syrotiuk would have known nothing about such arrangements. Speculation about this can only take us away from the reality: Syrotiuk has been found guilty of treason solely for his words.
□ The officers investigating Syrotiuk’s case searched a basement in a Pervomaisk apartment block that they described as “non-residential”. They found a rucksack, a cigarette lighter, some sweatshirts, a jacket, epaulettes and shoulder patches – all bearing Russian state symbols, and a gas mask.
There was no mention of these things in the court’s summary of the proceedings. There is no indication that they belonged to Syrotiuk. They appear in the court record only in a list of items – presumably judged to be irrelevant – that the court ordered to be destroyed.
Intent magazine, in one of the few English-language articles published about the hearing, described this stuff as “military equipment”, which is stretching a point. Uninformed speculation by social media users inevitably followed. But these items played no part in the court proceedings. Again, speculation about them takes us away from the reality: Syrotiuk has been found guilty of treason solely for his words.
Note. For those who don’t know me, and want to know my view of the war, I gave it e.g. in 2014 (here and here) and 2022 (here and here).
Note, 25 August 2026. This article has been corrected to clarify that the court is in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv region (not Mykolaiv city).
[1] Human rights groups in Ukraine warn of arbitrary punishment of people accused of collaboration with Russia, illegally enforced conscription, victimisation of anti-corruption campaigners and censorious application of “decommunisation” laws
[2] Reports giving overviews of political repression in Russia are published regularly by OVD-Info and Memorial: Support Political Prisoners. See also Chapter 14 of Voices Against Putin’s War
[3] The Ukrainian parliament’s web site displays the criminal code and an English translation
[4] The Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists was set up in February 2018, defining itself as fighting for “the truth about Lev Davidovich Trotsky”, against Stalinism, and “various forms of petty bourgeois nationalist and anti-Marxist politics”. Syrotiuk shifted towards Trotskyism from Stalinism. He became politically active as a teenager in 2014-15, in the youth organisation of the Communist Party of Ukraine. In May 2015 Syrotiuk, then 16 years old, in a speech at a school lesson, blamed “the USA and our home-made oligarchs” for the armed conflict that began in 2014, earning praise from the CPU – which was banned, in the same year, for supporting the armed assault on Ukraine by the Russian-backed separatists