The Marx South Asia

On August 10, 2026, the Pervomaisk District Court in Ukraine sentenced Bogdan Syrotiuk, a member of the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), to 15 years in prison. The Marx International rejects this sentence and demands his immediate release. We do not grant any bourgeois state the right to imprison people for their political positions. Bogdan Syrotiuk was convicted after a legal process that has lasted more than two years, a terrible situation for him, his family, and friends. Despite the counter-revolutionary political positions espoused by the WSWS, Bogdan Syrotiuk must be released to strengthen Ukraine's national liberation struggle. His imprisonment restricts the democratic rights of the Ukrainian people, and we therefore demand his freedom, even though we do not share any of the counter-revolutionary political positions of Bogdan Syrotiuk and the WSWS.

An unjust arrest

The arrest of Bogdan Syrotiuk is unjust because he is exercising his right to freedom of expression. It is the political positions of the WSWS group that expose Bogdan Syrotiuk to persecution by the Ukrainian state, since WSWS repeats the same slogans used by Putin to justify the invasion of Ukraine. For WSWS, there is no war of national liberation in Ukraine; for them, what exists is a war of "NATO against Russia," which is the same thing Putin says. Furthermore, WSWS claims that Ukraine has a "Nazi" government , which is utter nonsense completely divorced from reality, but it is the same slogan used by Putin's invading dictatorship. WSWS does not defend the fact that Donbas belongs to Ukraine, but rather defends the artificial republics created by Putin in Donbas to justify the occupation. It is a group that acts as a satellite and propagandist for Putin and is paying the price for its counter-revolutionary policies.

Putin claims he is the victim of "NATO aggression" and that his invasion of Ukraine is to "denazify Ukraine." No one in their right mind believes these claims. Millions around the world support the Ukrainian people, who have been fighting for their national liberation for years and are being invaded, suffering a horrific occupation and systematic bombing of their cities, enduring the massacre of thousands of innocent civilians, families, the elderly, and children. If there is any "Nazi" element in the war between Ukraine and Russia, it is precisely Putin's regime, a dictatorship of the Russian ruling class oligarchy that commits all kinds of atrocities against oppressed nationalities like Chechnya and Georgia, and has committed genocide in Syria and Ukraine.

When WSWS claims that the Ukrainian regime is "Nazi ," it is echoing Putin's rhetoric and becoming a propaganda group for the occupying regime. Making such a preposterous claim, which no one believes except perhaps a group of die-hard Stalinists, is irrelevant in any country because WSWS is a fringe group. However, making this claim within Ukraine at the very moment the country is being invaded and bombed exposes an activist to persecution because their positions are seen as justifying the invasion and aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, we repudiate the positions of WSWS, which, in addition to facilitating the invasion, have exposed Bogdan Syrotiuk to arrest.

We stand for a military victory for Ukraine.

The leaders of the WSWS are getting a taste of their own medicine. Like 99% of the population, the WSWS subscribes to the "Decoupling Theory," which posits that the global situation boils down to a third world war between China and the US for global hegemony. The WSWS bought into this theory, created by Wall Street, and defends it to the point of making a fool of itself by constantly announcing the imminence of a third world war—a typical announcement from the Pablo Iglesias regime—which ultimately never materializes. They have so thoroughly embraced this theory that their publications constantly develop fantasies about a "confrontation between Putin and NATO," which reality then emphatically refutes when Donald Trump publicly supports Putin at summits, and even the CIA secretly travels to Moscow to meet with Putin at the worst possible moment for this war criminal.

By denying the existence of a war of national liberation, WSWS leads its militants toward counterrevolutionary positions that left Bogdan Syrotiuk with one foot in prison. This demonstrates the disaster to which WSWS's outlandish characterizations lead and how brutally they clash with reality. It is also true that the Ukrainian state is waging a war of national liberation at a very high cost in lives and injuries, which puts it in a position to claim the right to imprison Putin's propagandists, regardless of their background. But despite the counterrevolutionary positions that Bogdan Syrotiuk defends, we consider his detention unjust because he is a militant who defends erroneous positions.

The Marx International does not grant the Ukrainian justice system the right to imprison Bogdan Syrotiuk, and we demand his release. The Zelensky government is an anti-worker bourgeois government and the main enemy of the Ukrainian national liberation struggle. Its policy of calling the imperialist governments of the United States and Europe "allies" and placing its trust in them is an attempt to deceive the people and divert the Ukrainian revolution toward supporting capitalism. However, the Ukrainian people have already begun to mobilize against the Zelensky government and have forced the resignation of the military leadership in favor of the Ukrainian partisans, who have revolutionized modern military science with the development of drones. These developments by the families and partisans are effectively freeing Ukraine from its dependence on NATO arms supplies, which never provided Ukraine with the necessary weaponry for its defense and always prohibited it from using the aid received on Russian territory.

NATO's arms management policy left Ukraine defenseless, unable to anticipate attacks by the occupiers, resulting in thousands of Ukrainian deaths and an unnecessary prolongation of the war. Now, with Ukrainian drones striking Moscow and St. Petersburg, we are witnessing a triumph of the mass movement, a triumph of the world revolution, and a defeat for Putin and the imperialism that supports him. Bogdan Syrotiuk must reflect on the counter-revolutionary positions of the WSWS leadership and break with them. At the same time, the Marx International and Marx South Asia reaffirm our unconditional support for the Ukrainian people's War of National Liberation and dedicate all our efforts to achieving Putin's defeat, until Ukraine achieves its definitive national independence.