By New Worker newspaper

Photo credit: Karl Weiss.

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other anti-fascist campaigners outside the Ukrainian embassy this week protesting at the continued detention of two communist activists who are now being press-ganged into the Ukrainian army.

International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), which called the picket, has long campaigned in defence of Mikhail Kononovich and his brother Alexander, leading activists of the Leninist Communist Youth of Ukraine, the youth wing of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

The Kononovich brothers were arrested on 2nd March 2022 on trumped-up charges of being “propagandists” aiming to “destabilise” the internal situation in Ukraine.

They were then subjected to months of beatings, torture, abuse and sleep deprivation in solitary confinement in the dungeons of the secret police. International pressure eventually forced the Kiev regime to release them. They have only appeared in court for initial processing. They have never had the opportunity of a full trial for the political charges against them. Now the brothers are back in jail.

On 22nd May Mikhail and Alexander were detained by the police while on their way to a hospital. They were then taken to a military recruitment centre for allegedly evading military service. Then they called their lawyer, he too was arrested and taken to another military recruitment centre.

The brothers have issued theis statement: “Comrades, we officially declare: Zelensky’s regime wants to kill us! They want to send us to the front and then nothing needs to be proven, whether we are guilty or not, no one will care. They will kill us, no problem!”

“The regime will now decide how to deliver us to the Volyn region, where we are registered and are on military registration. This is what is happening, comrades! They will not leave us alone, they have planned our murder.”