I am grateful to you and your publication for fearlessly publishing my articles, despite the fact that Western governments and most media outlets have a policy of silence regarding the real situation in Ukraine.
Most recently, you published my article about how all those who disagree with the government are now being declared “traitors to the state” in Ukraine.
Just a few weeks after the publication of this article, on October 12, 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a search in my Kiev apartment, during which personal belongings and pension savings of my parents were seized, as the punitive authorities could not find anything illegal. Then the Security Service of Ukraine and the prosecutor’s office, as if following the algorithm I mentioned in this recent article, charged me in absentia with allegedly committing information activities in favor of the aggressor and justifying aggression against Ukraine.
A submission was sent to the court for my arrest and placement in prison. At the same time, the document of suspicion itself was not handed to me in accordance with the procedure established by law and was not sent to me, which grossly violated my rights to defense.
What was the basis for the SBU and prosecutors to make such a heavy accusation? Probably, some serious evidence of guilt, evidence: operational data, unclassified data, results of interrogations of witnesses, results of phone tapping, searches and inspections? No. Maybe espionage, sabotage, coup d’etat, murder, corruption? Also no. Because it was not and could not be: being a lawyer, an advocate, I always act exclusively in the legal field. Today, evidence of guilt in Ukraine is not needed to prosecute the opposition–only posts in social networks and statements about the causes and consequences of the war in Ukraine, a different, disagreeing position with the position of the official Ukrainian authorities are enough.
So what have I talked about my articles, posts on social networks, speeches,interviews? I spoke about the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the beginning of peace talks; I wrote about the approaching nuclear catastrophe; I pointed out the beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine, primarily the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex; wrote about unthinkable corruption in war and blood; openly declared about the blossoming of neo-Nazism in the country; pointed out the beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine, primarily the oligarchy and the military-industrial complex; drew historical parallels to compare with modern circumstances. I wrote and spoke about everything that has long been understood in Ukraine, in the United States, in Europe, and everywhere in the world.
Today such expression of one’s opinion in Ukraine is a thought crime, a grave sin in the eyes of the current government, because dissent, objectivity, and truth undermine the basis of their power. This is punishable in today’s Ukraine by mandatory arrest without warrant, up to 15 years in prison, and confiscation of all property.
My politically motivated criminal prosecution is one of the indicative examples of lawlessness and systematically built repressive policy of the Zelensky regime, aimed at the complete destruction of dissent and opposition in Ukraine and the creation of a dictatorship.
Today I, in particular, and Ukraine as a whole need your informational and human support as never before, in whatever form it may be expressed:
- publication of this letter, your article on the pages of your publication;
- assistance in disseminating this information in all possible other mass media;
- appealing to human rights organizations, the government and parliament of Greece and other countries to join the campaign to defend freedom of speech and democracy in Ukraine;
- any other forms of support you deem possible.
In the current conditions, when the opposition in Ukraine is banned and persecuted, when Ukrainian opposition media are closed and the remaining ones rebroadcast only official propaganda, when the law is not in force in Ukraine and human rights are systematically and demonstratively violated by the authorities, the support and mutual assistance of decent and active people is vital.
With respect,
Maxim Goldarb,
Chairman of the party “Union of Left Forces – For New Socialism”