The Ukrainian government continues its campaign of domestic oppression

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As NATO’s proxy war against Russia rages in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian government is waging a campaign of domestic repression against so-called “collaborators” and “traitors” to bolster its pro- war and to eliminate any opposition likely to favor a negotiated negotiation. peace with Moscow to end the war.

Last week the Kyiv Independent reported that “a hunt for suspected collaborators is underway in the recaptured areas of the country”. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) along with national and local police, territorial defense units and the State Emergency Service are leading the hunt for the suspects.

A Ukrainian soldier stands near an apartment destroyed by Russian shelling in Borodyanka, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

According to Independent Kyiv, the SBU had already arrested 33 suspects in Kyiv on April 7, and by April 15 more than 300 suspected collaborators had been arrested.

It is unclear how the SBU is able to deduce exactly who collaborated with Russian forces other than by relying on testimony from neighbors.

Such an approach leaves the door wide open for petty grievances between neighbors to be settled and for the arrest and imprisonment – or perhaps worse – of innocent Ukrainians who are not enthusiastic supporters of a government-backed war. NATO destroying large parts of an already impoverished country. .

The report follows the revelation that Kyiv had been equipped with advanced face scanning technology by the American company Clearview AI and that such technology was already used to identify dead Russian soldiers and scan the faces of Ukrainian citizens. in order to find “traitors.

In a government-dictated hunt for potential “traitors”, misidentification is also far from impossible, as Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told Reuters.

“We’re going to see well-meaning technology backfire and harm the very people it’s meant to help,” Cahn said.

A campaign of street-level lynchings is already underway with the support of the Ukrainian Armed Forces who directly participate in or observe the attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

the Kyiv Independent also reported approvingly on the arrest of leading pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who was apprehended on April 12. He had attempted to disguise himself as a member of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and is now charged with treason.

Medvedchuk, an oligarch and friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had previously been arrested for “high treason” in May 2021 and placed under house arrest. He then fled at the start of the Russian invasion. His capture was celebrated by the kyiv government as a propaganda victory against Russia.

Western capitalist media outlets such as Newsweek flagged Medvedchuk’s capture simply as the justified arrest of a “pro-Putin ally”, deliberately masking the fact that Medvedchuk led Ukraine’s second-largest political party by parliamentary seats that had begun to vote near or were even ahead of Zelensky’s ruling servant. Popular party in pre-invasion political polls.

Moreover, no evidence has been published indicating how exactly Medvedchuk allegedly collaborated with the Russians. Nor has it been explained why he remained in kyiv days after the attack, putting his life in danger, if he really knew about the impending invasion in advance.

Medvedchuk’s opposition Platform-For Life party was banned in March by Zelensky along with 10 other opposition and leftist parties. These parties had denounced the Russian attack but also called for immediate negotiations to end the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has publicly offered Moscow to exchange Medvedchuk for captured Ukrainian soldiers. So far, Moscow has refused to publicly discuss the exchange of its supposed loyal collaborator.

Anatoly Shariy, a popular YouTube blogger who criticizes the kyiv regime and its various right-wing nationalist militias, has also been a target of Zelensky and the SBU since the start of the war. Speaking to MPN News, Shariy reported that she recently learned of an assassination attempt by the SBU after receiving an obviously staged email from a friend seeking to determine Shariy’s daily whereabouts. Although she has been living abroad since 2012, Shariy’s address and personal details have even been published on the Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) online database along with the names of supposed “enemies of the state”. Since the start of the war, Shariy has faced protests and harassment from far-right thugs outside his home in Spain.

A former supporter of Zelensky during his presidential campaign against former President Petro Poroshenko, Shariy was also accused of “treason” and saw his political party, the Shariy Party, banned by order of Zelensky in March.

What all of these persecuted political figures have in common is support for a negotiated settlement to end the disastrous NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine that has already claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people.

Meanwhile, the imperialist powers and the Zelensky government continue to offer their full support to neo-Nazi Ukrainian militias, such as the Azov Battalion, hailed as “heroes” for continuing to occupy the Azovstal factory in Mariupol despite the destruction of the entire factory. surrounding town. On Thursday, it was revealed that Ukraine’s other prominent neo-Nazi militia, the Right Sector, had been fully integrated into the Ukrainian Armed Forces as part of its special operations forces.

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