Free Bogdan Syrotiuk!Sentenced to 15 years in prison for opposing the war in Ukraine!

Re: The conviction of Bogdan Syrotiuk, sentenced on August 10, 2026, to 15 years’ imprisonment on charges of “high treason”

We, the undersigned, petition the courts of Ukraine to overturn the verdict against Bogdan Syrotiuk and to order his immediate release.

Grounds for this petition

1. The conviction rests entirely on protected political expression. The sole evidence presented against Bogdan Syrotiuk consisted of six articles published on the World Socialist Web Site and his communications with the editors who published them. No act other than writing and publishing was alleged or proven. To convict a citizen of treason for writing for a socialist publication is to criminalize political speech itself, in violation of Article 34 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Ukraine is a signatory.
2. The central allegation of the prosecution was never substantiated. When Bogdan Syrotiuk was arrested by the SBU on April 25, 2024, the state claimed he was an agent of the Russian government. In more than two years of detention and proceedings, no evidence of any kind was produced to support that allegation.
3. The evidence cited in the verdict contradicts the charge. The articles on which the conviction rests make explicit Bogdan Syrotiuk’s opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to the Putin regime.
4. The court failed to answer the expert evidence before it. A 65-page report by Yuri Irkhin, one of Ukraine’s leading criminologists, examined Bogdan Syrotiuk’s writings and found in them no statements, phrases, sentences, or word combinations supporting any actions of the Russian military. The court did not refute, and did not even address, this report. A verdict that ignores exculpatory expert findings cannot stand.
5. The ancillary orders confirm the political character of the prosecution. In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered the confiscation of Bogdan Syrotiuk’s property and the destruction of the program, brochures and leaflets of his organization, the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists. The ordered destruction of political literature is the act of a state punishing ideas, not prosecuting crimes.
6. The conviction was handed down under conditions incompatible with a fair trial. It was issued under martial law, in a country in which elections have been suspended and every left-wing party has been banned. The European Court of Human Rights accepted Bogdan Syrotiuk’s case in the spring of 2025. The proceedings against him constitute political persecution, in violation of Articles 6, 7 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
7. The sentence places Bogdan Syrotiuk’s life in immediate danger. His health was poor at the time of his arrest. He was denied urgently needed medical treatment for more than two years. In a penitentiary system whose overcrowding, denial of medical care and rising deaths in custody have been documented by the United Nations and the Council of Europe, a 15-year sentence is the equivalent of a death sentence.

We therefore demand

1. That the verdict of the Pervomaisk City District Court of August 10, 2026, against Bogdan Syrotiuk be overturned in its entirety;
2. That Bogdan Syrotiuk be released immediately;
3. That the orders for the confiscation of his property and the destruction of the literature of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists be rescinded;
4. That he be guaranteed full and immediate access to the medical care his condition requires.

Bogdan Syrotiuk committed no crime. His conviction is a judgment against the right of every citizen of Ukraine to hold and express political convictions. We call on the Mykolaiv Court of Appeal to reverse it.