Online meeting in Sri Lanka: Free Bogdan Syrotiuk! Build an international movement against imperialist war!

30 September 2026facebook iconThe International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in Sri Lanka, the youth and student organization of the Socialist Equality Party, will hold a Zoom meeting on Tuesday, October 13, at 7:00 p.m., as part of the international campaign to secure the freedom of Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 27-year-old Trotskyist socialist imprisoned in Ukraine.

The meeting will be conducted in Sinhala and translated live into Tamil. Register for the meeting here.

Bogdan Syrotiuk is a founding member and leading figure of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL), a Trotskyist organization operating in Ukraine. On April 25, 2024, the fascistic Zelensky government had him arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on fabricated charges of “high treason under martial law.” The state claimed he was an agent of the Russian government—a libel for which, in more than two years of detention, not a shred of evidence was ever produced.

On August 10 of this year, a district court in the Nikolaev region sentenced him to 15 years in prison and ordered the confiscation of his property and the destruction of publications of the International Committee. His crime was not espionage, sabotage, or collaboration with any military force, but the act of opposing, from a proletarian internationalist standpoint, the war being waged by the NATO powers in Ukraine against Russia. The sole “evidence” against him consisted of his own writings—published on the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Within several months of his arrest, the WSWS was also banned in Ukraine.

Nearly four years into the Ukraine war, the world war is underway, developing in the manner of a metastatic process. The war in Ukraine is not, as NATO and its allied media portray it, a war for “democratic aspirations.” It is an imperialist war for the redivision of the world.

Its ultimate aims are to Balkanize Russia, breaking it up into fragments and establishing imperialist control over its natural resources, and to secure geostrategic advantages for the imperialist encirclement of China. US imperialism is the principal aggressor in this war, while NATO expansion is a central driving force behind the conflict.

In this imperialist war for the redivision of the world, the solution is not to take the side of Russia or NATO, but to unite the international working class in a struggle against their own capitalist ruling classes and overthrow the capitalist system. The working class has no side in this interstate conflict. The real enemy of workers in Ukraine, Russia and the United States is their own ruling class.

Under the political leadership of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), Bogdan Syrotiuk fought precisely for this perspective. It is for this reason that he was imprisoned.

Immediately following Syrotiuk’s arrest, the International Committee launched an international defense campaign to secure his release from prison. Following the August 10 verdict, the campaign was intensified.

A website, freebogdan.org, has been launched in defense of his freedom, and over 8,000 people around the world have already signed the online petition. Workers, students, historians and artists internationally have sent letters of protest demanding that the anti-democratic verdict handed down by the Ukrainian court be overturned.

At its Fourth National Congress, the SEP in Sri Lanka adopted a special resolution pledging to fight for the freedom of Comrade Bogdan Syrotiuk. Socialist Equality Parties and groups and IYSSE organizations in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey and numerous other countries have held public meetings in defense of Syrotiuk’s freedom. This Zoom meeting is part of that international campaign.

We call on all workers, students and young people to attend this Zoom meeting, support the defense campaign for the freedom of Bogdan Syrotiuk, and take up the struggle to build an international anti-war movement against World War III.