8 September 2023 IrmaPreversky

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

We are very sincere about defending democracy in the Ukrainian state and particularly so since the Russian invasion of February 2022. This is not easy since increasingly some people are doubting that there is democracy at all in Ukraine.

One of the acts of the Ukrainian Government being quoted as ‘anti-democratic’ was the banning of a dozen different political parties. However, surely being banned is no great problem when the due elections have been postponed indefinitely.

Some people have complained about the cancellation but after all, the country is under martial law, as Prime Minister Zelensky says, so it’s not a good time for elections.

(Martial Law is when all civil rights are suspended and the Government can make laws without parliament and jail people without trial if it needs to).

There have been some accusations about censorship and state control of media but some of those allegations are by journalists hostile to the Ukrainian regime, such as Gonzalo Lira who is in jail for posting material critical of the Ukrainian government.

And Natalie Sedletska reported on former premier Poroshenko holidaying in the Maldives with his family while our country was at war. Obviously he should not have done that but really is this the time to report on such things?

Naturally she got into trouble over that with state security, even when Zelensky took over.

So did her agency, the Ukrainian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. You’d think they’d know better, since the US State funds that radio network and everybody knows that the USA is thankfully supporting our fight against Russian occupation.

However, whilst it is true that all mass Ukrainian media is now under state control, not many Ukrainian journalists complain about censorship. And yes, it is illegal to criticise the memory of Ukrainian national heroes – unless they were communist, of course.

Stepan Banderas is a national hero of Ukraine with annual torchlit parades in his honour but he was definitely not Communist. It is true that Banderas killed many Poles and Jews but at the time he was working with German Nazi occupiers of the Ukraine during WWII against the Soviets.

One of the most frequent slanders on Ukrainian democracy is to suggest that the state is fascist, which is ridiculous. It is true that the Azov Battalion and Right Sector militias were – shall we say – extreme nationalists; but they have now been incorporated into the National armed forces.

Another propaganda attack on the Zelensky government regards recruitment for our valiant armed forces, with accusations of people being grabbed off the street – even sick and disabled people – and forced into the army. Well, not nice if true but the Russians have many more soldiers than us …

Thankfully, not many of these allegations reach the public in the West; if they did, it might lead to emotional demands to cease supplying us with weapons. We know we’re going to get a huge bill for aid at some time in the future but right now we desperately need it to keep fighting!

Of course, there are communists in the West (why are they permitted to even be there?) who spread these allegations, especially through social media, although some of the platforms like Face Book, Twitter and even Youtube do their best to block them.

It may be hard to believe, perhaps, but there are also some socialists in the West who work hard to discredit those communists, calling them “Putinistas”, supporting the social media platforms closing them down and even sometimes demanding they do so!

In fact, anyone who publicises those allegations, if not a communist, is surely some kind of fellow-traveller. Even though the Russian Federation is no longer communist.

Thank you for reading. We must all keep on working hard to continue defending democracy in Ukraine under President Zelensky.

End.