We’ve just learned that the office of the prosecutor and the “security service” of Ukraine have published press releases claiming to have put a stop to the activities of the “vicious Russian propagandist Yurii Sheliazhenko.”
This is, of course, very strange because Yurii, a Board Member of World BEYOND War, has — like World BEYOND War — denounced and opposed Russian warmaking from Day 1.
Yurii Sheliazhenko has been formally charged by the Ukrainian government with the crime of justifying Russian aggression. The evidence is this statement which explicitly condemns Russian aggression.
Next week, Yurii will face prosecution in Kyiv, and members of World BEYOND War will be there to deliver a petition — please sign it now! — asking that the prosecution be dropped. If you can get to Kyiv next week and support Yurii, please contact us.
This week, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military’s “Territorial Defense Forces” Sarah Ashton-Cirillo published a video that included the following words (but you really have to watch it to experience the psychotic, beyond-parody presentation):
“Next week the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash ever harder, and their rabid mouths will foam an uncontrollable frenzy as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes. And this puppet of Putin is only the first. Russia’s war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down and justice will be served.”
Since there are several people asking for this video and many discussing it on Telegram and across social media channels, here is my latest episode of Russia Hates the Truth.
The russians and their supporters are gnashing their teeth as predicted.
— Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (Ukrainian TDF Media) (@SarahAshtonLV) September 13, 2023
We have no way of knowing whether the “favorite Kremlin propagandist” is a humble peace activist who has never had anything to do with the Kremlin, and has condemned Russian warmaking over and over again as immoral, criminal, and reprehensible.
But the U.S. public recently lived through years of being told that a U.S. president who was extremely hostile to Russia was Russia’s servant. Donald Trump sold weapons to Ukraine, blocked Russian energy deals, forced NATO members to buy more weapons, continued the militarization of the border of Russia, sanctioned and expelled Russian officials, rejected numerous Russian overtures on space weapons, cyber wars, etc., bombed Russian troops in Syria, and generally escalated the new cold war. And rather than seeking to protect the planet, what did the “opposition” in the United States Congress do? They pretended that Trump was serving Russian interests because he’d been urinated on. So don’t tell me that blaming a pacifist for a military invasion is too crazy for a government run by a sitcom star and employing the young woman in the video above.
In addition, those of us who oppose both sides of wars are well aware that each side finds such a position incomprehensible and therefore the equivalent of supporting the other side. World BEYOND War receives masses of accusations of supporting each side of this war, even though we’ve created a huge online resource to explain why and how to oppose all sides of all wars.
Yurii Sheliazhenko is, in my experience, a man of the highest character. He has for years volunteered as an active board member of an organization of which I am executive director, World BEYOND War. In many collaborations and events with global participants, Yurii has always been wise, principled, honest, reliable, cheerful, humble, and fearless. Ukraine could hardly ask for a better representative.
Yurii, of course, takes a principled stand against warmaking, believing — as I do — that there are choices other than, and superior to, those of waging war or lying down and surrendering to someone else waging war. Yurii not only believes this but works diligently at explaining it to others. This may make him a poor member of a military, but it makes him an excellent member of a democracy — that thing that militaries are always claiming to be fighting for.
Self-governance is not possible without people who are willing to nonviolently and cooperatively stand by their beliefs and work to persuade or be persuaded by others through dialogue rather than violence. Particularly necessary are people who, when they believe their government to be in the wrong, work to improve it rather than turn against it — people to whom the idea would never even occur of backing some other government against their own. This is the sort of person the world is fortunate to have in Yurii Sheliazhenko.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. This originally appeared at WorldBeyondWar.org.
Zelensky and Biden are the people that hate the truth. Yurii Sheliazhenko does not deserve to be prosecuted. Zelensky has been spreading lies that Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation. I wish World Beyond War could end all wars and prevent any future wars from occurring.
As John Mearsheimer and so many others correctly conclude, the US is responsible for this war. The US backed coup of a duly elected President in 2014 put in place a puppet regime (Nuland is on record, literally naming the new PM.) That puppet regime at once began to slaughter Russian speakers in the Donbas, the first shots in this war. The US puppet regime not Russia began the war.
As much as we deplore the carnage and brutality of war, it is an abdication of responsibility for Americans whose govt initiated the conflict to “condemn both sides equally” like some latter day Puritan preacher pretending his words come from God and that he stands above it all. No. We all stand in a real place in a real world, not above it all. Americans are potentially in a place to stop the war and we should think in those terms instead of condemning Russia.
In fact, condemning “the other” helps to keep alive the narrative that Putin is evil, which helps to maintain popular support for the war.
I wish Yurii well. He is a courageous man and I hope the publicity surrounding his unjust treatment at the hands of a neo-Nazi infested, US backed govt. gets him out of jail.
“crime of justifying Russian aggression.”
Your tax dollar saving this fragile democracy.
But the U.S. public recently lived through years of being told that a U.S. president who was extremely hostile to Russia was Russia’s servant. Donald Trump sold weapons to Ukraine, blocked Russian energy deals, forced NATO members to buy more weapons, continued the militarization of the border of Russia, sanctioned and expelled Russian officials, rejected numerous Russian overtures on space weapons, cyber wars, etc., bombed Russian troops in Syria, and generally escalated the new cold war. And rather than seeking to protect the planet, what did the “opposition” in the United States Congress do? They pretended that Trump was serving Russian interests because he’d been urinated on. So don’t tell me that blaming a pacifist for a military invasion is too crazy for a government run by a sitcom star and employing the young woman in the video above.
Worth repeating.
what’s the deal Knapp, can’t even reveal that the American person who has been appointed as Ukrainian military spokesperson is a trans-gender without it being removed? is that irreverent or just irrelevant.
https://www.rt.com/russia/582983-moscow-kiev-transgender-threat/
never mind my last comment – i see that the original post here has already revealed that the person issuing the threats is an american, and a strange one at that.
Pretty funny, really. This person is either literally psychotic, or she’s a great actor.
CIA actor. Not a very good one at that. Typically CIA plants are less obvious.
Also:
Act Now To Save Russian Peace Activist From Prosecution
…has condemned Russian warmaking over and over again as immoral, criminal, and reprehensible.
His true crime is ignorance.