Statement of the International Relations Committee of the CC of KNE :On the new criminal prosecution against Mikhail and Alexander Kononovych

The Communist Youth of Greece condemns the long-lasting political persecution, arrest and torture of Mikhail and Alexander Kononovych, cadres of the Leninist Communist League of Youth of Ukraine.

This persecution is carried out on false and fabricated charges and is unacceptable, as is the Ukrainian authorities' attempt to add new charges against them and send them to the front line of the imperialist war to be put to death.

The unacceptable Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has led to a new escalation of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism on both sides of the front. It is no coincidence that Russian President Putin in his first war communiqué attacked the Bolsheviks and Lenin. Hundreds of political prisoners are in Ukrainian and Russian prisons because of their opposition to the imperialist war or even based on fabricated accusations and arbitrary interpretations of the law. Such is the case of the Marxist sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, who has been held in Russian prisons for more than a year and a half, serving a five-year sentence.

The anti-communist delirium aims to rewrite history. The peoples of Russia and Ukraine should not forget that for more than seven decades they have lived in brotherhood, experiencing unprecedented achievements in production, living standards, freedoms and culture, building socialism on the territories of the former USSR.

We demand the immediate lifting of all prosecutions against the Kononovych brothers and their release, with the Ukrainian authorities being solely responsible for the safety of their lives.

We demand the release of Boris Kagarlitsky and all other political prisoners in the two countries.

Abolish the anti-communist legislation and all anti-democratic laws in Ukraine that prohibit communist ideology and prevent the free and unhindered expression of the real will of the Ukrainian people. We find unacceptable the attempt to label as a "terrorist manual" the emblematic work of V.I. Lenin, "State and Revolution" by a state expert in the trial (February 2025) of members of a Marxist group who have been remanded in custody.

We condemn the attempted laundering of fascist collaborators or supporters of the Nazis, such as the fascist Bandera in Ukraine and the philosopher and admirer of Hitler and Mussolini Ivan Ilyin in Russia.

80 years after the crushing of fascism by the Red Army and the liberation movements of all peoples led by the communists, we are sure that the peoples will again become protagonists in building the new society of Socialism. Where fascism will be finally defeated and where its glorifiers will be consigned to the dustbin of history.