Ukraine: Communists arrested for refusing military service

The Konovich brothers in custody in 2023

Junge Welt, 23 May 2025. Translated by Helmut-Harry Loewen.

The brothers Mikhail and Alexander Kononovich were arrested in Kiev on Thursday. This was reported by the left-wing Ukrainian website Antifashist.com. According to the website, the two well-known Ukrainian communists were on their way to a hospital when a police car with flashing blue lights pulled up next to them. The officers claimed that they were wanted for draft evasion and forcibly took them to a recruitment centre.

The Kononovichs tried to contact their lawyer, but found that he had also been detained and taken to another Kiev recruitment office, according to Antifashist.com. In a video post on social media after their return from the recruitment centre, the Kononovichs declared: “The Zelensky regime wants us dead! They want to send us to the front. Then no one will have to prove whether we are guilty or not. Nobody will care. They will kill us, without witnesses, no problem.”

The brothers were arrested by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) in March 2022. They were charged under Article 109 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code with committing “acts aimed at seizing state power” and distribution of “materials calling for the violent overthrow of the government.” Both deny the accusations. The proceedings against them began in April, but a hearing scheduled for May 15 was postponed until June 12. Following protests by left-wing parties in front of Ukrainian embassies across Europe, they were transferred from prison to house arrest in April, which is monitored by GPS transmitter, as the Ukrainian website states.

The two brothers are members of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Ukraine (AKFU), which was close to the country's banned communist party. Mikhail Kononovich was also general secretary of the youth association of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU), or Komsomol for short. The KPU and Komsomol were banned in 2015 and finally broken up by the Kiev government in 2022 due to their stance on the war in Ukraine.

Photo: Protest at the Ukrainian Embassy in Athens, Greece, 11 March 2025

Original German article: Ukraine: Kommunisten wegen Wehrdienstverweigerung festgenommen. Junge Welt, Berlin, 23.05.2025