KIEV, August 3. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), at the behest of President Vladimir Zelensky, has turned into an organization for the extermination of the opposition and the freedom of speech, the Opposition Platform For Live said in a statement on Tuesday.
"At Zelensky’s behest, the SBU has embarked on a path of mass crimes <…> against all who thinks differently," the party said. "Under Zelensky, the SBU has turned into an instrument of falsification of criminal cases. Its activities today pose a real threat to Ukraine’s constitutional system."
The party sited several examples of the persecution of the opposition in Ukraine. Thus, back in 2019, the SBU began "criminal law enforcement activities" against lawmakers of the party’s faction in the parliament. Later, the First Independent television channel was blocked in the extrajudicial procedure following an SBU letter. Moreover, the criminal case against the party’s leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, is being openly falsified.
According to the party, "at the behest of the Zelensky administration" the SBU has been persecuting activists of the Patriots For Life anti-fascist movement, which "upholds a principled position geared towards preserving traditional values" and stands against glorification of Nazi criminals. "Suffice it to recall the large-scale action of the Patriots For Life anti-fascist movement at four in the morning on July 22, 2021, on the anniversary of the Nazi aggression against our country," the party said. The party recalled that in August 2020 a bus with activists of the movement was attacked on the Kiev-Kharkov highway. The bus came under gunfire and was set on fire, and those who managed to get out were beaten over. "A year after that, no one of the attackers has been punished," the opposition stressed, adding that persecution of the movement’s activists continue until now, with the movement’s coordinator Oleg Shiryayev being detained on July 5, 2021 on the basis of false testimony given under duress.
The party stressed "the inadmissibility of the falsification of evidence against political opponents" and calls for investigation of such crimes and bringing those responsible to justice.