January 12 – Ukrainian Political Prisoner Day: Names of Russian Regimes may Change but not Their Methods

Today, January 12, is recognized as Ukrainian Political Prisoner Day in memory of Ukrainian human, national and religious rights activists, the so-called dissidents of a previous generation, who demanded their universal right to be Ukrainian in a captive nation and fought for the independence of Ukraine from Moscow.

The Day was established by the late dissident and later Ukrainian presidential candidate Vyacheslav Chornovil in 1975 to protest Soviet Russian repression, particularly the mass arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals in January 1972. Originally it was marked in the camps and prisons but ultimately it made its way out into the free world. It was regularly commemorated by the Ukrainian diaspora around the world. In the United States it was the subject of numerous congressional resolutions, mobilized by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA).

On the day that marked the beginning of the second wave of arrests in 1972, political prisoners issued political statements of protest against repression, human rights violations and the brutality of the regime, and announced hunger strikes. The camp administration fabricated pretexts for punishing those who took part in such hunger strikes. Since 1983 the refusal to eat was treated as an infringement of the regime for which you could be punished. As a sign of solidarity Ukrainians were supported by political prisoners from other national groups.

The late Russian dissident and political prisoner Lyudmila Alexeyeva had observed that when the nascent dissident movement was growing in Russia, the Ukrainian movement was already a fully developed, dynamic political machine dedicated to freedom, human and religious rights, and Ukrainian independence.

Even in independence, the commemoration remains relevant today, remembering Soviet-era victims like Valentyn Moroz, Yuriy Shyukhevych, Vasyl Stus, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Lev Lukianenko, Ivan Kandyba, Vasyl Stus, Vasyl Symonenko, Valentyn Moroz, Leonid Pliushch, Zinovii Antoniuk, Ivan Dziuba, Mykola Rudenko, Mykhailo Osadchyi, Ivan Hel, Stefania Shabatura, Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Ihor Kalynets and hundreds of others including Crimean Tatars. Today, contemporary prisoners in occupied territories are also honored.

The Honor Roll of Ukrainian Political Prisoners includes not only those who fought for Ukrainian independence in the hallowed halls of academia and on the streets in post-World War Two Ukraine but also those who began the battle during the war and ended up in Russian concentration camps.

Many succumbed to Russian torture in prison, others died in exile, while others waged the fight until 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence.

Ukrainian political prisoners also commemorated the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in defiance to Soviet Russian authorities.

Today’s Russian regime continues to follow Soviet methods of dealing with dissidents in and out of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, a real terror campaign unfolded against Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia. Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Russians have continued to persecute Ukrainians in the occupied territories, committing war crimes and violating human rights and freedoms.

Kyrylo Budanov,  head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, addressed Ukrainians everywhere on the occasion of Ukrainian Political Prisoners Day, celebrated on January 12. He paid tribute to all those who were imprisoned for their love of Ukraine, for the right to think and speak freely – some died in captivity during the tsarist, Soviet, and modern Russian regimes.

As Budanov noted, repression was an instrument of suppressing freedom for the Kremlin and for keeping the prison of nations intact since the imprisonment of Taras Shevchenko by the Russian Empire to Soviet camps for the Ukrainian intelligentsia. A similar practice continues in the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops.

“The names of regimes change. The method does not change – prison as an instrument of Moscow's policy. Ukrainian political prisoners are persecuted not for crimes. They are punished for their identity. For the Ukrainian language. For refusing to accept the occupation. For loyalty to their state. Alongside them are thousands of prisoners of war and civilian captives. They are held in inhumane conditions, deprived of contact with their families, abused and tortured. This is part of the same system of fear that Moscow has been using against Ukrainians for centuries. Ukrainians not only remember those behind bars, but also about their families – mothers, wives, children, who are waiting and believing.

“We remember every Ukrainian political prisoner. We fight for every prisoner of war. And we will do everything to bring them home. Because freedom cannot be imprisoned,” Budanov said.

On this day, the grateful nation also remembers Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna and others who died or were killed in Russian captivity during Moscow’s latest war against Ukraine. Roshchyna was 27 years old when she was killed after being subjected to brutal torture and abuse.  She was a freelance journalist known for her courageous reporting from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. She disappeared in August 2023 during a reporting trip to the Zaporizhzhia region, where she was investigating the abduction and torture of civilians in Russian-run detention centers. 

As Budanov said, the name of the Russian regime may change along with its adjectives but its brutal methods against Ukrainian civilians, political prisoners and national activists on the outside remain the same.