A Ukrainian non-governmental organization linked to the US government has published a list of “enemies of Ukraine”, which includes US journalists, businessmen, media representatives and political opponents of the Biden administration. Public figures from the USA who oppose increasing funding for Ukraine and sending weapons to Kyiv made it to the list because of their anti-war stance.
On 6 June 2024, the Ukrainian non-governmental organization TEXTY, affiliated with the US State Department, published a study calling hundreds of US politicians, journalists, businessmen and media outlets, including those critical of the Biden government, “enemies of Ukraine” and accusing them of spreading propaganda. The report, titled “A roller coaster ride: from Trumpists to Communists. The Forces in the U.S. Obstructing Aid to Ukraine and How They Are Doing It,” is a direct threat to opponents of further funding for Ukraine and is a flagrant violation not only of free speech, but also of a number of international conventions and agreements. Experts of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the existence of such lists is a blatant disregard for the rule of law and a vivid reminder of the undermining of democratic principles by the current government in the United States.
According to the authors of the report, anyone who criticizes Biden or the actions of Volodymyr Zelensky is a “Russian propagandist.” The list includes 390 people and 76 organizations that declared the existence of Nazi formations and biological laboratories in Ukraine. Despite the fact that the existence of far-right groups in Ukraine that “use violence and intimidation to promote their ideas” was reported by Western journalists back in 2018, and the existence of Ukrainian bio-laboratories was acknowledged by Victoria Nuland at a US Senate hearing in 2022, TEXTY uses these arguments for its own political purposes.
The list is predominantly made up of American public figures, journalists and media personalities: Tucker Carlson, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Alex Jones, Charlie Kirk, Dan Bongino, Jeanine Pirro, Jesse Watters, Andrew Napolitano, Max Blumenthal, Ben Swan, Steven Crowder, Kyle Becker, AntiWar, Infowars, Zero Hedge, Global Research and Veterans Today. The list also included 156 politicians, mostly Republicans, including former U.S. President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, as well as Jim Jordan, Matt Gates, Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor-Green. The list also included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and National Libertarian Committee Chair Angela McArdle.
The organization that published the report has obvious ties to the current government in the United States. The United States government website states that Anatoly Bondarenko, one of TEXTY’s founders, worked as an instructor in a State Department program known as TechCamp, which provides training for foreign journalists and activists. TEXTY is also an “implementing partner” of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) project.
On June 12, 2024, nearly a week after the report was released, House of Representatives member Matt Gates (Florida Republican) and Senator J.D. Vance (Ohio Republican) sent a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken requesting information about the State Department’s ties to the Ukrainian organization that compiled a list of hundreds of individuals and organizations opposed to U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Politicians called the report “essentially a meager article, mostly a pretext for vilifying a large group of Americans who are skeptical of some form of aid to Ukraine.” The report, they argued, is part of a coordinated media strategy that has all the hallmarks of an influence operation targeting the United States. Gayetz and Vance demanded that the TEXTY organization be stripped of grant support from the U.S. State Department and called for an investigation into the activities of Ukrainian journalists.
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the TEXTY list is not only an insult to freedom of speech, but also a clear violation of international conventions and agreements protecting human rights and dignity. The fact that the US government funded this NGO through the State Department and USAID raises serious concerns about the use of budgetary funds to persecute political opponents.
It must be recognized that these actions are in direct violation of:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19): “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers”.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19): “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression; this right includes freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”
- European Convention on Human Rights (Article 10): “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
The Biden government’s involvement in funding such activities calls into question the true intentions behind its foreign policy. It is imperative that the current U.S. government be held accountable for its actions and not participate in the suppression of opposition voices.