The Ukrainian authorities have blocked access to the website of the German daily newspaper junge Welt. On August 12, 2025, the newspaper was first classified as “undesirable” and added to the “register of blocked websites.” Since the beginning of the week of August 25, the website has no longer been accessible to Ukrainian users.

When attempting to access jungewelt.de in Ukraine, the following message now appears: “In accordance with the Law of Ukraine ‘On Electronic Communications’ and Presidential Decree of Ukraine No. 64/2022 of 24 February 2022 on the imposition of martial law in Ukraine, this internet resource has been blocked.”

Such orders can be issued by the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP), a department of the country’s military and intelligence apparatus, or by the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC), a body attached to the president. The latter can sanction websites by presidential decree.

The blockade is part of the sweeping censorship and repressive measures of the Zelensky regime in Kiev. The total number of domains blocked nationwide since the imposition of martial law varies greatly depending on the source. It is probably over 6,000.

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) was already blocked by the authorities in Ukraine more than a year ago, in June 2024, because it exposed the reactionary character of the regime and fought for an international socialist perspective to end the war.

Previously, Bogdan Syrotiuk of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (YGBL) had been unlawfully imprisoned because he published articles on the WSWS advocating unity between Russian and Ukrainian workers against the regimes in Kiev and Moscow. Based on the brazen lie that Bogdan was spreading Russian propaganda, the socialist was charged with high treason. He has now spent over a year in prison under the harshest conditions.

Thousands of opponents of the war in the country are sharing his fate. The Zelensky regime responds to growing resistance to the war with brutal repression. Masses of young people who try to avoid conscription are being dragged to the front by force, every voice against the war is banned as Russian propaganda, and those who refuse to comply are jailed. The more hopeless the situation at the front becomes, the more aggressively the regime cracks down on any opposition.

junge Welt (jW) has come into the crosshairs of the Ukrainian censors because it reported on the government’s close collaboration with fascist forces, contradicted the NATO war narrative and informed readers about repression inside the country.

The sweeping censorship of any dissenting opinion and the suppression of the flow of information expose as a lie the claim that the war in Ukraine is about defending freedom and democracy. Quite the opposite: Zelensky is establishing a brutal dictatorship to continue sacrificing the Ukrainian population in a war fought for NATO’s geostrategic supremacy.

But the censorship of a purely German-language publication inside Ukraine cannot be explained solely by the regime’s repressive measures. The readership within Ukraine is likely to be marginal. It must be assumed that the measure was taken in close consultation with German authorities and is intended to serve as intimidation.

The jW editorial team reports that it was confronted several weeks ago with wild accusations from the “Azov” lobby in the United States. The editors were urged to “change” articles about Ukrainian Nazi units in the army, and extensive legal consequences were threatened.

As early as July last year, the Berlin State Administrative Court dismissed a lawsuit by jW against its surveillance by the German domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz). Presiding Judge Wilfried Peters, who now heads the Brandenburg state branch of the intelligence service, claimed that even a class analysis of society and positive references to the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin were unconstitutional. He also undermined press freedom by simply declaring the newspaper to be a political association.

In his ruling, he relied almost word for word on his earlier judgment against the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP), publisher of the German edition of the World Socialist Web Site. The German government had justified the surveillance of the SGP and its slander of it being “left-wing extremist” on the grounds that it advocated a “democratic, egalitarian and socialist society” and fought “against alleged nationalism, imperialism and militarism.” This effectively branded every opponent of war and every critic of capitalism an enemy of the constitution.

If the puppet regime in Kiev is now banning German-language anti-war publications that are already under attack from the German state, it must be assumed that Zelensky is acting on the direct instructions of his paymasters in the German government. It is telling that at a press conference on August 27, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the banning of jW. The official claimed such a case was “not known” to him.

Ukraine is therefore not only the theatre of NATO’s war against Russia; it is also becoming a precedent for a European police state. In Ukraine, the European imperialists are implementing measures they are planning for the entire continent.

After hundreds of opponents of the war like Bogdan Syrotiuk have already been imprisoned in Ukraine, Britain has now also begun to detain peaceful opponents of the genocide in Gaza and to brand them as terrorists. In Germany, participants in peace and pro-Palestinian demonstrations are increasingly attacked and face extreme police violence. In France, President Macron is waging a veritable war against workers’ protests. Just as the majority of Ukrainian workers refuse to be sacrificed as NATO’s cannon fodder, workers everywhere are resisting the devastating austerity programmes with which the European powers are financing rearmament against Russia.

The intensification of repression in Ukraine heralds a continent-wide escalation of repression against socialists and opponents of war. We therefore call on all readers to protest against the blocking of junge Welt and to sign the petition against the imprisonment of Bogdan Syrotiuk. Democratic rights can only be defended if workers link the fight against mass redundancies and austerity with the struggle against war and counter growing nationalism with the perspective of international socialism.