On Wednesday, September 23, Socialist Equality Party (US) National Secretary Joseph Kishore appeared on the Punch Up Pod to discuss the 15-year sentence imposed by the Ukrainian government on Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk and the fight to secure his freedom.

On August 10, Syrotiuk, 27, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for writing articles advocating an end to the fratricidal US-NATO proxy war with Russia and the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers against war, imperialism and capitalism. He was convicted of “high treason … under martial law.”

The Punch Up Pod is hosted by Leila Charles Leigh and Patrick Cote and streams multiple times a week on YouTube, Rumble and X.

In the wide-ranging interview, Kishore raised the political issues involved in Syrotiuk’s prosecution and the growing support for his release, expressed in thousands of signatures and letters posted at freebogdan.wsws.org.

In addition to Syrotiuk’s case, Kishore and the hosts discussed US politics, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest meeting with Trump at Gracie Mansion and Bernie Sanders’ appearance with fascist Steve Bannon at an AI conference. They also discussed the rise of the far-right AfD in Germany and the necessity of building an independent socialist movement in the working class.