 On March 6th, Ukrainian security forces arrested Mikhail and Aleksandr Kononovich, the brothers are leaders of the Leninist Communist Youth Union of Ukraine or LKSMU. The security service of Ukraine later released its statement that the men had been detained in Kiev and then jailed. The Kononovich brothers were accused of being propagandists with pro-Russian and pro-Belarussian views. They allegedly had the goal of destabilizing the eternal situation in Ukraine and creating the necessary information picture for Russian and Belarusian channels. The World Federation of Democratic Youth warned that the brothers' lives are in serious danger in custody. It urged progressive groups around the world to mobilize to demand their freedom. The LKSMU has been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian government forces and ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi groups. This is part of a broader trend of the persecution of organizations with leftist and anti-European union politics in Ukraine since the years back to Yuriy Medan coup in February 2014. The period following the overthrow of the Viktor Yanukovych led government was marked by severe violence against those who opposed the coup. One of the worst incidents was the massacre in Odessa in May, when a far-right fascist militia set fire to the House of Trade Unions in the southern city, killing at least 41 people who were trapped inside. In 2015, Ukraine passed decommunization laws which banned the use and display of communist symbols. This later led to the Communist Party of Ukraine being barred from contesting the 2019 elections. The leaders of the LKSMU, including the Kononovo brothers who were active in the anti-fascist community of Ukraine, were also brutally assaulted by neo-Nazis from the C-14 and National Corpus groups in February 2018. Just weeks before their arrest, the Kononovo brothers had participated in a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Kiev, demanding that the U.S. get out of Ukraine and stop its imperialist expansionism. LKSMU had recently also organized a campaign called Gomsomol for Peace, calling for Ukraine to sever its ties with NATO and for a peaceful resolution with Russia. Communists in Ukraine have time and again protested the role of the U.S. in the 2014 coup and in cropping up right-wing and neo-Nazi groups. This included the financing, recruitment and training of mercenaries from among Ukrainian Nazis, which they have called a project of the State Department and the CIA. Communists have also criticized the government for destroying the labor code, abolishing benefits like pensions and disability benefits, and selling land to foreigners. Shortly after pro-EU government was installed in Ukraine in 2014, the country received a $17 billion loan from the IMF and an additional $3.5 billion package from the World Bank. These eight packages were heavily contingent on austerity measures, reportedly including agricultural deregulation and changes to land and natural resource policies, paving the way for foreign corporations to acquire massive tracts of land.