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Comment by Const-me | Hacker News Reader

> not nearly as rosy as yours

Ukraine is at war, nothing rosy about that.

Still, living conditions of people north of Kyiv, north of Kharkiv, or in Kherson is dramatically better than GP’s situation. Note GP can’t even freely talk to English-speaking strangers here on HN because they fear the consequences from the Russian invaders who call themselves “government”.

GP has very good reasons for that fear. Russians are doing horrible things to Ukrainians on the occupied territories, for example https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/torture-chambers-ukrain...

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> Still, living conditions of people north of Kyiv, north of Kharkiv, or in Kherson is dramatically better than GP’s situation.

They are also dramatically better in Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Vladivostok. Of course being far from the front lines is better than being near them.

> GP can’t even freely talk to English-speaking stranger

People in Ukrainian-controlled territory can't talk freely either, there have been many cases of extrajudicial arrests and even killings of dissidents by Ukrainian government authorities. For example, peruse Gonzalo Lira's list (Lira himself died a week ago in Ukrainian custody): https://twitter.com/GonzaloLira1968/status/15174577687976796...

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This is a war between two thuggish regimes. One thug might be a bit more brutal than the other, but the war itself is what's doing the most harm to ordinary people.

> being far from the front lines is better than being near them

Kherson is less than 5 km from the active war zone. Northern parts of Kharkiv oblast have a Russian border nearby, with Russian recon groups routinely trying to infiltrate.

> can't talk freely either

I have several friends currently in Ukraine. None of them is scared of expressing their political views, neither IRL nor on the internets. None of them supports Russia for obvious reasons, but not all of them are huge fans of their current government.

> extrajudicial arrests and even killings

Wikipedia has an interesting article about the guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Lira The article says the arrest was lawful, Ukrainians released him on house arrest, he tried to flee the country, then he was arrested for real and died of pneumonia in custody.

Every death is a tragedy, but I don’t believe Ukrainian government deliberately killed that person. Why would they fake pneumonia during the war, at the time when random civilians are routinely killed by Russian missiles and drones across the whole country?

> This is a war between two thuggish regimes

This is Ukraine’s war of independence. Ukrainians have lost the last time in 1917-1922. This time, things will be different.

> the arrest was lawful

He was arrested for political speech, which is ipso facto an unjust violation of his fundamental human rights and of natural law. Putin's Russia also has "laws" that justify the arrest of dissidents, doesn't make it OK. (And many of the other people on Lira's list were simply summarily executed, without any trial or other legal process)

I don't know what political speech means to you.

Are you aware that Ukraine engaged in an existential war? Gonzalo Lira was justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine, denying the facts of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, as well as massacres of civilian Ukrainians by Russian invaders in Bucha and other cities.

Then he was taken into custody because he violated the terms of his bail and tried to escape. Originally meant to be under house arrest in Kharkiv, Lira was detained in another part of Ukraine: Zakarpattia Oblast, where he tried to cross the border into Hungary

There are a number of real journalists in Ukraine investigating big corruption cases, some of which have even resulted in the replacement of the Minister of Defense. These journalists have not faced assassination or imprisonment, although there have been instances of them being pressured in some ways

If a state's continued existence relies on restricting people's fundamental human right to free expression, then that state deserves to die.

It seems you apply US laws to the rest of the world. Ukraine is not part of the US, it’s a part of Europe. In Europe, the legal systems are rather different.

For example, public display of Nazi symbols in the US is a protected free speech under the first amendment. However, the same action in many other countries is a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols This doesn’t make governments of France or Belgium “thuggish regimes”.

Gonzalo Lira was Pro-Russia supporter during war time. See the way he spoke about women and what his real intentions were. More about the real Gonzalo, who was a paid russian shill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nyvrMYGEz4

It doesn't matter whether you, I, or the Ukrainian state agree with his views, he has a fundamental human right to express them.

His views do matter to provide context as to why he was in Ukraine and why he was in Jail. During war, normal rules don't apply. You have to be daft to support Russia, while you are in Ukraine. He was a grifter, enough said.

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