On Friday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed the arrest of Gonzalo Lira, a Chilean national residing in Kharkov.
They accuse him of pro-Russian sympathies and insulting Ukraine’s government and military. This is the second time Lira has been detained by the SBU, having been previously arrested in April 2022 and released after a week.
According to the SBU statement, Lira “publicly justified the armed aggression” of Russia and “engaged in discrediting the top military and political leadership and the Defence Forces of our state”.
The SBU reportedly filmed Lira’s arrest, blurring out the faces of everyone involved. Lira, a writer and filmmaker who blogged under the name “Coach Red Pill,” has had his computer and multiple cell phones seized as evidence.
Leading up to his arrest, Lira had accused the US outlet Daily Beast of directing Kiev’s attention to his work, claiming that the outlet attempted to have him killed. The tabloid had reported on Lira’s activities in March 2022, calling him “sleazy” and a “pro-Putin shill” and stating that its reporters had reached out to Ukrainian authorities.
After being released in April, Lira returned to social media and continued to criticize Kiev’s policies. However, since then, Ukraine has passed laws criminalizing dissent, allowing President Vladimir Zelensky to ban opposition political parties and nationalize the media, and even persecuting the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for being in canonical communion with Moscow.
Lira has blamed the US outlet for putting his life at risk, and this time, he has been jailed pending the outcome of the investigation.
