Ukrainian Govt Compiling Public ‘Registry of Collaborators’

Ukrainian authorities are cracking down on anyone suspected of aiding Russian troops under laws enacted by Ukraine’s parliament and signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky after the Feb. 24 invasion.

Offenders face up to 15 years in prison for acts of collaborating with the invaders or showing public support for them.

Not all Ukrainians oppose the invasion, and pro-Moscow sentiment is more common among Russian-speaking residents of the Donbas, an industrial region in the east.

Although the Zelensky government has broad support, even among many Russian speakers, not all Ukrainians oppose the invasion. Support for Moscow is more common among some Russian-speaking residents of the Donbas, an industrial region in the east. An eight-year conflict there between Moscow-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces had killed over 14,000 people even before this year’s invasion.

It is also believed that a majority of residents in the Russia-annexed Crimea, where the regional government declared independence from Ukraine and asked to join the Russian Federation after the Euromaidan in 2014, support Moscow — although a referendum in which this course of action received overwhelming support was condemned as “predetermined” by some minorities.- READ MORE