KYIV: Ukraine has arrested a Russian-Ukrainian dual national extradited from Moldova charged with promoting the Kremlin’s invasion, Kyiv’s security service said Tuesday.
The SBU said Dmytro Chystilin — whom it called an “ideologue” of Moscow’s invasion — was charged with “high treason” and “justification” of Russia’s aggression, facing a possible life sentence.
“The SBU detained one of the Kremlin’s ideologues of the ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine,” the security service said in a statement.
It accused Chystilin of “providing assistance” to Russian special services, organizing pro-Moscow conferences in Europe and “interference in election processes in Eastern and Central Europe in favor of Moscow.”
The security service said he was arrested after an event in Moldova when he tried to return to Moscow.
An SBU spokesman, Artem Dekhtyarenko, told AFP that Moldova then extradited Chystilin to Ukraine “over the weekend.”
Dekhtyarenko said he has both Ukrainian and Russian passports.
Ukrainian prosecutors said Chystilin had acted as a Kremlin “mouthpiece” and was detained for “developing and implementing information warfare strategy against Ukraine.”
“While in Moldova, he strengthened the Kremlin’s information influence on the domestic and foreign policy of a sovereign state,” Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said in a statement.
The SBU said Chystilin had also worked as an assistant to Sergei Glazyev, a former Kremlin adviser known for his hawkish positions.
Russian state media quoted a friend of Chystilin, Igor Kaldare, as saying that the dual national was organizing a “regional security” conference in Bucharest and was arrested by Moldovan security services.
Kyiv arrests Kremlin ‘ideologue’ extradited from Moldova
https://arab.news/22k7r
Kyiv arrests Kremlin ‘ideologue’ extradited from Moldova
- The SBU said Dmytro Chystilin — whom it called an “ideologue” of Moscow’s invasion — was charged with “high treason” and “justification” of Russia’s aggression
- “The SBU detained one of the Kremlin’s ideologues of the ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine“
US congresswoman supports censure of colleague over comments against Arabs, Muslims
- Republican Randy Fine ‘spreading hate,’ Democrat Robin Kelly tells Arab News
- ‘Members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain’
CHICAGO: Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly has said she supports calls in the US House to censure Florida Congressman Randy Fine, who has repeatedly made derogatory comments about Muslims and Arabs on his official social media accounts.
Kelly, a Democrat, denounced anti-Muslim and anti-Arab statements made by Fine, a Republican, saying she expects a censure resolution to be put together by House members possibly next week.
“There’s just no room for hate. That’s just the bottom line. I’ve seen hate. It causes people to lose their lives. It causes people to not have the same opportunities as other people. It causes people to have extra stress, extra trauma. And to categorize a whole group of people is so unfair,” Kelly told Arab News.
“I come from a family with a lot of different ethnicities or cultures, and I’ve seen the damage that hate has done in categorizing any one community.
“The Islamic community is just always presented as the bad guy in the movies and on TV … Being a person of color and seeing things that even my own family have gone through, I’m just very sensitive to it.”
Last month, when a supporter of New York’s Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media that dogs have no place in a Muslim home, Fine wrote: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”
Then on Feb. 20, Fine introduced to Congress the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” cosponsored by nine Republicans.
Fine has been criticized in the past for making Islamophobic and anti-Arab comments on his social medial pages.
Last May, when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib said it was “a crime to use starvation as a weapon in Gaza,” Fine responded: “Tell your fellow Muslim terrorists to release the hostages and surrender. Until then, #StarveAway.”
During his election campaign in December 2023, in response to an anonymous poster on X who criticized delays in getting food trucks into Gaza, Fine wrote: “Stop the trucks. Let them eat rockets. There are plenty of those. #Bombsaway.”
Before running for Congress, responding to a New York Times report and photo of 67 Arab children killed by Israel, he said: “Thanks for the pic.”
Muslim groups in Florida have been complaining about Fine’s rhetoric since 2021, including after he sent a private Instagram message to a Florida Muslim saying: “Go blow yourself up!”
Kelly said she is also disturbed by the comments of Fine’s allies, citing them as a broader undercurrent of Islamophobia rising in the US.
She insisted that Islamophobia is no different than antisemitism or racism against other groups, including African Americans like herself.
Fine and Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles “are spreading hate and should be censured,” Kelly wrote on her own Facebook page this past week.
“Our country is already divided enough, members of Congress should not be targeting Muslims for political gain.”
Ogles, a cosponsor of the “Protecting Puppies from Sharia Act,” declared: “Muslims don’t belong in American society. Pluralism is a lie.”
Kelly, who was elected to Congress in 2013, said: “I think they should all be censured. I say to people that feel the Islamophobia, ‘Don’t get weary, don’t get lost in the chaos. That’s what they want you to do. You can’t go in your house and close the door. You have to be a voice. You can’t stay on the sidelines because this isn’t acceptable.’”
Arab News reached out to Fine for comment.
