The SBU accused them of being propagandists holding pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian views with the goal of destabilizing the internal situation in Ukraine and creating a “necessary information picture” for Russian and Belarusian channels.
During their trial, the brothers stated that “our case is completely fabricated from start to finish. What are we charged with? Pro-Belarussian views are being charged. We are being tried for our views. What kind of democracy can we talk about?”
Regarding the ban on KPU, Mykhail Kononovich had told Peoples Dispatch in an interview in February 2021, “I emphasize that the communist ideology, the idea, cannot be banned by any laws. So it is impossible to ban common sense and science. It is simply impossible to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) because we are a party with more than a hundred years of history, a party that has an experience of subterranean struggles. We, communists, have fought and will continue to fight for the benefit of our people!”
In case you have misread. They never said what you claim, being communists and oppossing NATO is not some oxymoron that denies the other. In fact the position held by most communist parties in the Global South at the moment is this one, it is certainly the reality I’ve seen in Latinoamerica.