CAMPAIGNERS have demanded an end to the persecution of Ukrainian peace activist Yuri Sheliazhenko after his flat was raided by the country’s security services.

Mr Sheliazhenko issued a statement detailing Thursday’s raid on his home by people describing themselves as members of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

He said that “unknown people started breaking in the door to my apartment” in the early hours.

After failing to show proper identification, other than that they were from the SBU, the intruders searched Mr Sheliazhenko and his home, but “nothing even remotely similar to evidence of justification of Russian aggression or any other criminal actions of mine was found,” he said.

Mr Sheliazhenko, a long-standing conscientious objector and peace campaigner, was accused by Kiev in July of possessing and issuing documents that justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in February last year.

He said: “I have never done anything illegal that could even with a stretch be competently qualified under the relevant article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.”

Britain’s Stop the War Coalition said that it extended “support and solidarity” to Mr Sheliazhenko.

“Yuri is a brave conscientious objector and peace campaigner who has repeatedly called out the leaders of both sides in the Nato-Russia proxy war, which has already claimed tens of thousands of lives.”

North American peace group World Beyond War demanded respect for Mr Sheliazhenko’s rights “in a nation claiming to uphold democracy and human rights!”

Italian group the Movement for Non-Violence condemned “the persecution of the Ukrainian peace movement” and said that it stood alongside Mr Sheliazhenko.

The Ukrainian activist said he demanded an end to the obstruction of the “legitimate human rights activities of me personally, the Ukrainian Movement of Pacifists and the peace movement in general.”