Gonzalo Lira, the Chilean-American blogger/journalist, died on Jan. 11 in a Ukrainian prison. His family announced his death today and the U.S. Department of State confirmed it, according to TASS. Lira had fallen in love with Ukraine, living there since 2010, but was a persistent critic of Zelenskyy’s having turned Ukraine into a proxy in a war.
Lira had been arrested by Ukraine’s Security Service on May 1, 2023, accused of “discrediting” Ukraine’s leadership and military by “producing and distributing materials justifying the armed aggression” by Russia. He believed that one particular video of his, going into the history leading up to the 2022 war, had resulted in his arrest. He reported that the U.S. Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was the reason the State Department would not intervene to bring him home. Lira said that he’d been told that Nuland “hates my guts.”
Lira’s father, Gonzalo Lira, Sr., stated: “I cannot accept the way my son has died. He was tortured, extorted, incommunicado for 8 months and 11 days, and the U.S. Embassy did nothing to help my son. The responsibility of this tragedy is the dictator Zelenskyy with the concurrence of a senile American President, Joe Biden,” as published by Grayzone’s Alexander Rubinstein.
