Americans Blacklisted by Ukraine Demand US Lawmakers Take Action – Letter

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – A group of 16 American citizens including former politicians and military service-members are asking Congress to take action after a Ukrainian government agency published a blacklist of persons it accuses of promoting "Russian propaganda," a letter obtained by Sputnik showed on Thursday.

"We the undersigned American citizens, all of whom were included on the 'Black List' issued on July 14 by the Ukrainian government office, the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) … have been accused of promoting 'Russian propaganda,' and declared to be 'information terrorists' and 'war criminals' by this foreign entity," the letter read.

"We call on your Committee to exercise your oversight of the use of taxpayer funds by investigating the funding of this foreign government agency and their role in directly threatening Americans’ rights and safety," the letter said.

The letter was delivered to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate committees of foreign affairs, the judiciary and intelligence as well as emailed to the office of each member of those committees.

The blacklist includes 72 individuals from a number of countries besides the United States, including France, China, Germany, and Slovakia.

The authors of the letter express their readiness to offer full assistance in the investigation by any of the committees, according to the letter.

Blacklisting people who allegedly represent pro-Russian interests has been commonplace in Ukraine since 2014. The notorious Myrotvorets website publishes the personal data of journalists, military from the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and others whom its calls "enemies of Ukraine."

People on the database are known to have received threats, some of them have been killed, after their contact details were published on the website.

The Myrotvorets kill-list also included Daria Dugina, who was killed last week in the Moscow region by an explosive device attached under the bottom of the car she was driving.

Russia's Federal Security Service said that Dugina was assassinated by Ukrainian citizen Natalia Vovk, who acted at the behest of Ukraine's intelligence services.