– Recently, a gathering of Ukrainian anti-war protesters against the authoritarian Zelensky government took place at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In January 2024, you spoke of a potentially revolutionary situation due to growing dissatisfaction with the government. In an article from November 2024, describing mass desertions, you raised this issue again. Although you wrote that it is not yet possible to speak of a revolutionary situation, you also mentioned that organized and collective desertion has increased. In a recent article, from January 2025, you stated that “no patriotic upsurge is discernible among the population of Ukraine. Too many workers no longer see any fundamental difference in who will rob them.” What has happened in this regard during 2024? How has anger against the government and its authoritarian measures been expressed and how can it be organized under the current conditions of authoritarianism?
– Yes, last year, through the dark clouds of war, the glimmer of an impending revolutionary situation really appeared. Official statistics show that this continues: in January-March 2025 alone, 44,500 Ukrainian soldiers left their units without permission, and another 7,000 deserted. Over the past year, 62,500 cases were filed for incidents of the first category and 22,300 for the second. However, this increase may simply be due to the fact that more systematic recording of acts of this type is taking place: many of the incidents announced may have occurred last year and were simply recorded in 2025. Our sources, at least, indicate, on the contrary, a decrease in desertion incidents in Ukrainian military units. Movements of disobedience by entire military units, as happened at the end of last year in the 155th Mechanized Brigade or the 123rd Territorial Defense Brigade, have not been observed since then. Ukraine is currently facing the possibility of a complete military defeat if it continues to wage war without the United States, using only the resources of European neoliberals and their minions.
If we are to believe the available leaks, in the Russian Armed Forces in 2024 there were 50,500 cases of absence without leave. On the other hand, with the beginning of the discussion of starting peace talks, applications for mercenaries have increased, as many hope to be able to collect a significant amount without having to go to the front.
- The point is that a revolutionary situation cannot be reduced to statistics. Anger at the government and its authoritarian measures is not enough – you also need some vision of social change for the better and a willingness to unite to achieve that change. In this sense, there has been no change: no substantial unity even for the most elementary rights is visible. In such conditions, not only can there be no mass interest in the direction of revolutionary change, but even a social movement for everyday needs is not possible.
- Therefore, instead of revolutionary ideas, in such conditions only different versions of right-wing populism can flourish. “Today you, tomorrow me”, “It’s not mine - I don’t care”, “man is a wolf to man” - these are the prevailing everyday perceptions in Ukraine, regardless of the opinion about the government and the realization that in a conflict between two gangsters, it makes no real difference who of the two shot first.
- Of course, we would really like to believe that people change. A former conscript from Nikolaev, who had escaped from a unit last year and crossed the border from the Carpathians, described the situation with the draft boards (TRC) as follows:
“It has been known for a long time that they have crossed the line, but since our people are wild and do not help each other, there is no uprising against them. If they can crush them, then why don’t they? I experienced the following incident when I was still in Ukraine: I was driving past a bus stop where the conscripts had started to push a guy, I stopped and shouted to him, “jump in,” the guy managed to get in, and we drove away from them at high speed. I have seen so many videos about this – beating, squeezing, and no one stopping them, no one helping them escape. But everything shows that we are heading towards a civil war against Zelensky [Zelensky]. Lawlessness is growing more and more. It takes a long time to break out, because people cannot unite. Even abroad, Ukrainians are not very friendly with Ukrainians. Here [in Spain where he lives] Ukrainians are robbing Ukrainians, for money, housing, work. But more and more, more and more are uniting. Not against Putin, but against the conscripts. They are fighting the guys. As one soldier said: “Why fight for a country that will spit in your face anyway.” I like news like this more and more in our region of Voznesensk [in late February, a drunken serviceman threw a grenade at the draft board after a fight with his wife and because he “looked negatively at their activities,” the explosion overturned two service cars, he was arrested without bail being set]. Many soldiers want to do the same, or shoot up draft boards or blow them up. This is not just a wish, but plans for the future – because everyone I know who is serving, expresses a desire to take revenge on the draft boards who dragged them away by force. In training, there was a guy from Uzhgorod, a mountain guide, he had a fellow villager who was caught by a draft board. He promised him: when he comes back, he will shoot him and eat his asshole.”
- Nevertheless, the clashes with state forces, which are increasing in Kharkiv, at best lead to the rescue of a passerby who was trying to kidnap him, and at worst they reinforce the general atmosphere of apathy and discouragement. There is a very small chance that the army returning from the front will become the driving force for some revolutionary movement. The most widespread thought is “as soon as I see a hole in the fence, I’m leaving this country, do whatever you want”. Others are completely broken and after the army, if they survive to survive, they will end up at the bottom. The rest just want to return to their usual profession and live as before the war. None of these categories wants or intends to decide to change anything, people are simply tired of everything and want to be left alone. After the war, it is likely that the executioners from the recruitment centers, the movie studio warriors and the caravans with big stars on their shoulders will enter politics. And many citizens will vote for them, because they will hear on the telethon how these invincible heroes saved the country. If even in much less selfish and much more educated societies there is a rise of right-wing populism, what can we expect in such remote parts of Europe as Ukraine? Just like in Russia, society here can hardly be called society. It is simply a number of groups of friends and relatives.
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- Apart from desertion, the revolutionary plans of 1917-1918 do not work in our parts: if the only choice is between a march to the slaughter and a minimal participation in the cause of rights, the typical worker in both Ukraine and Russia will prefer death. For the previous generations who found themselves in the meat grinder, three years from its beginning were enough to carry out the February Revolution (with a general strike and the occupation of Petrograd by revolutionary soldiers), as well as to throw Kerensky from power, who demanded the continuation of the war. They were not prevented by the absence of the Internet, nor the illiteracy of the majority of the population, nor the support for the continuation of the war by the Entente allies. This spring, after a year and a half of war, we saw massive anti-war and anti-government demonstrations by the population of Israel and Gaza. And this is despite their history of hostility, fueled by religious strife and dating back generations, while for our region this war is fratricide in the literal sense of the word – half of Kharkiv has relatives in Russia, the front line literally runs through families. The Zapatistas stated in their March 2022 communiqué: “The war must stop now. If it continues and if, as predicted, it escalates, then perhaps there will be no one to account for the landscape after the battle.” It seems that we in Ukraine have already passed the point before which something could still change. – The situation has changed dramatically since February 2025 with the radical reversal of US strategy by the Trump administration. In mid-February, US Secretary of State Pete Hegseth announced the new US orientation in Europe: excluding Ukraine from NATO membership, no return to the pre-2014 borders of Ukraine, no involvement of US troops, and a halt to the supply of military equipment to Ukraine. At the same time, the contribution of NATO member states should be increased to 5% of gross domestic product. In addition, Trump began preparing bilateral talks with Russia, excluding the Europeans. In Germany, this huge shift has led to a massive push towards militarization. How is this new course perceived in Ukraine? What do you think about it and how does it affect your strategic orientation? – It is difficult to say how radical the change will be, because this war has been brewing since February 24, 2022. The state bastards have given each other guarantees of personal immunity from the very beginning: not a single Russian missile has ever hit and will not hit the military and political leadership of Ukraine – more suitable targets for them are residential buildings of ordinary people, energy infrastructure, humanitarian aid points, food warehouses, although they know very well that Ukraine is holding civilians behind closed borders as hostages, as human shields… Even when the top cannibals of Ukraine visit the almost front line, no Russian bombing threatens them. Similarly, when two drones attacked the Kremlin in 2023, even this symbolic damage caused resentment among the Western puppet masters, and the Ukrainian regime denied its involvement.
Those at the top are doing much better with their class solidarity than the lower classes. That is why our strategic orientation is best captured in the words of a former journalist from Donetsk, who lives and works in the Netherlands:
“Three years ago, another wave of migration from the cursed lands to the West began. These waves are endless. And always in the same direction. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Thank you again to Europe for opening the borders, saving millions of lives. Supporting people financially. Helping them integrate, and not handing over men who escaped from concentration camps to the slaughter. The patriotic hysteria of 2022 is a thing of the past. Despite the efforts of propaganda, it was not possible to contain it – today we are witnessing the most massive anti-war protest in history of an enslaved people. Avoiding cooperation with a criminal state is more popular than ever. This is the political duty, when the state has become criminal – not to defend it and not to collaborate. Many criminal quasi-states emerge and disappear in the cursed lands. There is not enough life to die for each of them. And they constantly demand it, because they cannot live without war, without robbery and murder. The cursed lands are cursed because millions of people have cursed them for centuries. We are not the first, we will not be the last.” It is quite symbolic that the “Assembly” had as its initial inspiration the experience of the self-governing revolutionary communities in various Mexican states and their autonomous media. We had already mentioned in 2022 that in the first weeks of the war they demonstrated the best example of the mobilization of the anti-authoritarian left: while global anarchism composed empty, routine statements that did not commit anyone to anything, they took to the streets against this war as a whole, condemning Russia’s aggression without arguing in defense of a parody of it. From last year we refer to another internationalist communiqué of theirs: Above The Walls, Below (And To the Left) The Cracks. Written shortly after Trump first assumed the presidency, it helps to answer many questions about Ukraine today. – In our last interview, you describe life in Kharkiv and your political action, which you can develop only as a group on the Internet. At the same time, you also describe your participation in ecological struggles and movements. How was your political action in 2024? What kind of struggles are taking place in Kharkiv right now? – It is already clear that in a country where everyone hates each other and no one trusts anyone, the conditions for the libertarian, non-partisan left are not much easier than on Mars. It is not just about our need for financial support, which our readers are welcome to contribute, but about something on a much more global basis – revolutionary changes in Ukraine are possible only as part of an international process, when the right-wing wave in Europe will start to recede, and only if the European anarchist movement can take advantage of this opportunity. In Brazil, for example, this trend has already been reversed – it remains to be seen whether at least Brazilian anarchism will return to the influence it had in the first half of the 2010s… Last summer we had a truly successful example of action to protect community forests on the outskirts of the city (there was a text in English and Russian). The success was due to a unique combination of factors, but it was just a drop in the ocean, since the rules are not based on exceptions. The events in this suburban location do not resemble a typical Kharkiv street, where there are almost no people and the “invincible buses” move like tankers in 1942. For example, there have been no labor strikes recorded in Kharkiv since the small protest of municipal transport workers in early autumn 2022. The only example of a labor strike we have recorded in Ukraine since last year occurred on April 5 in the western city of Drohobych, where bus drivers did not show up for work. Before that, the last strikes we know of took place last May and last July. Some still hope that Russia will come and open the borders for them to leave, some are waiting for Trump to lose his patience and impose sanctions on the hoarse stomp and his friends, some are not expecting anything at all and are living day by day.
Everyone is alone, and not only in urban areas. An example, a letter to our editorial team from the Chernigov region, a month and a half ago:
- "They took one of my childhood friends. A month ago. He lived in the village, worked building monuments and fences. A woman from the village community council came and brought the draft. She knew he was there. She herself held the boy by the hand so that he wouldn't run away. The draft didn't hold him. He was alone. He was all dirty, she said: "Let me go change clothes." And he answered him: "Call your mother, let her bring them." It was a month ago. The day before yesterday, his parents received a notice to go for a DNA test. The boy is missing. A month, a bitch. A month and the child is no more. A few words about the bastard from the community council. Her husband is a retired policeman. The daughter is following in her father's footsteps. I don't know how she will live. But somehow she will, I think. She has already killed more than one person like that. And she is still alive. And the village is not united. During the occupation in 2022, the people in the Chernihiv region took care of order themselves, there was no police, crime, like looting, quickly stopped. This is the truth. It was. But not for long. What is past is past. Somewhere from the fall of 2023, the horror began. The recruiters do not go to individuals, but to the community council, to her. And she already leads them to the men. She has eyes and ears everywhere. They betray each other.” Both in our city and throughout Ukraine, some particularly desperate people commit isolated acts of armed self-defense or even lynching – the so-called spontaneous black terrorism. For example, two cases that occurred in 2024 and only recently came to light through court decisions. A 79-year-old resident of the Bogodukhiv district of the Kharkiv region, with no criminal record, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for setting fire to his village council building with a bottle of gasoline. The pensioner fully admitted his guilt and expressed remorse. He said that the reason for the arson attack was a long-standing conflict with the village council, which had refused to grant him a subsidy in 2017. For many years he had been experiencing threats from village officials, who were indifferent to his complaints. The other story took place in Kharkiv, where a soldier from Transcarpathia was charged with criminal hooliganism. The man had been convicted repeatedly in the past. According to court records, the man was furious with his unit commanders for not responding to his request for leave. One day, he drunkenly entered the headquarters with two grenades. After saying “Do you know what these are?!”, he uncocked them on the table. The commanders managed to run outside and were not injured. The judge closed the case due to the defendant’s death. The cause of his death was not stated, only the date: May 29, 2024. In reality, such actions do not change anything, except that the regime has the opportunity to arrest and convict the most disloyal citizens one by one. Thus, the most anarchist struggle in today’s Ukraine is the attempt to break through the new Iron Curtain and to provide some elementary education so that people can join revolutionary movements in their new places of residence (if they have a sufficient level of language skills). So, over the past year, our online magazine has essentially become the voice of Ukrainians illegally crossing the border, even if we are still far from the heroes of the Underground Railroad. We never recommend specific routes, because if any detail is inaccurate or outdated, the price can be human life. Of course, no smoke plumes rise for orientation, in the spirit of the migrant caravans from Latin America. People prefer to exchange information only in relevant chats or on our website and cross the border in pairs or threes, very rarely more. Many do not even look for a traveling companion, because they do not trust anyone. Two Ukrainians are a partisan group, three are a partisan group with a traitor. In any case, it is better to be a termite, slowly weakening the edifice of militarism, than a flea on the tail of one of the quarreling dogs.
One way or another, those who escaped slavery and death will be able to join some revolutionary struggle, either back in Ukraine or somewhere else. Beware of those who demand that the war continue until Ukraine regains its borders: most of them do not live in this country and have never lived. Why can they, and some others not? Why can someone love Ukraine from somewhere far away, claiming that we do not realize our happiness, but those who have not received this happiness
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