The following interview was carried out by comrades from the
Ceskoslovenské anarchistické sdruzení - CAS a Czech InternationalistAnarchist Group. ---- 1)Please introduce yourself briefly to the readers
of our magazine. Are you from Ukraine, where you were born and spent
your youth? ---- Hi. My name is Vadym Yakovlev, I'm Ukrainian queer
writer and journalist and I'm against the war and nationalism. I was
born in Odesa, the largest southern multicultural city in Ukraine, a few
months before the collapse of the USSR. My mother is Ukrainian and my
father is Russian. Their fathers were military. My father worked in a
factory. With the collapse of the USSR, the factory was closed, and my
father lost his job. It affected my family and my childhood. I grew up
in Odesa, but one year before I escaped Ukraine I was living in Lviv,
the biggest city of the Western part of Ukraine. At home my relatives
spoke Russian and Ukrainian, so I never focused on issues such as
national identity. My family was an unhappy international family that
lost a lot with the collapse of state communism in Ukraine. I guess all
of that influenced me a lot in my search of my true political views and
my desire to do something that can have influence on society.
2)You left Ukraine, what led you to this decision?
On the one hand, I could no longer work in Ukraine because of my
political beliefs. The Ukrainian intelligentsia, journalists and artists
as a community with the beginning of the war decided to become
privileged elite propagandists in the service of the state. I didn't
want to be a propagandist, so I lost the opportunity to publish my
articles. And if you publicly express in Ukraine the views I have,
authorities can put you in the jail. On the other hand, of course due to
my views, I didn't want to go to war on the frontline. That's why I escaped.
3)What is your attitude towards war and antimilitarism?
Much of my work in Ukraine was related to my anti-patriotic beliefs. My
articles and participation in art projects were very often devoted to
criticism of Ukrainian patriotism, Ukrainian nationalism and the
mainstream privileged "pro-Western" and pro-war civil and cultural
Ukrainian elite. I have always been interested in anti-war art and
anti-war activism. Since 2022, I had to start doing this, even at the
cost of losing the opportunity to stay and work in my native country and
the loss of close friends who abandoned me because of my beliefs.
4)The war in Ukraine changed a lot of things. Are you in touch with your
friends back home? What are their attitudes towards the war? How do they
live
As I said in answer to the previous question, I lost most of my friends
from the privileged art scene and the journalist-activist community.
Almost all of them became propagandists, receiving support from the
state and Western foundations. I also lost touch with the majority of
the Ukrainian leftists, who are supporting militarism, nationalism and
NATO. This type of leftists is supporting by the state and Western
foundations too. But I'm still in touch with my friends, who are don't
work with the state and have nothing to do with privilaged classes. They
support me and my anti-war views. A lot of them, if they are men, are
living an awful life now, cause they have to hide all the time at their
apartments in the fear of getting outside. Ukrainian army is kidnapping
people from the street and sending them on the frontline without their
permission. And majority of people with man gender marker in the
documents are not allowed by the law to left the country.
5)Have many people, including anarchists joined the army and left
antimilitarism? And not much is known about them? Maybe they are afraid.
Do they exist? Are you in contact with them?
Regarding anti-war anarchists in Ukraine, we have anti-war collective
called Assembly. They are from Kharkiv and have their own website where
they are publishing anti-war and anti-conscription texts. This group of
anarchists is anonymous and they hide the names of their team members.
This is the only way to conduct any anti-war activity in Ukraine. There
was only one Ukrainian organization that did not hide the names of its
members and openly spoke out against the war - Ukrainian Pacifist
Movement. The Security Service of Ukraine accused them of support of
Russia and sent its leader to court. After that, the organization
significantly softened its public position, fearing prison. Many
Ukrainian leftists sided with the war, it seems to me, because of
conformity. They are afraid to express their real position or simply
don't even have one, as it seems to me, and just are following
mainstream trend. But these are just my assumptions. In Ukraine, as an
authoritarian militaristic country, it is extremely unsafe to be against
war.
6)What about Ukrainians in exile? Are they doing any anti-war
activities? Are they organizing in workplaces?
Lately, many Ukrainian anti-war initiatives have appeared abroad. For
example, Ukrainians are now organizing demonstrations against
mobilization and human rights violations in Ukraine. These
demonstrations are taking place in Germany, Italy, and France. Often,
these actions are organized by Ukrainian leftists who have nothing to do
with the pro-war Ukrainian left mainstream such as the so-called
"Ukrainian anti-authoritarians" or Solidarity Collectives. All these
groups of anti-war Ukrainian leftists are not financed by anyone, they
are a personal initiative of convinced and active young people. There
will be more of these actions, and I am in active communication with the
organizers and members of this initiatives, this is very inspiring! In
addition, in the West there are a certain number of Ukrainian scientists
and artists who are against the war and who are constantly being
marginalized and silenced here in the West. But we have all been
silenced for too long, our voices have been erased for too long, and now
we are increasingly trying to build horizontal connections at various
levels, organizing an anti-war front here abroad against the war and the
propagandists. There are many more of us than even we think.
7)The media is silent about the forced mobilization of the Ukrainian
government. Rarely does information about deserters leak out? What can
you tell us about it?
Nobody knows the exact number of deserters from the Ukrainian side, but
according to official and unofficial statistics, there are about 150-200
thousand people! These are huge numbers. The official Ukrainian media
are controlled by the state or the Security Service of Ukraine.
Ukrainians mainly consume information from anonymous news channels on
Telegram or TikTok. It is there that videos of violence against
civilians by the Ukrainian army are constantly published. These videos,
full of terrible scenes and evidence of human rights violations, do not
make it into the official media. The Ukrainian authorities are
constantly trying to find the authors of anonymous Telegram channels who
criticize the actions of the Ukrainian army or advocate for peace, and
put them in prison. Sometimes the authorities succeed. The Ukrainian
government, police and the Security Service of Ukraine do not hesitate
to use any methods to silence alternative voices. For example, the
police recently arrested the mother of a blogger who is abroad and
speaks out against forced mobilization, for publishing his post! There
are also unofficial ways to shut up dissenters. I remember one teenager
who had his own channel on Telegram, where he criticized Ukrainian
nationalism and mobilization. He identified himself as an anarchist.
Fascists came to his home for a "conversation", after which he publicly
renounced his beliefs. But the pro-war Ukrainian leftists, who are
propagandists and accomplices of all these crimes against Ukrainians,
will never tell you about such things.
8)Do you have acquaintances who have deserted or evaded the draft? How
can we in Czechoslovakia help them?
I know people who have illegally fled the country, and I have many
acquaintances and friends in Ukraine who are hiding from the army and
conscription. Perhaps, over time, it will be necessary to create
initiatives to help such people within the framework of anti-war
Ukrainian movements abroad, which have only just begun to emerge. If
such initiatives appear, I hope that there will be people in the Czech
Republic and Slovakia who will want to help these Ukrainians.
9)What message would you give to Ukrainian and Russian workers at home
and abroad?
The only thing I want to convey to those who are not part of the
privileged classes (and this is not only the proletariat), regardless of
their nationality and location: never trust those who build their
happiness on your exploitation, marginalisation and systemic
discrimination, and especially do not be fools and do not participate in
their wars, it is simply stupid!
10)Thank you for the interview and if you have anything else to say, we
would be happy to.
Thank you, comrade, for interviewing me.
Please see my Facebook page for more:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013291847024
Martin (CAS)
https://anarcomuk.uk/2025/01/05/interview-with-an-anti-militarist-from-odessa/
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