We publish a report from the Ukrainian anarchist group Assembly below:
---- In the second half of last year the Ukrainian army was moving
towards a loss of combat capability and the front collapse. Then, with
the winter tightening of the screws in terms of discipline, the
situation was more or less corrected, and the threat of a frontline
collapse loomed again only with the suspension of American military aid.
The State Bureau of Investigation claims that about 21,100 fugitive
military servicemen returned to the army thanks to a new law allowing
them to avoid punishment for the first escape. The deadline for this
expired on March 1. But even now, a criminal case on the fact of AWOL
will not be initiated if the period of absence is less than three days,
and the soldier will not be deprived of pay. If the absence last on for
more than 3 days, a criminal case will be opened. It can be closed if
the fighter ran away only for the first time and the commander satisfies
his request to continue serving.
Unless patriotic brainwashing does not work, motivation by money and
fear still saves the state. How this looks in practice, one experienced
military man from Kharkov outlined this spring:
«I personally know a man who went back to the army, to the air defence,
because there is no work. Now he is not very happy, they are
transferring him to the infantry. And he is not a patriot and does not
give a shit about the country, the issue is exclusively about money. I
also know a comrade who went AWOL, was bored for 3 months, looked for a
job, did not find one, came back. Because need to eat something. The
situation was real, there was nothing to eat, no money. I am sure that
with the prospect of no work and no income, the number of "volunteers"
will increase. So the worse people live, the better the staffing of the
AFU will be. Something like that.
I can't speak for everyone and everything, just what I saw and I base my
opinion on it. There is a backbone of the unit, it consists of motivated
and experienced fighters. As long as this backbone can control the
"replenishment", this unit will be combat-ready. Simply put, there is
hazing, there is a result. As soon as there are more new arrivals than
possible control, some turn into slackers. There is a second option.
This is the formation of units from the busified ones, which will cover
the experienced units. This happened in the Kursk region. The
experienced ones made some noise and "to home", and then the busified
ones get into trouble.
Of course, it is more difficult at the front line, but it is also
difficult to "leave" from there. Most of the AWOLs are frontline units.
The simplest assumption of how this can happen. They get to the city,
say Slavyansk[in the Ukraine-controlled part of Donbass], and from there
by taxi either Kharkov or Dnieper. As for the period since January of
this year, AWOL has become smaller. But. Firstly, this topic was
strictly forbidden to comment, and secondly, they began to punish very
harshly, up to white slippers (all exclusively rumors).
I judge from the reports of acquaintances. You see, the problem of AWOL
is not entirely obvious. Holding back an unmotivated mass of fighters,
there is a risk of a riot. To educate and motivate fighters - you need a
backbone and time, at least half a year, but there is no time. So it
turns out that it was easier to "let go" of a couple and not to
disintegrate the entire team, than to motivate. Now they have started to
fight AWOL, which will lead, in my personal opinion, to bigger problems
than the escape itself. Therefore, experienced fighters and units do not
want to get involved with new arrivals, since this is a burden and an
increase in risk. As a result, new arrivals have a high percentage of
losses, which leads to a decrease in motivation and so on in a circle.
In general, everyone understands everything. The motive is one - to
survive. The problem is different. To survive for an "experienced"
fighter is a continuation of the war, there he knows everything, and in
peace he will have to answer for a lot and lose a lot of material
resources. And for a busified one, to survive means to stop the war.
Because in a war he has little chance. There are often transitions from
the busified to the "experienced."»
Mass disobedience by entire military units in Ukraine is already in the
past, and there is also no serious threat to the regime from the
dissatisfied civilians. Passers-by respond to daily mobilisation
kidnapping with pepper spray, knives and fists. Supermarket shoppers
respond to wild rise in the cost of living with personal shoplifting.
Two more spectacular attacks occurred back in 2024, and only recently
came to light through court decisions.
A 79-year-old resident of the Bogodukhov district in the Kharkov region
without criminal records received a 4-year imprisonment with a
probationary period of 1 year for burning down his village council
building with a bottle of gasoline. The pensioner fully admitted his
guilt and sincerely repented, the reason for the arson was a long
conflict after the refusal of a subsidy in 2017 - many years of bullying
by village officials and ignoring his complaints. In the city of
Kharkov, a court considered the case of a repeatedly convicted military
serviceman from Transcaprathia for especially aggravated hooliganism.
According to the case materials, being outraged at the unit's commanders
for the lack of a response to his report on leaving, he drunkenly
entered the headquarters with two fragmentation grenades and, saying "do
you know what this is?", detonated them on the table. The people managed
to run outside and were not hurt. The judge closed the case due to the
defendant's death. The cause of death is not indicated, only the date of
May 29.
On March 26, the court in Poltava extended the preventive measure for
Vadym Kuzub and Yevhen Shcherbak for another 36 days. The first one
confessed that two months earlier he killed an enlistment agent in
Piryatin and seized his assault rifle, the other is accused of aiding in
obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces during the special
period. They will remain in custody until May 1 inclusive, i.e. either a
petition to the court to extend the pre-trial investigation or a bill of
indictment should be filed just on Workers' Solidarity Day. Meanwhile,
all the solidarity of workers with Vadim boiled down to applause him on
social networks for a couple of days - instead of at least sending
parcels to jail and supporting him at court hearings. These same people
are indignant that "there are only silent slaves around," "why are there
so few people's avengers?" etc. What to say here?
The only example of an enterprise strike we have recorded in Ukraine
since last year occurred on April 5 in the western town of Drohobych.
Not a single minibus took to the route as the previous day one driver
was taken from his workplace to the enlistment centre for a medical
examination. "Can drivers work in such a mode? Probably no. Is there an
alternative replacement? The human resource is exhausted. There is
not.[...]And making a reservation for employees is almost unreal," the
chairman of this Sigma LLC stated in a later removed Facebook post. The
regional territorial recruitment centre of Lviv denied the forceful
detention and added that the reservation is the responsibility of the
company's management.
An ex-recruit from Nikolaev, who fled from a training centre last year
and crossed the border through the Carpathian Mountains, explains us on
this matter:
«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
rebellion against them. If they can maim, then why can't they? I had a
situation when I was still in Ukraine: I was just driving past a bus
stop where the TRCists started to press a guy, I stopped and called out
to him "jump in", the guy managed to sit down and run away from them.
And all the other videos I watch - they beat the guy, twist him, not a
single beast will stop, will not help him escape. But everything is
moving towards a civil war against Zelya. Because the lawlessness is
growing more and more. But it is all delayed while people cannot unite.
Even abroad, Ukrainians are not very friendly with Ukrainians. Here[in
Spain where he lives]Ukrainians cheat Ukrainians out of money, housing,
work. But the further, the more people unite. Not against Putin, but
against the TRCists. They fight off the guys. As one military man said:
"Why fight for a country that will spit in your back anyway." I like the
news even more, like in our region in Voznesensk[in late February, a
drunk runaway military threw a fragmentation grenade onto the enlistment
office's territory because of a quarrel with his wife and "negative
perception of their activities", the explosion disabled two service
cars, he was taken into custody without bail being set]. Many soldiers
want to do the same, or shoot up the TRC, or blow it up. This is not
even a desire, but plans for the future - because everyone I know who
serves, all express a desire to take revenge on the TRCs for dragging
them out. In training, one guy was a mountain guide in Uzhgorod, and his
fellow villager from the TRC got caught. He promised him: when he gets
back, he will shoot dead this asshole.»
https://cdn4.suspilne.media/images/resize/720×1.78/6223b5d9fa43d77f.jpg
Angela Gurina. From the state TV website
On April 4, the regional court of appeal of Chernivtsi confirmed the
prison term to Angela Gurina from December 9, 2024. She worked for two
local news outlets and was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment for
coverage of mobilisation violence. According to the verdict, her video
viewed on TikTok by 8,600 people shows a military facility - the
regional assembly point near the Military Law Enforcement Service in
Chernivtsi, it is forbidden under martial law. The journalist was
detained in August 2024. Her advocate insisted that it was filming not a
military facility but a possible human rights violation. The video was
titled "Saving a guy." Angela subsequently deleted it. The lawyer also
argued that the location of the object is publicly known, and it is not
a combat unit or military formation. "The appellant's assertion that the
person did not intend to harm the internal and external security of
Ukraine does not refute the commission of the charged offense by her,"
notes the decision. The court also took into account the negative
characteristics of the woman, indicating that she repeatedly got into
conflicts with TCR servicemen, with video recording of confrontations
and its posting. The defence intends to continue the process in the
Supreme Court.
Passive sabotage of war remains strong. 9,658 enforcement proceedings on
overdue and unpaid administrative fines for violating military
registration rules have been opened since the beginning of this year.
This is almost as many as for the whole of 2023, when there were 10,541.
Another 1,259 fines issued in 2025 were paid, according to the
Opendatabot infographic from March 10. This is only every seventh,
compared to every second last year.
More serious risk for the regime now is that the possible ceasefire
could trigger a new, even more massive wave of spontaneous
demobilisation. Time will tell what will come of this.
Photo: company commander of the 155th Mechanized Brigade, taken into
custody in January on suspicion of unauthorised leaving his unit and
inciting his subordinates to do so. Source: the State Bureau of
Investigation
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2025/05/01/anti-war-direct-action-in-ukraine-in-the-midst-of-peace-talks/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
---- In the second half of last year the Ukrainian army was moving
towards a loss of combat capability and the front collapse. Then, with
the winter tightening of the screws in terms of discipline, the
situation was more or less corrected, and the threat of a frontline
collapse loomed again only with the suspension of American military aid.
The State Bureau of Investigation claims that about 21,100 fugitive
military servicemen returned to the army thanks to a new law allowing
them to avoid punishment for the first escape. The deadline for this
expired on March 1. But even now, a criminal case on the fact of AWOL
will not be initiated if the period of absence is less than three days,
and the soldier will not be deprived of pay. If the absence last on for
more than 3 days, a criminal case will be opened. It can be closed if
the fighter ran away only for the first time and the commander satisfies
his request to continue serving.
Unless patriotic brainwashing does not work, motivation by money and
fear still saves the state. How this looks in practice, one experienced
military man from Kharkov outlined this spring:
«I personally know a man who went back to the army, to the air defence,
because there is no work. Now he is not very happy, they are
transferring him to the infantry. And he is not a patriot and does not
give a shit about the country, the issue is exclusively about money. I
also know a comrade who went AWOL, was bored for 3 months, looked for a
job, did not find one, came back. Because need to eat something. The
situation was real, there was nothing to eat, no money. I am sure that
with the prospect of no work and no income, the number of "volunteers"
will increase. So the worse people live, the better the staffing of the
AFU will be. Something like that.
I can't speak for everyone and everything, just what I saw and I base my
opinion on it. There is a backbone of the unit, it consists of motivated
and experienced fighters. As long as this backbone can control the
"replenishment", this unit will be combat-ready. Simply put, there is
hazing, there is a result. As soon as there are more new arrivals than
possible control, some turn into slackers. There is a second option.
This is the formation of units from the busified ones, which will cover
the experienced units. This happened in the Kursk region. The
experienced ones made some noise and "to home", and then the busified
ones get into trouble.
Of course, it is more difficult at the front line, but it is also
difficult to "leave" from there. Most of the AWOLs are frontline units.
The simplest assumption of how this can happen. They get to the city,
say Slavyansk[in the Ukraine-controlled part of Donbass], and from there
by taxi either Kharkov or Dnieper. As for the period since January of
this year, AWOL has become smaller. But. Firstly, this topic was
strictly forbidden to comment, and secondly, they began to punish very
harshly, up to white slippers (all exclusively rumors).
I judge from the reports of acquaintances. You see, the problem of AWOL
is not entirely obvious. Holding back an unmotivated mass of fighters,
there is a risk of a riot. To educate and motivate fighters - you need a
backbone and time, at least half a year, but there is no time. So it
turns out that it was easier to "let go" of a couple and not to
disintegrate the entire team, than to motivate. Now they have started to
fight AWOL, which will lead, in my personal opinion, to bigger problems
than the escape itself. Therefore, experienced fighters and units do not
want to get involved with new arrivals, since this is a burden and an
increase in risk. As a result, new arrivals have a high percentage of
losses, which leads to a decrease in motivation and so on in a circle.
In general, everyone understands everything. The motive is one - to
survive. The problem is different. To survive for an "experienced"
fighter is a continuation of the war, there he knows everything, and in
peace he will have to answer for a lot and lose a lot of material
resources. And for a busified one, to survive means to stop the war.
Because in a war he has little chance. There are often transitions from
the busified to the "experienced."»
Mass disobedience by entire military units in Ukraine is already in the
past, and there is also no serious threat to the regime from the
dissatisfied civilians. Passers-by respond to daily mobilisation
kidnapping with pepper spray, knives and fists. Supermarket shoppers
respond to wild rise in the cost of living with personal shoplifting.
Two more spectacular attacks occurred back in 2024, and only recently
came to light through court decisions.
A 79-year-old resident of the Bogodukhov district in the Kharkov region
without criminal records received a 4-year imprisonment with a
probationary period of 1 year for burning down his village council
building with a bottle of gasoline. The pensioner fully admitted his
guilt and sincerely repented, the reason for the arson was a long
conflict after the refusal of a subsidy in 2017 - many years of bullying
by village officials and ignoring his complaints. In the city of
Kharkov, a court considered the case of a repeatedly convicted military
serviceman from Transcaprathia for especially aggravated hooliganism.
According to the case materials, being outraged at the unit's commanders
for the lack of a response to his report on leaving, he drunkenly
entered the headquarters with two fragmentation grenades and, saying "do
you know what this is?", detonated them on the table. The people managed
to run outside and were not hurt. The judge closed the case due to the
defendant's death. The cause of death is not indicated, only the date of
May 29.
On March 26, the court in Poltava extended the preventive measure for
Vadym Kuzub and Yevhen Shcherbak for another 36 days. The first one
confessed that two months earlier he killed an enlistment agent in
Piryatin and seized his assault rifle, the other is accused of aiding in
obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces during the special
period. They will remain in custody until May 1 inclusive, i.e. either a
petition to the court to extend the pre-trial investigation or a bill of
indictment should be filed just on Workers' Solidarity Day. Meanwhile,
all the solidarity of workers with Vadim boiled down to applause him on
social networks for a couple of days - instead of at least sending
parcels to jail and supporting him at court hearings. These same people
are indignant that "there are only silent slaves around," "why are there
so few people's avengers?" etc. What to say here?
The only example of an enterprise strike we have recorded in Ukraine
since last year occurred on April 5 in the western town of Drohobych.
Not a single minibus took to the route as the previous day one driver
was taken from his workplace to the enlistment centre for a medical
examination. "Can drivers work in such a mode? Probably no. Is there an
alternative replacement? The human resource is exhausted. There is
not.[...]And making a reservation for employees is almost unreal," the
chairman of this Sigma LLC stated in a later removed Facebook post. The
regional territorial recruitment centre of Lviv denied the forceful
detention and added that the reservation is the responsibility of the
company's management.
An ex-recruit from Nikolaev, who fled from a training centre last year
and crossed the border through the Carpathian Mountains, explains us on
this matter:
«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
rebellion against them. If they can maim, then why can't they? I had a
situation when I was still in Ukraine: I was just driving past a bus
stop where the TRCists started to press a guy, I stopped and called out
to him "jump in", the guy managed to sit down and run away from them.
And all the other videos I watch - they beat the guy, twist him, not a
single beast will stop, will not help him escape. But everything is
moving towards a civil war against Zelya. Because the lawlessness is
growing more and more. But it is all delayed while people cannot unite.
Even abroad, Ukrainians are not very friendly with Ukrainians. Here[in
Spain where he lives]Ukrainians cheat Ukrainians out of money, housing,
work. But the further, the more people unite. Not against Putin, but
against the TRCists. They fight off the guys. As one military man said:
"Why fight for a country that will spit in your back anyway." I like the
news even more, like in our region in Voznesensk[in late February, a
drunk runaway military threw a fragmentation grenade onto the enlistment
office's territory because of a quarrel with his wife and "negative
perception of their activities", the explosion disabled two service
cars, he was taken into custody without bail being set]. Many soldiers
want to do the same, or shoot up the TRC, or blow it up. This is not
even a desire, but plans for the future - because everyone I know who
serves, all express a desire to take revenge on the TRCs for dragging
them out. In training, one guy was a mountain guide in Uzhgorod, and his
fellow villager from the TRC got caught. He promised him: when he gets
back, he will shoot dead this asshole.»
https://cdn4.suspilne.media/images/resize/720×1.78/6223b5d9fa43d77f.jpg
Angela Gurina. From the state TV website
On April 4, the regional court of appeal of Chernivtsi confirmed the
prison term to Angela Gurina from December 9, 2024. She worked for two
local news outlets and was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment for
coverage of mobilisation violence. According to the verdict, her video
viewed on TikTok by 8,600 people shows a military facility - the
regional assembly point near the Military Law Enforcement Service in
Chernivtsi, it is forbidden under martial law. The journalist was
detained in August 2024. Her advocate insisted that it was filming not a
military facility but a possible human rights violation. The video was
titled "Saving a guy." Angela subsequently deleted it. The lawyer also
argued that the location of the object is publicly known, and it is not
a combat unit or military formation. "The appellant's assertion that the
person did not intend to harm the internal and external security of
Ukraine does not refute the commission of the charged offense by her,"
notes the decision. The court also took into account the negative
characteristics of the woman, indicating that she repeatedly got into
conflicts with TCR servicemen, with video recording of confrontations
and its posting. The defence intends to continue the process in the
Supreme Court.
Passive sabotage of war remains strong. 9,658 enforcement proceedings on
overdue and unpaid administrative fines for violating military
registration rules have been opened since the beginning of this year.
This is almost as many as for the whole of 2023, when there were 10,541.
Another 1,259 fines issued in 2025 were paid, according to the
Opendatabot infographic from March 10. This is only every seventh,
compared to every second last year.
More serious risk for the regime now is that the possible ceasefire
could trigger a new, even more massive wave of spontaneous
demobilisation. Time will tell what will come of this.
Photo: company commander of the 155th Mechanized Brigade, taken into
custody in January on suspicion of unauthorised leaving his unit and
inciting his subordinates to do so. Source: the State Bureau of
Investigation
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2025/05/01/anti-war-direct-action-in-ukraine-in-the-midst-of-peace-talks/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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