Recent weeks have seen an escalation of hostilities in the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict. Both sides are exchanging brutal blows not only on the front lines but also in each other's rear areas. Against this backdrop, public self-organization and grassroots resistance remain a symbol of hope.
A mass protest against mobilization in Lviv came as a real shock to Ukraine. On the evening of July 8, after the "people-catchers" from the TCC (Travel Center for Social Development) overpowered and took away a man, public outrage erupted. Around 200 spontaneously assembled protesters (mostly young people) blocked TCC vehicles, chanting "Shame!" One of the vehicles was smashed and overturned, and the "people-catchers" barely escaped. The standoff continued for several hours. ( https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/cy4ezj5985jo ).The panicked authorities urgently deployed repressive reinforcements to the city; a headhunt began. Those caught were forced to publicly apologize. Although, contrary to the authorities' fears, the protests did not spread to other cities, this "wake-up call" clearly demonstrated to Ukraine's rulers what awaited them in the near future.
It is possible that, precisely to divert attention from the maturing threat and to raise nationalist spirit in Kyiv and other cities, a "cardboard Maidan" was urgently organized as part of a showdown between various groups within the ruling clique.
Describing the current situation, the Kharkiv libertarian website "Assembly" lists examples of resistance in its own region: "It's no secret that the Kharkiv region leads the country in 'attacks' on shopping malls (whatever that means), but mass riots like those on June 14 in Kyiv's Troyeshchyna or on July 8 in Lviv's Sykhiv have never occurred here. The trend toward uniting to defend lives and streets, as in 1918-1919 against Petliura's pogromists, is only just beginning here." The website provides the following chronicle of the confrontation:
"On May 26, in the village of Sakhnovshchina in the Berestinsky district (...), a group of local residents used tear gas and smashed a TCC cart with a telescopic baton, also inflicting injuries of varying severity on the uninvited guests (...)"
"On June 25, in the Saltovsky district of Kharkov, at around 4:00 p.m., a man wanted for evading conscription stabbed two police officers during a document check and was soon captured (...)"
"The following day, the Kharkiv Regional Central Communications Center reported the murder of a member of the "alert group" (...); the man stopped on the street allegedly also used a knife and fled (...)"
"On July 12, the village of Orelka in the Lozovsky district turned hot (...). A soldier from the security platoon was hospitalized with an open head injury, a brain contusion, and multiple skull and facial fractures. The suspect was sent to the Kharkiv pretrial detention center (...). According to local lore, when a crowd of locals clashed with the TCC, he was performing repair work at a substation on Selyanska Street, where he picked up a half-meter-long rebar, which (...) he threw at the gas van carrying the abducted passerby as it was leaving the scene."
On July 13, in the Slobodskoy district, "people catchers initially stopped two conscripts, after which three soldiers-two from the army and one from the National Guard-came to their aid." Those resisting arrest used a gas canister and damaged a TCC vehicle, injuring one employee. All five were eventually apprehended by police.
On July 21, during a document check at the Kharkiv bus station, a man fought off TCC employees with a knife, wounding three... ( https://assembly.org.ua/ot-odinochnoy-zashhity-k-gruppovoj-busifikacziya-i-bron-posle-otstavki-fedorova-i-syrskogo/)
While the forced abduction of people and their dispatch to slaughter remains the primary cause of growing outrage, it's not the only factor driving the protests. In Kyiv, residents protested the deforestation of a park in Teremki. "People began protesting the large-scale tree felling carried out by utility workers, ostensibly for the construction of a new heating main. However, according to locals, the actual plan is to build an office center and a parking lot on the site of the park," reported one Telegram channel. Authorities deployed riot police to disperse the protesters, claiming, "Unlike the 'cardboard Maidan,' this protest was not coordinated with the authorities. The problem is that this park doesn't actually belong to the people: it's run by corrupt officials" ( https://t.me/gnapinfo/4638 ).
In Odessa, according to a local Telegram channel on August 11, residents blocked traffic due to a prolonged power outage during the height of the heat (at the corner of Myasoedovskaya and Bolgarskaya streets) ( https://t.me/xydessa_live/79507 ).
Power outages are caused both by Russian shelling and by the authorities' continued sale of electricity to Romania. After all, business comes first, right?
Meanwhile, in Russian-controlled territories, people are also dissatisfied with the situation. After all, ordinary people, with their daily concerns, don't care who rules them. They want to live peacefully and with dignity, and they have less and less faith in their rulers' ability to provide such a life.
In Crimea, which the Ukrainian authorities subject to relentless shelling and bombing (even though they continue to claim that the local population and the territory they inhabit on the peninsula belong to them, so, by their logic, they are exterminating their own citizens!), residents, unable to receive sufficient aid from the Russian authorities or faced with impenetrable bureaucracy, are organizing themselves to help. Amid days of power outages, residents of Yalta are lighting fires in their yards and cooking soup, distributing it to children. Volunteers are delivering bottled drinking water, cereals, canned goods, wet wipes, generators, and fuel to remote small villages in northern Crimea (where there are no large stores). To keep the dolphinarium in western Crimea open, people, following a call from its director on social media, raised money for three to four months of operation... ( https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c5yek2851xzo )
In the village of Balki in the Zaporizhia region, residents took to the streets on August 3rd with placards, protesting the two-month-long water and electricity blackout. These have been out since May 21st. Residents are forced to buy their own water and live with generators. Authorities have not organized water delivery. Almost the entire Kamensko-Dniprovskyi district remains without power, including the villages of Novodneprovka, Blagoveshchenka, Podovoye, Novovodanoye, Ivanovka, Gurtovoye, Tsvetkov, Dneprovka, and Vodyanoye. Those who demonstrated under the slogan "We want to live like human beings" recorded a video appeal to higher authorities and distributed it. Afterward, law enforcement officials began visiting the protesters and forcing them to write explanatory statements. One of the participants is accused of holding an "unauthorized rally." However, the head of the Russian regional administration promised to take the issue of restoring the power grid "under special control" and instructed municipal leaders to "intensify" their efforts to deliver water.
https://aitrus.info/node/6377
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
