Right over might
Every Westerner I’ve spoken to since returning to eastern Ukraine has asked me the same question, usually with the same underlying assumption: “Oh, what’s the mood like there? I guess it’s pretty grim.”
There’s always a limit to how cheerful one can be when Russia is bombarding your city daily and you are over 1,000 days into a gruelling war, that you are essentially fighting alone. However, from my perspective, the mood here isn’t any grimmer than usual—if anything, it feels a bit lighter.
Kharkiv at night, with the lights on :)
It’s important to note that my experience primarily involves soldiers, volunteers, and the families of soldiers. This perspective isn’t entirely representative of the broader civilian population, whose views I intend to explore in another post. That said, the prevailing attitude to Trump’s election here can be summed up as: “Well, it will be bad, but who knows how bad? Things were bad anyway under Biden.” The fundamentals remain unchanged: Russia seeks to destroy Ukraine, as it has for centuries, and there is zero credible evidence it will not just continue to pursue that goal. As one commander in Zaporizhzhia told me during a three-hour conversation, “I have been fighting since 2014, if I have to keep fighting to the Carpathians, to the last tank, so be it—I will have to fight then. There is no way out of this, we gave birth to them [Russia], we have to finish them.”
This attitude isn’t without its nuances. While I can never fully process all my thoughts while in the field, I wanted this post to serve as a snapshot of that mindset in practice—of fighting against overwhelming odds. To illustrate this, I’ve compiled several examples of acts of violent resistance and sabotage in the occupied territories that took place over the last two weeks (taken only from open sources, not intended to be exhaustive):
Acts of Resistance and Sabotage
On 8th November, the Mariupol Resistance sabotaged railway tracks between Kalchyk and Kicheksu stations in Donetsk Oblast (north of Mariupol district) at 1229-1235 km of the Donetsk railway. This operation caused a collision between two locomotives, derailing two wagons and damaging power lines. Repairs took until November 14, effectively halting rail movement for nearly a week.
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On 19th November, the Pryazovya Resistance Forces targeted a former National Police officer now collaborating with Russian forces in Dniprorudne, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Captain Andriy Fisun, who had defected and ratted out Ukrainian patriots in occupied areas, was attacked around 7 PM. While the operation didn’t kill Fisun, he sustained severe injuries and was hospitalised. The SSO confirmed the operation’s success.
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In the same week, Berdyansk resistance forces coordinated an attack at the Berdiansk Seaport, meaning fuel on a barge at the sixth berth wasn’t offloaded, and attempts to extinguish the fire failed despite dispatching firefighters. Supply chains were significantly disrupted and the gauleiter collaborator official in charge of the region complained about the disruption to Russia’s ongoing attempts to extract all of Ukraine’s minerals and wealth for Russia’s use.
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ATESH, a Crimea-based resistance movement destroyed a relay cabinet on the railway near Urozhayne, Tokmak district, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, disrupting the supply of military equipment and fuel to the Russian forces gathering ahead of an anticipated offensive on Zaporizhzhia.
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ATESH also destroyed a Russian drone unit in Donetsk Oblast. An agent infiltrated the Russian army six months ago, passing on intelligence that enabled a successful strike on UAV operators. Result: 2 killed (“200s”), 3 injured (“300s”).
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Dzhankoi Bridge: The Novoazovsk Resistance destroyed part of the Dzhankoi bridge, causing major logistical disruptions.
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Sevastopol Car Bombing: On 13th November, an IED attached to the car of Valeriy T., chief of staff of the 41st Brigade of Rocket Ships and Boats, detonated remotely on Taras Shevchenko Street, killing him at 10 AM. The Crimean Partisan resistance forces had tracked him for seven days.
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The S.R.O.K. Partisans conducted a psychological warfare capmpaign against a collaborator witht the surname Zubarev. Known for aiding occupation authorities, he recently received an award from Russian authorities.
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Zaporizhzhia Sabotage: the S.R.O.K. Partisans destroyed a mobile fueling station used by the occupiers because the Ukrainians have taken out so much of their stationary fuel sources (using coordinates provided by the resistance), further disrupting alternative supply methods that the Russian forces desperately need.
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An inconvenient truth
These examples highlight the systematic, organised and ongoing nature of resistance efforts that inflict tangible military and logistical damage on occupying forces. As talks about negotiations intensify, these partisans’ struggles and successes will become ever more inconvenient to those Western politicians who would prefer to ignore them or not know about the resistance. Which only makes it all the more important to acknowledge the partisans and their activities, to understand the sustained nature of these operations, from sabotaging railways to assasinating Russian officials responsible for the torture and murder of Ukrainians.
The car of a local from an occupied village (since liberated). The Russians stole the car and spray-painted it with their Z symbol.
The types of attacks listed above are complemented by innumerable less direct or even non-violent actions, such as providing intelligence for strikes or painting ‘Luhansk is Ukraine’ in a city occupied since 2014. Even under occupation in a state governed by fear and repression, these partisans display a very rare sense of right and wrong. Their acts of defiance reflect a deeply ingrained determination to resist Russian aggression. It’s not just about isolated flashes of courage—it’s a testament to the enduring strength of pro-Ukrainian sentiment, even as the resilience, courage and strength of Ukraine’s partners falters ever more shamefully.
As one official in a frontline village told me today: “The West’s concern-to-weapons delivery correlation is going in the wrong direction: weapons delivery is decreasing, while expressions of concern are increasing. It should be the opposite.” This official, who endured Russian imprisonment and knows he would be executed if captured again, remains committed to resisting in every possible way.
Some might argue that the Ukrainian partisans’ resistance is futile—that they cannot hope to defeat the Russian army in the occupied territories. Perhaps they’re right. But the partisans are in the right. As alien as this may sound to some, on ocassion moral clarity can trump practical considerations. If a group of gangsters came to your house, imprisoned you and started regularly raping your wife, you may well try to resist them, find ways to kill them to get them out of your house, even though you are outnumbered, the police don’t care and aren’t coming, and everyone else in your neighbourhood is just keeping their heads down to avoid the gangsters doing the same to them. In this case, you may well not think about strategy or advantage—you will probably be driven by a sense of deep injustice, a desire to protect what you love and what is yours, and by a basic human sense of right versus wrong. Perhaps it sounds abstract in the Western European context but it doesn’t feel abstract when the gangsters come to your home.
Mural in Izyum. It reads: ‘I am learning how to cut out every unnecessary thing’
Fundraising
Researching the Ukrainian resistance is fascinating and psychologically demanding work. I can only imagine how much more demanding it must be for those actually from these areas. Crimea SOS has been providing excellent research into the conditions, reality and resistance in Crimea since 2014. They are an excellent source to follow for more news on this topic and they also very much welcome, and deserve, donations for their work in sharing the story of Crimea that does not fit into Russian propaganda, and keeping that story alive.