Cover photo: Italian translation of spring Assembly’s materials review at anarchist anti-war mid-July event in Northern Italy. More general issues were covered last week in this interview for the WSWS. And you are welcome to join this fundraising to support further activities. Many thanks everyone in advance!
“A premonition of civil war” is in the air of Ukraine. According to official information, 4.6 million people updated their military registration data in the two-month period up to July 17, and at least 6 million others “are subject to automatic administrative liability.” That is, about half of the country’s male population finds itself in a practically illegal position.
Just had been published on July 14 the Assembly’s analysis on dozens of street direct actions against mobilization since the beginning of this year, the country was shaken by another clash: the evening of the same day, in the Odessa region, border guards stopped a car with four recruits who had escaped from a training battalion, one of whom, mobilized a month ago, allegedly began to strangle a border guard and was shot dead. Already next night, in the first hours of the 15th, a grenade flew into an enlistment office in the Zolochiv district of the Lviv region (only the windows and the facade were damaged). Finally, on the evening of July 19, FariOFF happened in Lviv.
The shooting of one of the most scandalous far-right opinion leaders in Ukraine, odious even to the commanders and militants of Azov for her hatred of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, was the first street murder of a politician during the full-scale Russian invasion. Even her opponents began to speak anxiously about the threat of turning the imperialist war into a civil war. 18-year-old suspect Vyacheslav Zinchenko, an adherent of NS/WP, was detained on July 25 in the city of Dniepr; he allegedly planned to join the army later. In the manifesto of the “autonomous revolutionary racist” appeared in neo-Nazi channels, Farion is accused of inciting hatred between white people and is called an internal enemy, while the Ukrainian military is fighting an external enemy. A day before, 32-year-old Mikhail Tonkonogov, a well-known volunteer and chairman of the city’s auto carriers union, was found dead in a forest belt near the same Dniepr. The police claim that on July 22 he met with two residents aged 23 and 39, as a result of the conflict they killed him with six shots and buried the body. They were detained and were suspected of premeditated murder by prior agreement. There is also a version that Tonkonogov was killed for some debt: auto transportation in Ukraine is a very corrupt business, and it is well known that refusing to pay someone at the top for the opportunity to do this can cost one’s life. Perhaps this is why the activist’s murder did not receive much resonance in society.
In such an atmosphere, it is not surprising that on June 19, the bill No. 6569-d on the establishment of the military police in Ukraine to combat desertion and disciplinary violations was adopted in the first reading. In order to at least partially ease tensions in society, on July 17, the Ukrainian parliament also voted in the first reading and took as a basis the bill No. 11322, under which a serviceman who has committed unauthorized leaving of the unit (Ukrainian abbreviation: SZCh) or desertion commited the first time will be able to return to service with all payments and support, without being brought to criminal liability. His intention must be approved by the commander. A lawyer from Kharkov who communicates a lot with the military and security forces told the Assembly about this:
“There are more than 100 thousand trained people there, they want to bring them back. It is more profitable to agitate for their return. But in what form will it be… If there are good conditions, at least 40% will return. Because they fled due to the stupidity of their commanders. If they are treated humanely, many will return. The issue is in provision. Many will want to avoid being brought in by force and being enrolled in assault battalions of prisoners. Not only is there a shortage of people there, even just holding positions is a big plus. Now there are 120 thousand SZChs. 60 thousand will return and that will be wow.”
From other Kharkov interlocutors of our media this summer. Like most of the follow-up evidence, it was presented in the articles “SZCh as a new trend,” “The time for fragging?” and “Totalitarianism, heat, July”:
“Until the mechanism is clear, statements mean nothing. I think there will be a conversation with the staff, that the cops will find everyone based on the data and then they will still drive them from the zone to the field. In general, preventive conversations are constantly held, but the soldiers do not care when the command does not know how to command. Many go to SZCh through the indifference at the top, despite all the warnings and intimidation.
I have two friends in SZCh from Saltovka, they tried to resolve the dismissal through lawyers and it did not work. They were tired of getting it, they saw everything with their own eyes. Often the command ignores the treatment of the soldiers, they do not return to duty already from the hospital. They give a period of return, for example, a week, and the soldier only gets tests done in a week. Naturally, people choose their health.”
“My godfather has already finished fighting. He went on vacation and did not come back. Everyone is fed up with everything. I called the commander and told him, he was not surprised. He lives in his apartment according to his registration, so far no one has even come. I fought for a year and a half, that’s enough. Half a battalion of them. For how long – I didn’t ask, he doesn’t really care. They don’t put in jail, they send back to the unit, and then we’ll see.”
“My brother came back from Toretsk without a leg, and those who were with him didn’t come back, they shoved him into a minibus in the evening, in the morning he was already in Dniepr… They packed him up a little over a month ago, brought him to the hospital in Vinnitsa a week ago. He didn’t stay in training for long, two weeks. He didn’t try to get out of there. I think if it were real, then everyone who was forced into it would have escaped. There are no more patriots, those of mine who went on their own at 22, three are already in the ground, one is missing, but when they came on leave, they all said that you have nothing to do there!!!”
On July 1st, a hand-held megaphone of the President’s Office posted about the protest in the 14th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kupyansk direction. Even his audience thinks that fragging is better than complaints: “Let them shoot the officer, what’s the big deal? Read about Vietnam and the mysterious 1,000 deaths of US officers”
Will the phrase “to go to a lecture of Farion” become a modern synonym for “to go to the headquarters of Dukhonin”, that is, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Provisional Government, lynched by sailors and soldiers at the end of 1917? Our portal wrote about a light case of soldier’s lynching from the words of a Kharkov metro driver at the beginning of this summer: “Many acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances are on the run, they do not return after vacation. A simple example. The guys fought since 2014. At night, of course, they drink. In the morning there was a battle, one was killed. The puppy commander of 22 took the remains for examination, that there was alcohol in the blood, so that his relatives would not receive payments. They beat him up and left the unit for their native Lviv. I was driving in a car, I saw three soldiers standing. One was in slippers, that’s why I noticed. I stopped and asked where I could get a free ride (I’m not afraid of them, I have a reservation). I took them to the bus station, and they opened up to me,” he told anonymously on June 2.
Politician and propagandist Alexei Arestovich, close to the Presidential Office, stated in his interview on June 22: “If we throw more and more people into the fire, well, I can give you an example – we had a breakthrough near Toretsk. Do you think it was because life was good? There will be several more in the near future. I can give you an example: on one of the key sections of the front, the day before yesterday, 6 battalions refused to carry out a combat mission. Six. Do you think this is the only case? Do you think this will not happen again, do you think it will not escalate? This is not so. Despite all the Western aid, because at the root lies the wrong attitude towards people, and people pay – what? – with disloyalty. The same as 100 years ago. When 5 thousand Bolsheviks [in fact, there were also a lot of anarchists or left socialists revolutionaries, – Ed.] were marching on Kiev, there were one and a half million soldiers in Ukraine with experience of the First World War. They would have crushed and not noticed these Bolsheviks. Why didn’t they come out, why did 300 students come out? One and a half million veterans! Heroes, as we say today. No one lifted a finger, the students went. Because the government pursued such a policy, the government of that time, that no one cared about it, there was no loyalty, no one wanted to protect it. We are going down exactly the same path – look at the number of people entering military schools, look at the number of those who refuse.” From his words, the recruitment of future officers is completed at less than 50% and this figure is “very small for the largest European state.”
On April 6, in the Kherson region, an AFU sergeant fired at his commander (with the rank of major) after he refused to give him leave. The bullet hit the ceiling, no one was hurt. The shooter had his automatic rifle taken away and was sent to a psychiatric center. He managed to escape on the way, the search results are unknown.
Some AFU instructor told one of the main political Telegram channels of Ukraine about a mass desertion from the training unit. “A couple of months ago, reinforcements arrived – seafarers were taken off the ships and sent to serve in the marines. These are contractors, whom at the beginning of the war, when signing a contract, the Ukrainian Navy command promised that they would serve only on ships. But recently, the command removed personnel from several ships at once. They were transferred to marine brigades. On the way from the ships to training, some of these guys escaped. Almost none of the escapees were found. I think that many have already fled from Ukraine,” the post from July 17 says. The location of the events is not specified. However, if we are talking about mid-May, it is notoriously that Ukrainian troops were then hastily pulling together reserves to stop the Russian offensive north of Kharkov. Marines of the 36th brigade are fighting there now.
The Telegram channel of the Atesh movement, which works for Ukrainian military intelligence in Crimea, wrote on July 15 about the 810th marine brigade from Sevastopol: “After numerous failures in Krynki, part of the brigade has already advanced to the Kharkov section of the front. Due to heavy losses in the Kherson direction, more than 100 people refused to take part in further combat operations. The wounded are left in hospitals in Henichesk and Skadovsk. They do not have time to fill the staff with new people, and the command reports 75% of the brigade’s combat readiness.” If seafarers from both sides refused to shoot at each other, can this be considered a kind of remote fraternization?
Memetic frame depicting, on the right, a man who is forcibly drafted off a Kharkov street in the winter of 2024 and, on the left, the classic cartoon “On the offensive” from the First World War
Yesterday it became known that Yevgeny Zarubin, a resident of Kursk and a former Wagnerist, fled from the 138th guards motorized rifle brigade of the Russian Armed Forces. He recorded a viral video in the middle of this month about heavy losses in an assault of Volchansk. After this, he had to retract his words. He led former criminal prisoners and guilty mobilized soldiers, as well as those who had recently signed a contract, into the storming. Since July 28, he himself is wanted for unauthorized leaving of the unit; his weapon has also disappeared.
On July 26, nine convicts escaped from a training ground in the Belgorod region (bordering the Kharkov region on the Russian side), and three more escaped the next day. According to the photo description, one of them was imprisoned for murder, the second for causing grievous bodily harm, and the third for illegal deprivation of liberty. The rest were serving time under more lenient articles.
On July 11, in the border village of Kozinka (the Graivoron district of the same Belgorod region), a contract military from Chuvashia shot two of his colleagues and wounded another one, fleeing with a weapon and ammunition. In 2011, 28-year-old Aleksei Zhuravlyov committed a robbery in a group of people, for which he was later convicted. Before his service, he worked as a window installer and pipe fitter. On July 15, it became known that the deserter was detained in the same district. The reasons for the shooting are given in social networks in different ways. According to one version, Zhuravlyov did not want to fight and allegedly did not see any other way out for himself, according to another, the motive could have been revenge for humiliation.
The most epic example of such a shooting remains the act of Russian contract junior sergeant Yury Galushko, who killed six persons at a command post in Donetsk on the night of May 4 because his mother was injured during the shelling of Kharkov. He fled with his weapons; there is no information about his arrest or death to this day. Also, in late spring, the Assembly mentioned Russian mobilized fighters Pavel Fursenko and Maxim Potekhin, arrested in the Lugansk region on suspicion of murdering a commander, but the details of what happened are unknown.
Concerning the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”, the Telegram channel Mobilization DPR Live made a compilation on June 6 about three shot combats (battalion commanders). It claims that among those killed by Galushko was his combat. On the penultimate day of spring this year, this channel reported on the death of a motorized riflemen commander from the Gorlovka military unit at the hands of his subordinates: “At the training ground of the Karl Marx mine village near Yenakiyevo, fighters of military unit 52892 (one of the subunits of the former 08803), driven to madness and despair, shot dead the commander of the 1st motorized rifle battalion of the 132 brigade, call sign “Small”, name Andrey. This combat killed thousands of people, those who were kept on leave in a cell in Nikitovka. The day before, a shell landed there, those who should not have been there died. The situation in this unit is tense, it is unbearably hard for the guys to serve with such incompetent commanders,” said a source of Mobilization DPR.
The third episode in their list is from a year ago: in the so-called “Lugansk People’s Republic” on May 24, 2023, a company commander allegedly shot a battalion commander in the head because they wanted to send them to be butchered. A male voice with a Donbass accent says this in the referred video. The frame shows the dead body in a large pool of blood, with a screaming nurse rushing around. They also provide a description from the FSB for the neighboring Rostov region: “On May 24, 2023, in the town of Lisichansk, LPR, servicemen of the “Storm Z” detachment committed the murder of a serviceman of the LPR Ministry of Defense and the subsequent escape from the special military operation zone. A total of 39 people are wanted, they may be armed with automatic weapons” (we also wrote about this story when it happened). However, there is a discrepancy: the channel concluded that the video with the killed officer relates to the escape in the Luhansk region based on the date of its appearance. But there are men in Ukrainian pixel uniforms, and in the comments under the post, a reader noted that this probably happened in the Dnepropetrovsk region. More likely, these were two different stories on different sides of the front. The rank and position of the one killed while trying to stop deserters in Lisichansk is still unclear.
Summer street agitation in Odessa from other participants of the Prague May Week: “You are not alone” and “The life of an Odessit is more valuable than their bank accounts.” In the thing referred below their admin tells about free spray cans for subscribers
The mentioned Assembly’s study on violent confrontation between civilians and mobilizers has not yet been translated into English. In total, we have recorded about 40 cases from the beginning of this year until mid-summer: from night grenade attacks on enlistment torturers to mass riots or individual armed resistance the kidnappers. People use knifes, spray cans, heavy blunt objects, on June 4 even threw tomatoes at visitors during a raid on a market in Kherson. At the same time, the survey did not include the equally regular arsons of relay cabinets, electrical substations, and military vehicles – not only Ukrainian security forces, but also a number of independent sources link them to Russian recruiters of easy money seekers on Telegram and the Darknet.
The arming in the working class is a separate matter. “Buying a gun is not difficult at all. An automatic rifle is three thousand, a pistol is 1500, last year went to Staryi Saltov to buy from the soldiers, but if the cops find it, it’s a criminal offense for 5 years, no less. This is in hryvnia. The dude took two AKs, I’m scared, I already had a similar conviction. There’s a very fine line between [criminal articles] 156 and 157, I jumped from 157 to 156, I don’t remember the points, but they were easy. They sold everything from boots to thermal imagers, or asked one of the locals to go to a pawnshop in Kharkov for a share. These are trophies, there was there like shit. There was a whole sale there – generators, cartridges [for firearms], uniforms. Many people got hold of gens, boots, cartridges. I wouldn’t mess with the military or rifles now, even if they accidentally find it, they can knock you off, or an article, put you in jail anyway, plus they will torture you, asking you what you need all this for. By the way, I heard about a case where a man in Kupyansk in 22 collected weapons abandoned by the AFU in a barn, then when the Russians found them, they beat him up and sent him to the FSB. The FSB kept him in suspense for a month, then let him go. The arsenal, of course, was taken away,” tells a mechanic from one of Kharkov’s municipal enterprises.
Of course, the chronicle of the Ukrainian rear social war need to be updated since then. Odessa, known for its traditions of combative anarchism, is especially rich in news. On July 19, a crowd of passers-by blocked the road at Privoz, preventing the police from detaining a driver who allegedly did not stop at a checkpoint. In the scrimmage, the cop’s uniform was torn off, naked to the waist, he fired a pistol into the air and doused an elder woman with pepper spray. Last week, in the suburban village of Tairovo, a local deputy got allegedly beaten for helping to distribute military draft notices, and in Odessa, someone burned a neighbor’s Suzuki for his swastika tattoo (if believe the social networks).
If we take seriously the statements of the Ukrainian authorities about their readiness for negotiations with Russia, so long-awaited for a significant part of Ukrainian society, all sense is lost in the widely announced autumn counteroffensive and the total mobilization. Even without further practical steps, these speeches threaten to further undermine the motivation of the troops, where the personnel will logically decide: what is the point of mass deaths on the threshold of negotiations? Moreover, the force mobilization on the streets for the planned breakthrough of the front by means of superiority in manpower becomes meaningless and gives the draft dodgers even more confidence that it is necessary to hide, as there is not much time left to wait. Therefore, no matter what tricks are standing behind such statements, they threaten an even more serious growth of anti-war insistence at the front and in the rear. The process is going in accordance with our winter forecast that 2024 will be a key year for the formation of a revolutionary situation similar to the WWI scenario.
Glory to evaders, trenches to serfs! Everything will be Evadia!
https://libcom.org/article/judge-lynch-you-have-floor-murder-farion-amid-decay-processes-warring-armies