Sabotage and poison: How Ukrainians resist Russian occupation | Defence in Depth

Sabotage and poison: How Ukrainians resist Russian occupation | Defence in Depth

is to go unnoticed you need to blend into the crowd dress inconspicuously don’t swear prepare an alibi and be punctual if someone is 2 minutes late to meet you assume they’ve been captured these are the rules Ukrainian resistance Fighters live by and sometimes die by in occupied Ukraine since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we have occasionally heard reports of car bombing in occupied areas of honey traps and poisonings but quite what the size scope and support from outside the underground movement looks like has never properly been examined until [Music] now in a new report by Dr Jade mlin senior associate at the center for strategic and International Studies called Crossing thresholds Ukrainian resistance to Russian occupation the Ukrainian underground is put into sharper Focus than ever before well outside a very tight circle of Ukrainian and possibly Western officials the paper says the Ukrainian patriotic partisan movement comprises many thousands of ukrainians covering all manner of activities from Distributing yellow ribbons to assassinating Russian secret policemen they do this despite overwhelming enemy surveillance and potentially deadly consequences if caught taking as her starting point the basic code of conduct for Ukrainian underground Fighters as set out by the national resistance Center of Ukraine that’s the Ukrainian government’s online resource to support the Patriotic resistance under occupation Dr mlin sought to shine what light was possible and sensible into the dark corners of partisan activity after extensive search inside Ukraine including in recently liberated areas and having spoken to many individuals involved in the partisan movement to greater or lesser degrees Dr mlin says that in many Russian occupied towns and cities torture chambers run by the Russian FSB operate in plain sight as a demonstrative form of intimidation she has heard numerous reports of sexualized torture such as electric shocks to genitalia and the removal of fingernails rape and mutilation [Music] she says such performative terror is used to compel ukrainians into submission life under Russian control is grim she concludes with egregious crimes spanning large scale child abduction torture extrajudicial killings and the use of locals as human Shields beyond the individual experience there are the wider attacks on culture Society on the very identity of Ukrainian people hundreds of thousands of Russian people have been encouraged often financially to relocate to the so-called new regions of eastern Ukraine and Crimea these resettlements are part of a deliberate strategy of ethnic cleansing as Russia seeks to dilute the Ukrainian identity in these areas such actions make a mockery of calls from often willfully ignorant Kremlin apologists that a simple referendum is the easiest way to decide which country these regions should be part of with Moscow having systemically loaded these areas with Russian Nationals since 2014 that’s not going to be a very fair vote but then the Kremlin and Putin’s helpful Stooges in the west spouting such nonsense already know that so what does life in the occupied territories look like well much of it is heavily inforced by the near mandatory acquisition of Russian passports providing access not only to essential services like prescriptions and pensions but also Emergency Services the lack of a Russian passport can even lead to the seizure of property it is remarkable then that according to Ukraine’s National resistance Center which used Russia’s own census and electoral data at least 60% of ukrainians in the occupied territories have refused Russian passports 80% have refused to put Russian license plates on their cars one person who spoke to Dr mlin from an area occupied since 2014 but who is unable to leave said I won’t take a Russian passport if I do then who will be here to greet our boys when they liberate us where will all the ukrainians be I will greet our boys as a Ukrainian [Music] very clearly many in these areas have not given up even those for whom age health or personal circumstance makes violence impossible there are still nonviolent ways to resist in this and maybe without even knowing it they are following the lessons of the mackelli of nonviolence political scientist Jean sharp the 2011 film how to start a revolution focuses on the teachings of Sharp’s groundbreaking book from dictatorship to democracy a conceptual framework for Liberation it was published nearly 20 years earlier it’s basically a guide on how to overthrow dictators the work has been used in Revolutions in Serbia Egypt Syria and elsewhere it describes 198 methods of nonviolent action the importance of using colors and symbols for example around which resistors can rally the use of the English language to appeal to an international audience the measured application of Civil Disobedience Jee sharp died in 2018 but were he alive today he would recognize many of the techniques and activities being employed in occupied Ukraine Dr mclin’s paper identifies four distinct types of resistance number one private resistance this could be the reading of Ukrainian literature or speaking the Ukrainian language within the home it might be sending children to neighbors so they seem to be leaving home for school but do not actually attend a place of Russian indoctrination or it could be the refusal to take a Russian passport second public non-lethal resistance this is overt but nonviolent action aimed at bolstering Community morale and asserting Ukrainian presence it could be things like posting Flyers displaying Ukrainian symbols in public spaces or painting over or destroying Zed symbols next internal lethal resistance the direct contributions to military action such as transmitting coordinates of Russian forces to Ukrainian Special Operations troops or monitoring the movements of Russian soldiers to help plan future attacks and finally public lethal resistance the most overt and dangerous activity this covers assassination car bombings sabotage women in particular have Have Been instrumental in more covert forms of lethal resistance such as poisoning the food and drink offered to Russian soldiers Arsenic and rat poison have made their way into pies and alcohol have we seen such things maybe take the case of Vladimir Salo the Russian appointed mayor of haon in August 2022 he fell ill and was rushed to a hospital in cerapol Crimea where doctors put him into a coma and flew him to Moscow the Russian opposition media later reported he had been poisoned by his Chef or look at Alexander mischenko a police chief in the occupied Ukrainian city of melitopol who defected to Russia after They seized the city misenko died in April 2023 when an improvised device exploded at the entrance to the block where he lived exiled mopal mayor Ivan federov said the path of each collaborator is predictable yesterday betrayal today Panic tomorrow [Music] Massacre another example in September 2023 the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in sevastopol was devastated after missiles thought to be British supplied Storm Shadow Munitions hit during a meeting of the high command allegedly killing 34 officers while the missiles were launched from Ukraine the strikes were thought to have been coordinated by atesh part of the Ukrainian resistance we have people both inside the Black Sea Fleet headquarters and outside in the form of many ordinary citizens of s dool an Ates member told the key independent 3 months later in December 2023 members of a Ukrainian partisan group called the Crimean combat seagulls claimed to have poisoned and killed 24 Russian soldiers after lacing their vodka with Arsenic and stricking such actions increase the cost to Russians of their occupation of areas of Ukraine they undoubtedly help raise Ukrainian morale even if their military Effectiveness is questionable but by resisting in this way do underground movements fighting aoral forces invite reprisals that prove too costly would they do it anyway knowing what might befall them in June 1944 the French Village of uran was left in Ruins after German vaan SS troops massacred 642 men women and children before burning the to the ground the Act was said by the Nazis to have been Collective punishment for French Resistance activity in the area The Village was never rebuilt instead president Charles deal ordered that the ruins be maintained as a permanent [Music] Memorial how will history remember Ukraine’s resists defense in depth is a regular video output by the telegraph of the big defense stories if you’d like a daily fix of content about the war in Ukraine I’d suggest Ukraine the latest the telegraph’s podcast for more defense stories we’ve left links in the description below and if you have a topic you would like us to cover let us know in the comments please do visit our website for the latest updates news and Analysis or failing that you could buy the paper

To be a Ukrainian resistance fighter in occupied territory, there are fundamental rules you must live – and sometimes die – by.

The most important of these is to go unnoticed. You need to blend into the crowd. Dress inconspicuously; prepare an alibi; be punctual – if someone is two minutes late to meet you, assume they’ve been captured.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there have been occasional reports of car bombings in occupied areas, of honey traps and poisonings, but the full size, scope and level of support for the country’s underground movement has never been revealed to those outside an inner sanctum of key officials. Until now.

In this episode of Defence in Depth, Dominic Nicholls, The Telegraph’s associate editor, discusses a new report by Dr Jade McGlynn, Senior Associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, to cast a light on the patriotic partisan movement comprising many tens of thousands of Ukrainians.

From distributing yellow ribbons to assassinating Russian secret police, this week’s Defence in Depth focuses on those individuals risking their lives to carry out acts of resistance and defy enemy rule in occupied Ukraine.

#russia #ukraine #war

Find our Defence in Depth playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJnf_DDTfIVAddjHY3ss14eTzAZ_koulx

For our podcast Ukraine: The Latest, visit: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJnf_DDTfIVCYlsANGtNkzMeM9Fdmqzxr