Anarchists in wartime. The experience of Solidarity Collectives in Ukraine

I met Kseniia last winter at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Pozniaky, a working-class neighborhood in Kyiv. Kseniia is a member of Solidarity Collectives (SC, Колективи Солідарності), a group of activists who define themselves as “anti-authoritarian”. The group was formed in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. "Some of us are anarchists", Kseniia tells me. "There are militant feminists, progressives, environmentalists, leftists. Some don't identify with any political category, but share progressive ideas in general (LGBT+ rights, women's rights, environmentalists...)". Before the large-scale invasion, “our movement was divided - the typical drama of people on the left, you know?” she tells me with a smile.

According to Kseniia, before February 2022, “our movement was divided. You know, the usual drama with people on the left.” 

After the full-scale invasion, part of the Solidarity Collective decided to enlist, while another part of the Collective is dedicated to helping civilians, regularly going to the front lines to support local communities and those fleeing the occupied territories. Another segment of the group is busy learning how to construct drones, programming, flying and delivering them to anti-authoritarian or left-wing soldiers in the various battalions.

Communication is central to the work of Solidarity Collective “It was important for us to showcase leftist perspectives, activities and stories of anti-authoritarian activists on the front lines. But there are other reasons too: to support the country's resistance effort and to make one's voice and history heard. War is a particularly – and understandably – complex issue for those who are active in left-wing groups. "Many anti-militarists in the past, including people who denounced the militarization of Ukrainian society, eventually took up arms. We try to provide an explanation." 

Historical developments and the current context have created a gap in understanding and communication between Ukrainian leftists and their Western counterparts (the same might be said for other former Soviet bloc countries), as well as with certain groups and parties. “From a certain point of view, I think it's really hard to understand when there is no war in your country,” says Kseniia. But when war comes, "you come to terms with reality. That is, realities like ‘the Russians are three days from Kyiv.’"

“We know what happens to people in Russian-controlled territories like Donetsk and Luhansk. There are investigations, documented cases of torture against those who are deemed even vaguely connected to political activism. We know that death for some of us is better than the prospect of finding ourselves in the hands of a regime of torturers. Faced with this situation, all of Ukrainian society – not just people on the left – comes to a realisation: from politicians to grassroots activists, to grandmothers who might just write a Facebook post supporting Ukraine, all are vulnerable to Russian aggression.”

Today, about 20 percent of Ukraine's territory is occupied by Russia. Since 2022, the Center for Civil Liberties (joint Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2022) has gathered more than 84,000 cases related to war crimes committed by Russian occupation troops, ranging from murder, rape and disappearances to other violations of fundamental rights.

“Ukraine isn’t perfect, but it’s the most democratic project that exists in the post-USSR territories,” Kseniia continues,  calmly and gently reciting one of the mantras that Ukrainians often repeat for westerners. “We have rights. We have always fought for these rights. And it’s important for us to defend what we have, and to be able to continue to expand this project. We don’t have political repression, there is no torture, nothing like what happens to activists in Belarus or Russia”.

Kseniia explains that she lives in Kyiv but is “from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city. Today it is heavily bombarded: for me it is the most beautiful city, the most welcoming. And today it is dying. And my family is there, my friends are there. Some are already dead. Why are we in this situation? Because some authoritarian regime decided that we deserved to be occupied? Because we are ‘fascists’ or whatever other excuse they came up with... The motivations were the same for everyone, along with the deeply personal concern for relatives and friends, for the places where we grew up, and for the rights that we have, which have to be defended. These are the things that make the motivation to fight so great. Because we either die, or worse, or we fight”.

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'You see what’s going on with the AfD in Germany or the RN in France. Or in Italy and Austria. Or even in the United States. And you call us a ‘Nazi state’?'

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“For us”, Kseniia tells me, “this is a central issue, and not partisan: this is a fundamental political event. You can't stand back and say ‘we don't agree with this class warfare’." 

That's why Solidarity Collectives fosters relationships and talks with other movements: with the Syrian Democratic Forces, or internationalists involved in the Myanmar conflict. Kseniia also has contacts with groups in Poland, France, Germany, Estonia, Spain and Italy. 

I finish my coffee before Kseniia can finish hers, but she doesn’t mind. I’m eager to get a better understanding of  the composition and positions of activist groups before the war, as well as their debates and discussions.

“Simplifying as much as I can,” she says, “I can say that before the 1990s everything related to the left that did not fit the definition of communism had been completely erased by the Soviet regime. From the great movement of Makhno or other fascinating political movements, everything was destroyed. Soviet communism was very thorough in this regard”. 

Only with Ukraine's independence, which was regained in 1991, did various political projects begin to develop again. "There were anarchist movements, as well as some unions, such as Pryama Diya. There were groups like Black Rainbow. Some anarchist groups were fighting the neoliberal structure of Ukraine and had even achieved some victories in this regard. These groups were active in Lviv, in Kiev, in Odessa, in Zaporizhzhia. It was war that brought division.” 

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Kseniia is referring to the invasion of 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and the war began in Donbass, Ukraine's majority Russian-speaking eastern region. “In 2014, most of the right-wing activists, non-political people and leftists participated on the front lines.... We call it dobrovat, like the volunteer battalions of the Spanish Civil War. After Maidan, some decided to go and fight in the Donbass to defend the territory.”

"I believe that since that time the left has been a bit stuck and hasn't figured out how to respond. There were groups that questioned the militarization of society, had their doubts about what was being done, talked about what should be done... talked about having an anti-militarist, pacifist perspective... They went as far as trying to figure out a perspective on the Donbass, and wondered if independent elections in the occupied region would be the solution, while others were critical…” 

Perspectives differed, Kseniia explains. There were those who said “okay, we have this open wound in the Donbass and most likely it will not heal. There are certain investments, money and weapons, that spread through society. Maybe we should think about how society, as a whole, should prepare for this kind of conflict, if it spreads further, and how we should react as a group. Some of these people were organizing basic military training, medical training... they were preparing for this situation, even discussing the practicalities of how Ukraine could defend its territory, etc. So, there was a ‘trend toward militarization’ in some ways, but without a clear understanding of what was going to happen.”

Thus, Kseniia explains, for about eight years some were working on civilian activities, from an anti-militarist perspective, while others were convinced that you have to prepare to defend yourself. 

“In parallel, there were also some interesting projects going on in different parts of Ukraine. In Kharkiv, for example, we tried to create squats for refugees. After Maidan, this project was the first of its kind in Ukraine. Then it evolved into a place for exhibitions, concerts, discussions and life in general. Some interesting eco-anarchist projects have been organized in Lviv. Today there are also some squats and initiatives in Odessa that offer meals to the homeless.”

In Ukraine, she says with a smile, there used to be initiatives called Food Not Bombs, but “after the war they started calling them Food Forever, because Food Not Bombs is a message for the Russians to consider, not Ukrainians.”

Kseniia is 25 years old: too young to have personally participated in Euromaidan, but old enough to know what the movement was about. “Yes, I was in school when Maidan started. It was not only in Kyiv, but also in Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv. Many of our people participated: in Kharkiv, there was an anarchist blockade with a banner for free health care, transportation and education. It might seem a little out of context today, but it was beautiful.” 

“Some of the soldiers we support today were injured during Euromaidan. Many in Western Europe seem to think that the protest was mainly the work of right-wingers or liberals, but I don't think that’s true. All of Ukrainian society was involved, including left-wing organizations.”

In response to these points, “the answer is that Ukraine, in recent decades, has undergone enormous existential events that impact the whole of society. And this goes beyond right or left. It’s bigger than politics. Maidan was a moment of self-identification for a society that had come together: thousands and thousands of people uniting to fight, demanding freedom, against the regime, against corruption. For a post-Soviet country like Ukraine, it was one of the most successful rebellions in this sense. This affirmation of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly was an immense success, because what we were heading towards with the president at the time [Viktor Yanukovych] was the Belarus of today”.

“The right was present during Euromaidan, of course,” Kseniia explains, “just as in today’s war the right hasn’t shied away from the front lines,” while the left struggles to keep up.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, there was a “leftist” battalion, but today it no longer exists: “People on the left tried to make an anti-authoritarian platoon in the early days, and we managed to establish one on the basis of territorial defense. There was a commander, Yuri Samoylenko, who opened the door to everyone who knocked and wanted to join the unit. Many of the people who joined were not ready. They didn't know what war meant, they didn't know anything about military tactics…”

Ukraine, the ‘nazi’ state

“Yes, there are Nazis in Ukraine, there are far-right people, as well as nationalists of various stripes, in tension with each other,” Kseniia says.  But the far right “has not been chosen by society”. In the most recent legislative elections, far-right parties did not even pass the threshold of eligibility. 

“You see what’s going on with the AfD in Germany or the RN in France. Or in Italy and Austria. Or even in the United States. And you call us a ‘Nazi state’?" 

Then there are the differences determined by geography. “From the countries that border Russia and Belarus – from Poland to Estonia, from the Czech Republic to Finland – we have full support because it is easier for them to understand what is happening. In these countries the activists can imagine themselves in the situation Ukraine is in”. In contrast, “the less the war is understood, the more class warfare, but not the war itself, emerges in the narrative and anti-imperialism [of the activists]”. 

“The further away you are, the more the propaganda works,“ Kseniia adds. ”It’s sad to say, but Ukraine has lost this battle, because the billions that Russia has invested in propaganda is truly frightening."

"What does it mean to be Ukrainian today?” I ask Kseniia, somewhat naively. She smiles again. “I don’t have that boundless love for the motherland or that sort of thing, but certainly, growing up here, you are rooted in the country’s historical and cultural context. And you inherit the traumas of your ancestors who went through the Holodomor [the famine caused by Stalin] and the Second World War. My grandparents were in the gulag, another was killed in the Second World War, another starved. You inherit these traumas and process them. And you develop empathy. You have a deeper understanding of the context of Russian colonialism in the Ukrainian context, and you understand the political struggles in these territories. For me, being Ukrainian means preserving this knowledge, of the traumas, of the historical context, and maintaining this resistance”.

Finally, I ask if there’s anything she wants to add. “My main message, after all the talking has finished, is that we have empathy for the struggles of others, we try to understand them, in all this complexty, and draw experience from them. And this experience is very valuable, in my opinion, for future generations. Even if Ukraine were to lose, this knowledge, about how to organize and resist, needs to be disseminated”.

This article was written as part of the n-ost study visit to Kyiv in February 2025 and is part of a reportage on the left in Ukraine and the war published in March and it was produced as part of the n-ost study visit to Kyiv in February 2025.