Opinion: How Ukrainian resistance maintains political freedom in Russian-occupied territories

Illia Riepin is a columnist, political science expert, and Gwara’s community member. 

As of the end of May, Russia had been occupying more than 20% of Ukrainian territory. This includes approximately 460 territorial communities and approximately 6 million people who have been illegally removed from Ukrainian jurisdiction.

However, even in the absence of state institutions, the political will of these territories does not disappear. It retains its agency through those who choose to fight behind enemy lines. Sabotage of the educational processes, massive arson attacks on infrastructure critical to Russia, and demonstration of Ukrainian symbols — all this creates a modern political body of national resistance in the occupied territories.

Russia tries to erase Ukraine's political presence 

Locals in the occupied territories face both information and political isolation. 

The information isolation is obviously caused by the massive blocking of access to Ukrainian media, news websites, and social media platforms. Russia's control over the information creates a distorted view of the general political situation, the war and Ukraine's international authority. 

At the same time, political isolation means the de facto exclusion of people on occupied territories from any participation in political processes. Physical absence of the Ukrainian state as an institutional guarantor opens the space for repressive control by the occupation administration. 

This, in turn, creates a dangerous effect: the normalization of Russian occupation. To an external observer, it may appear that there is no resistance, that the occupation is contained, and that the population in the occupied territories is either compliant or passive. 

“Yet the absence of voices from within these territories should not be mistaken for political consensus. Rather, it is the result of a deliberately imposed silence designed to sustain the occupation and suppress dissent.”

Web-like structure of Ukrainian resistance

When talking about the actions of the resistance forces in the Russian-occupied territories, people often look for clear command structures, verticals, and subordination. But such optics are wrong. Often, when analysing the actions of resistance forces, we observe the "atomisation of the system of interactions" — when local guerrilla communities act autonomously, without orders, but with similar goals. To systematise their actions, I propose to use the metaphors of the "web" and "swarm".

We see the spider web-like logic in violent resistance — these are agent nodes of the same network with different geographies. "The Mariupol Resistance" is a good example of this. 

They commit sabotage and arson across all the occupied territories of the Donetsk region. One of the prominent examples of this movement's actions is the destruction of a car with FSB agents at the end of February this year. However, Mariupol Resistance also reports on sabotage on the territory of the Russian Federation. For example, on 15 May, members of the underground burned down a relay cabinet, causing delays of Russian freight trains.

Speaking of sabotage, it is worth mentioning the S.R.O.K (in Russian means "Prison term") partisan movement, which operates in the Russia-controlled territories of Zaporizhzhia region. They are systematically engaged in vehicle bombings and ambushes on the roads. 

Swarm-like logic of defiance under Russia occupation

In this context, nonviolent resistance appears as a "swarm" — a multitude of localized actions driven by a shared sense of defiance. Through anonymous chatbots, people in Russian-occupied territories share photos with Ukrainian slogans, tie ribbons of national flag’s colors to fences, and distribute leaflets warning the occupiers.

This can happen on Russian symbolic dates or with certain regularity. The groups don't agree or coordinate with each other, but their acts of disobedience happen at the same time.

The recent S.R.O.K. action is important example of that. S.R.O.K. agents infiltrated an online meeting organised by the Russian state youth programme Yunarmiya (is short for "Youth Army" - a Russian state-sponsored military-patriotic organization that targets children aged 8 to 18, created in 2016 with the support of the Russian Ministry of Defense.) 

The action took place during a Russian "patriotic education" campaign for schoolchildren. In a Zoom conference, activists from S.R.O.K. interrupted the class to inform the students that participating in the Yunarmiya could lead to death in the trenches and that Russia employs them as tools in an aggressive war against Ukraine. This incident illustrates how contemporary partisan tactics utilize digital spaces to showcase actions and directly challenge the narratives taught to teenagers in the occupied territories.

It is worth remembering that the temporarily occupied territories are not a space of silence. Occupation is not a choice for locals on these territories. Even under occupation, these territories remain centers of ongoing political resistance. 

“Ukrainians express resilience saying “We are here,” even when Russia is trying to erase them.”

That is why writing, speaking, and remembering the resistance in the occupied territories is to recognise that Ukraine's political agency continues even under the direst of circumstances.

Opinion pieces reflect the thoughts of their authors and do not reflect Gwara Media’s views.

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