Generally, our native #Kharkov is becoming a center of individual terror, like #Odessa and Bialystok in the revolutionary 1905. That summer, one of the Novobavarsky District #TRC clients burned down their building from the inside, while another one stabbed at once four mobilizers on the street. On the morning of October 24, another young man from Kharkov committed an explosive mass murder in Ovruch of the #Zhytomyr region while trying to reach Belarus. In fact, such acts change nothing and after a few days everyone forgets about them.
The local #antimobilization riots that took place this year also led to nothing even where they broke out. And even in feet voting against the war, people have to rely more on themselves and their closest friends than on relevant activists. On December 9, YouTube deleted the approximately 140,000-subscriber “Alex 18-60” channel, which featured border-crossing video stories from members of the UFM Telegram group, helping so many of His Green Majesty’s subjects not to die for his eternal reign. The admins are currently developing a new channel. All videos are in reserve.
On the other side of the front, the human rights project “Go by the Forest,” which helped Russians avoid war, has not seen a rapid increase in activity in the army for a long time. According to their Telegram channel, while the number of deserters seeking assistance increased tenfold from January 2023 to January 2024 (they helped a total of 2,086 such people), from the project’s inception until December 1, 2025, they provided assistance to 2,652 deserters. In percentage terms, the growth has also almost stopped: deserters accounted for 8.8% of requests in 2023, 19% in 2024, and 22% in June 2025. This is just a drop in the ocean of tens of thousands of runaway Russian military personnel — most prefer not to engage with this organization. Perhaps due to its maximally one-sided anti-war stance: it completely ignores the existence of draft dodgers and deserters in Ukraine, as well as the criminal nature of the border guard service and territorial recruitment centers, while proudly declaring its cooperation with outright bullhorns of Western special services like Radio Liberty or The Insider. It would seem like an ideal opportunity for #Russian anarchists to supplant liberals in the anti-militarist arena. However we know nothing about any of their activities on decaying the army from within.
Additionally, in the fall, #Ukrainian underground author Elvenor Hoxley released his song Fragging with the following words: “I know one formula, it came to us from Vietnam – I’ll throw a grenade quickly, no one will have time to call mum!” Our news outlet also presented No Escape — the online map of border detentions for planning of safe routes by refugees — in a form of the interview with its developer Dima Photographer.
At this point, our autumn forecast of the worst-case scenario for Ukraine is being confirmed: some heavy military fail opens the way to some kind of compromise, just as the severe military defeats in #Donbass of 2014 and 2015 paved the way for the previous peace agreements in Minsk. To ensure that a new ceasefire does not lead to the preservation and strengthening of the Maidan-born right-wing regime, it is necessary to revive the historical memory of the working class about the revolutionary anti-war legacy of 1917, as well as to elaborate its horizontal cooperation, both when it comes to social protests against the hunting down of men by the state on the streets and in leaving of the fenced prison called a “country of freedom and democracy.”
What can we wish for our free-thinking readers in 2025? All the same as last year and the year before. At the very least, please continue to stay with the Assembly. (We do not even ask Ukrainian bank card holders for money; it’s better to spend it on food, just visit our website from time to time. While financial support from the foreign public is vital for us, especially considering that Ukraine, even if the war ends, will try to the last possible moment not to lift the ban on men leaving the country.) For those planning to leave warring countries, we wish you success and to settle in your new place. For those who do not want to leave Ukraine or Russia, we wish you as little contact with the state gang as possible and the opportunity to become as self-sufficient as possible, up to creating autonomous settlements in the rural hinterlands. And, of course, help people and animals in need, stay healthy, develop yourself, and study anarchist #communism. Perhaps this will come in handy sooner than you think.
#antimilitarism #anarchism #anarcho #anarchist #anarchy #classwar #anticapitalism