“Since the first days of the war I started acting and my smartphone became my weapon, in every sense of the word. I don't know what would have happened to me if he had been found with his geolocation tags. I probably wouldn't be writing this."
Viacheslav Cherniavskyi, 28 years old, one of the partisans in Kherson, in southern Ukraine, an area still partially invaded by Russia and another already free, details his day-to-day war to La Vanguardia; his incognito work between bombs, sabotage and more, behind enemy lines. Go on:
“I tried to go out as little as possible so that the invaders would not see me and geography played its role, since my house is close to one of the main roads where large columns of the occupants passed by –between 25 and 40 units–, which I counted, identified and sent to the bot. And I also did it with the nightly bombardments with S300 missiles from the Oleshok area, where I determined the distance and location of the launch site through echo and sound. During the day I made photographic records of their air defenses and, in addition, I received information from family and friends about the location of their equipment, checkpoints, where and when they worked, and I put all this information on a map.
His story, however, is no exception.
The start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 is further and further away. The war does not end and since then there have been thousands of deaths and millions of refugees from the conflict, as well as kilometer-long fronts in a war riddled with trenches closer to those of the First World War a century ago than to those that could be expected of the 21st century. And yet, almost nothing remains known of the partisan fighting inside occupied territory that Moscow considers part of its Federation.
But there is.
“We are talking about illegal activities in the occupied territories in the face of a tough enemy counter-espionage regime that would not have been possible without the significant support of the local population, which provides information, weapons and the necessary explosives, although in most cases violent resistance is a separate part of the war in which, in addition to the local population, members of the Ukrainian special services with the appropriate knowledge participate. The operations are complicated by the fact that the territory is mostly a meadow without forests where the guerrillas would have more success”, summed up Igor Semyvolos, considered one of the greatest local experts in the resistance, to La Vanguardia.
However, it continues, with its sabotage and diversionary actions, including assassinations of prominent Russian collaborators. And his last confirmed action was last June according to the Institute for the Study of War, with sabotage of the crucial train line in eastern Crimea.
Although it is not the only one.
Also in June, local businessman and collaborator Sergei Didovodyuk was assassinated in a car bomb in Mikhailivka. In May he attacked the house of a police commander in Melitópol. In April, a local pro-Russian leader died after his vehicle exploded in Nova Kajovka. In March they tried it in Mariupol with the police chief imposed by Russia, Mikhail Moskvin. And in February they succeeded in Enerhodar, near the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, against Yevgeny Kuzmin, Minister of the Interior of the occupied zone. In January, in Berdyansk, on the shores of the Azov Sea, Valentina Mamai, one of the organizers of the pro-Russia referendum, was hospitalized after a bomb attack.
The actions do not stop.
And all of them, the Institute for the Study of War insists to this newspaper, are only "the verified Ukrainian partisan attacks using visual evidence, remote sensing data, corroborated by sources in Russia and Ukraine... There are others reported that have not reached this threshold and, thus, it is likely that these data are a small subset of all the real ones."
These data allow us to distinguish, moreover, different phases of partisan intensity since February 24, 2022, since the start of the Russian invasion more than a year ago, and highlighting above all the summer of last year and the first months of this one. Especially, for actions with explosives.
“At the beginning of the occupation, the guerrilla actions were mostly spontaneous, a reaction to the violence committed by the enemy against the civilian population. They were often an act of desperation and over time this guerrilla movement became structured. For the government the main task is the liberation of the Ukrainian territories from the Russian invaders. The guerrillas coordinate their actions with the local governments forced to move to the free territories. Many times, however, people act on their own spontaneously making the decision under the influence of circumstances”, quotes Semyvolos. Partly because it is believed that treason is thus made more difficult, he adds.
A very recent example: in Berdiansk, on the Azov Sea coast, two teenagers attacked a Russian soldier and a collaborator and were killed by a sniper.
So there is still resistance and non-cooperation prominently in Zaporizhia and Crimea and less so in Donbass, it is cited. But also, it is admitted, a resistance that is not so intense now due to being under pressure with constant raids, searches, telephone checks, the demand to obtain a Russian passport, the tight control of movements and more.
Felip Daza, a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, specifies based on his sources on the ground, moreover, how in recent months there have been more forced disappearances, deportations to Russia, military mobilization and also linguistic pressure in the face of nonviolent resistance. Because civil-military cooperation is an all-in-one that still works, it is insisted, but not without problems.
In the areas of Donetsk, Lugansk and Zaporizhia, the Zmina Human Rights Center lists more than 150 political prisoners captured and deported. Alternative Human Rights Center seconded.
But even under these conditions, the sabotage of trains, attacks against collaborators and patrols, or the accurate missiles against Russian equipment and ammunition camps that would be impossible without adjusting on the ground, demonstrate, it is pointed out, that the partisan resistance continues.
Even more so when “some clandestine combatants have gone from nonviolent resistance to the armed forces; each act of sabotage immediately inspires people to new ones. People are inspired by the example of desperate people”, Semyvolos specifies.
“Of course I would do it again despite the risk and danger involved. It was worth it. The life I had under the occupation taught me a lot, but the main lesson was that freedom has no price, that you have to fight for it until the end”, concludes the young partisan Cherniavskyi.
