Hometown of Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno has been at the very epicenter of the clashes with Russian invaders for several weeks now. Every day they shell the town with heavy weapons and try to break through from the south to encircle the Ukrainian units in Donbass. Earlier we wrote about food riots in occupied Pologi nearby from these places. To donate online media group from Kharkov for restoration of the city social fabric and help to civilian residents please visit this page. A couple of cups of coffee in your country even before the war could be equivalent in price to the daily wage of a worker in Ukraine!
The Russian invasion has been developing most rapidly in southern Ukraine. Here they managed to capture the entire Kherson region in a couple of weeks and reach the borders of Zaporozhye. Then planned to go north to surround a massive group of Ukrainian troops in the Donetsk region. All plans were broken by the Zaporozhian town of Huliaipole.
Controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Azov territorial defense squad, this cozy community is in only 1,5 km to the front line. For more than a month now, there has been no water, no electricity, no gas. There is nowhere to withdraw cash from the cards. There are no stores, except for ATB supermarket, which is open for two hours and is cash only. 95% of the population left. Those who remain (mostly elderly and sick people) survive mostly on humanitarian aid. Residents live in basements and cook on the streets together.
Huliaipole is strategically important due to the roads pass through it to several regional centers - Donetsk, Dnipro and Zaporozhye. The terrain largely contributes to its defense. Before the war there were almost 14,000 population, we can see destroyed agricultural enterprises, markets, schools, Soviet typical houses. Also there is historic downtown, where the buildings of the beginning of last century are still preserved, including the headquarter of the insurgent army and Makhno's family house.
The Makhnovist troops fought not for the political independence of Ukraine (which, in fact, was indifferent to them), but defended their revolutionary social gains - free Councils, peasant land and workers' self-administration on factories. In the present war anarchists are not interested in victory for either one or the other predatory state clique. All our empathy goes to ordinary working people dying every day of this sring under bombs and rockets!
In addition, look at our documental narrative how Makhno peasants in 1920 took back their products forcibly seized by the authorities.
And at last, a such material about the mass wage robbery of Ukrainian workers by their bosses and an anarchist response via cooperative networking.
The photos are found in local social networks and Ukrainian military resources
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