Fifth month of the partial siege. An interview with the libertarian media of Kharkiv

- Would you please introduce yourself (or if as psuedonymous individuals with any names, political affiliations, gender pronouns) and say roughly where you’re based out of? How would you identify your political perspective and what projects do you work with?

- Hello to all, dear Bursts, dear listeners… I’m Cheh and I am a co-founder of the counter-info group in Kharkiv called assembly.org.ua. Kharkiv is the largest Ukrainian city after Kiev, about 45 km (or 30 miles) from the Russian border and currently under siege from the north since the first morning of the invasion. Personally, I’ve been an anarcho-communist for about 10 years. The Assembly editorial policy in general is also close to social anarchism and in this sense we are the first such media in Kharkiv since the newspaper Nabat in 1920. Аt the same time we don’t have strict tests for ideology and theory as one would find during admission to a Marxist party. We are ready to cooperate with different persons and initiatives, if they are not controlled by politicians or bureaucratic structures, if they support horizontal direct action from below and want to be useful to the local community… generally so.

- Would you talk about Assembly.Org.Ua which describes itself as a portal for independent journalism and grassroots initiatives in the Kharkiv area. I see posts going back to 2020, during the early days of the covid pandemic. Can you talk about how the project started, what purpose it served and how that and your readership has shifted with the Russian invasion?

- Yes, we have really been active since March 30, 2020 – as soon as there was a feeling in the air that this habitual status quo had finally cracked. The start of a global pandemic took us by surprise! It was unusual to stay at home all the time. At some of our comrade’s workplaces, the salary was cut by 20% and there was a fear of staff layoffs. But a couple of weeks after the start of quarantine, she started development of our website and so began to talk about acute social problems and help people unite to directly help each other in the face of a crisis.

Our reasoning went something like this: if at least 10% of the population of our city understands, for example, the public transport system better than the mayor and the city council do, then why do we need their administration? Something like that… Our journal soon became a place where the peaceful segment of social struggle and self-organization could meet with the radical underground, and began to really live up to its name. We covered street events, workplace struggles, and urban development issues in our metropolis. We have also tried to restore historical memory on the revolutionary workers’ traditions.

Since the outbreak of hostilities, our magazine has become a platform for presenting and coordinating self-organized humanitarian activities, as well as a platform for highlighting how the local ruling class is benefiting from this massacre. And if in the last year we had 20-30 thousand visits per month, then since the beginning of spring it’s jumped to between 80 to 120 thousand!
-We’ve spoken to a few people from Kharkiv in the past on the show since the war with Russia began, but it’s been a couple of months. Can you talk a bit about the city and the oblast or region that it is in, before the war?

- In general, Ukraine, especially with a reduction in any life prospects after the Maidan Uprising, has turned into a country of alconauts and pensioners, and Kharkov is known as a “city of boring faces” even by Ukrainian standards. Accordingly, the political climate is generally depressive and conservative, and it is extremely difficult to talk about anything other than everyday survival – even the capitalists in Ukraine have a very short planning horizon. Can this situation be changed by the economic recovery after the war? I don’t know. We’ll see…

- If you’ve been in the city or nearby during this time, can you share a little of how it’s been with the audience? Even though you are so close to the Russian border and the city has survived the repelling of Russian invasion, the shelling continues, right? (I can’t imagine how traumatic this has been and our project definitely sends solidarity and condolences for your losses).

- In a few words, our city, due to its location, is one large shooting ranges for the invaders. Ballistic missiles fly over every night as soon as people go to bed (or at dawn, around 3-4 am). And multiple rocket systems strike in the middle of the day when there are a lot of people on the streets – again, to kill as many civilians as possible. No air defense in the world can intercept hypersonic Iskanders at such a short distance – even air alert does not have time to notify us about them and starts blaring after the first explosions (not always but often). The Russian military wants to persuade the Ukrainian authorities to negotiate at any cost and hope that civilian casualties will force the population to demand concessions in favor of Russia from the political leadership of the country. Of course, Ukrainian HIMARS could destroy all firing positions in several minutes, but the American partners expressly forbid strikes on Russian territory, no matter how many they fire at us from there, because it will be considered Ukrainian aggression against the Russian Federation and will worsen Russian-American relations… This is how we live.

- A number of the recent stories on Assembly.Org.Ua have focused on how local elites, speculators and capitalists and banks on the national scale (in Russia & Ukraine) have been either scheming to take advantage of the instability or destruction or increasing their economic violence on an ever more economically unstable population. What have you seen of disaster capitalism in this war zone and what are its visions of the future?

- Oh, there are a huge number of such examples. The sale of humanitarian goods, the theft of employees’ wages, or the same bill to suspend payments on mortgages and car loans for the duration of the war, passed on July 9 in the first reading, mentioned by you. This bill does not suspend the accrual of the body and interest on the loan. That’s why, at the end of martial law, borrowers will be forced to pay large amounts of outstanding debt – otherwise they will be subject to sanctions established by law or a loan agreement. In the same context, we can recall sky-high rental prices in safer regions. Or the plans of the Kharkiv authorities (and developers associated with them) to demolish historical buildings damaged by bombing for the construction of commercial facilities instead of their restoration. By the way, in the spring, the Kharkiv City Council presented a so-called volunteer initiative to restore the city, headed not by an architect or urban planner but by a clothing designer affiliated with City Council – obviously, to rob the budget under this cover by the officials – but after we published the exposure of who is this jabrone and what is known about his part, he backed out of this project.
- Can you talk about the experience of Martial Law and the military draft in Kharkiv?

- By and large, nothing interesting. From 10 pm to 6 am we have a curfew, cops try to catch everyone on the street without special permission, but in marginal areas patrols are almost invisible. Summons to the army are distributed in many public places – the entrances of subway stations, supermarkets, enterprises, parks – but since they are required by law to be filed in advance, and not in the presence of the one to whom it is intended, filling them out on the street is illegal and people oftenly ignore such papers. Since the court system is practically paralyzed, no one can even fine such a violator now. At the end of spring, there appeared a partner Telegram channel with 65,000 subscribers about where subpoenas are being issued now. Therefore, residents learn about such raids in advance and try to avoid them.

Apparently, the task of the military commissars is not only to replenish the army, but rather to press as many conscripts as possible, hoping that at least some will get scared and offer money so that they are left behind. For the same reason, many who come to the military registration and enlistment offices on their own volition cannot join the army, and leaving the country is closed for all healthy male assigned people from 18 to 60 years old. Even if there are legal grounds for leaving, border guards do not always allow this exit.

In general, mastering the basics of military affairs by the population is not such a bad thing, because even 1905 showed that without this we can forget about the revolution. And the repulse of the invasion is also necessary, but we should not help our State become stronger as a result of the victory, because in this case it will become the same dictatorship as the Russian one. Therefore, we support both anti-war sabotage in Russia, and some anarchist acquaintances in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the demand to open the Ukrainian borders for the free departure of everyone who does not want to serve.

- Will you talk about grassroots mutual aid initiatives you’ve witnessed or been able to report on going on against and in spite of the invasion in Kharkiv oblast?

- Well, I just mentioned one of these initiatives in the previous answer. Also, our team from time to time arranges trips to the gray zone of the region or just to the Kharkiv suburbs to learn how the people stuck there live outside the State and to distribute humanitarian food or medicines among them. In addition, we have prepared a plan of a horizontal campaigns for the collective restoration of devastated blocks (Together with some of friendly groups, such as one called Building Aid). Of course, we can only start implementing this after the rocket strikes are completely over…

Summing up, due to all the specifics of the Ukrainian conditions, anarchist struggle in such a peripheral country requires global international solidarity. The technological primitiveness of the Ukrainian economy and the fact that half of it is underground paradoxically means that it is easier to adapt in times of crisis. However, at the same time, there forms here an atmosphere of indifference to any grandiose projects for the future due to the focus of the entire population on its momentary, everyday issues. And since social thought in the periphery largely depends on the situation in the capitalist core, the successes of the Western comrades will contribute to the spread of revolutionary anarchism in Ukraine, where during these few, bloody months the working classes have already demonstrated an excellent ability to self-organize.

- We found out about your journalistic project because of English-language posts on Libcom and other sites talking about the extent of resistance to the war in the form of sabotage and decruitment of Russian military. We’ve seen photos and videos since March of attacks on recruitment centers in Russia, heard stories of rail sabotage, and heard about building distrust and distaste in the Russian military for this war on Ukrainians. It’s hard to gauge from the US what is propaganda by the US regime. Can you talk about your reporting on this, what sort of sources you use (obviously keeping people safe in you answer) and your impression of this growing resistance in Russia?

- Oh, our English coverage of military issues on Libcom is very different from the content of our own magazine. On the Assembly we publish exclusive materials about local news from our own local sources, but we do not have any insiders in Russia and Belarus. We take all the information for this rubric with the help of open data intelligence in social and mass media, ourselves contributing to it only systematization and some conclusions.

Our British readers very accurately expressed what is happening there. They say: “While it is often stated that many Russians must support this war, such levels of resistance were not seen in coalition countries when those states invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, even among those states where the population was generally anti-war”. Very cool words, in my opinion.

- We’ve been conducting a conversation with the Anarcho-Communist Combat Organization, or BOAK, based in Russia on resistance and sabotage inside of Russia. They have a clear hope that not only will sabotage and resistance build against the bloodshed in Ukraine from within Russia but that this is a time to grow resistance against authoritarian capitalism in the region, including Belarus. Do you see promise in resistance to the war and the dictatorships of an anti-authoritarian leftist politics in the area?

- These attacks will pose a serious threat to the entire system of the totalitarian Russian state when the repressive machine fails, as in February 1917. Roughly speaking, when the masses see that the cops, secret services and courts no longer work as before, the revolutionary struggle will develop in a geometric progressions. As of now there is no such signs yet – for even speaking out against the war, nothing prevents the Russian state from imprisoning a person for 15 years. One can definitely say that direct action to resist the war from below is growing, but no one can say today how far it will go because no one knows how long this slaughter will last.

And we must also take into account that the national unity of Ukrainians around Zelensky’s power rests only on fear of an external threat. As we have already said, social contradictions here have not disappeared during the war, but on the contrary, they are aggravated. And the sooner the invasion forces lose their offensive potential, the better it will be for the social struggles in Ukraine. Therefore, anti-war sabotage in Russia is indirectly a threat to the Ukrainian ruling class as well, and that is why we consider its informational support to be an internationalist act.

- Are there any things that you can share that bring you hope in these dangerous times filled with loss and violence?

- First of all, it is the interest in our activities from people around the world. And the study of the bright, revolutionary history of our city and region, the restoration of the memory about which before the war, in fact, only we did. And, of course, the wonderful local nature – to the extent that it is available now…

- How can listeners in our audience keep up with and support your work at Assembly.Org.Ua and are there other initiatives you’d like to promote here?

- You are welcome to our resources, both there and on the eponymous tag on Libcom.Org. To make our work more widely available, more systematic and at a higher quality you can financially support us on the GlobalGiving page Mutual Aid Alert for East Ukraine. Please visit! And we would like to mention the Black Flag – a group of our comrades from Western and Central Ukraine, which you can read about in our Libcom column, their Telegram channel is also added there. Also we are incredibly grateful to the Solidarity Initiative Olga Taratuta in France, alasbarricadas.org in Spain, aitrus.info in Russia and all other fellows who spread our materials anywhere! Thanks a lot to all of you if you listen this conversation!

Taking this opportunity, we also would like to say hello to such major American anarchist media as It’s Going Down or Crimethinc, which continue to ignore us along with other Ukrainian anarchists, except for a handful of some subculturists who had never been seen in any social activism. Yes. Something like that… Thank you very much for your attention!

Another two images are from the city center of Kharkiv too

We also remind that you can see our latest big review of anti-war subversive acts and soldier desertion in Russia as of mid July.

In addition, you may be interested in a such colorful material on the anniversary of the Makhnovists insurgent council's election in the same forests south of Kharkov where the most fierce fighting in our region is now taking place.