Outputs and outcomes of the last several months. New Year's summary of the social war in Ukraine 2025

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Already the fifth and largest conflict with the territorial recruitment centers (TRCs) in Odessa for the week happened in the early hours of October 30 at the "7th Kilometer" industrial market. A crowd of warehouse workers overturned their bus, broke its windows, and physically injured an enlistment group, forcing them out of the market. The regional TRC also claims that protesters used batons and pepper spray. According to the market's deputy director, Irina Tkach, their entrepreneurs and staff were not among these loaders. An asphalt plant, supermarkets, and post branches are also located nearby. There are more people working there than at the market. The Security Service of Ukraine has opened a criminal case on obstructing mobilization activities; the defendants face 5 to 15 years in prison. It could have been the most militant labor protest in Ukraine since Independence Day 1998, when striking coal miners clashed with riot police in front of the Lugansk Regional State Administration.

Almost two months have passed since then. There's still no word of any repression in this case, though an investigation is ongoing. It seems the state Moloch still fears the united working masses. Things are much more difficult for those who risk fighting a gang of torturers alone.

The entire country was discussing how, on the evening of December 3 in Lviv, 30-year-old Hryhoriy Kedruk fatally stabbed 37-year-old district TRC employee Yuriy Bondarenko. Bondarenko died by morning from a critical femoral artery injury. The suspect fled and was soon apprehended, with the knife seized at the scene. Hryhoriy admitted that the knife belonged to him and said that he "apparently" dealt the blow when he was being beaten by three or four servicemen. He is originally from the Rivne region, lived in Kharkov for a time and is registered there, then moved to Lviv. He claims to be unemployed and has an IT education. On December 5, the Frankivsk District Court sent him to 60 days in custody without bail. He faces up to 12 years in prison for two counts of intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm. The killed Bondarenko was also born in Kharkov and graduated from the Kharkov Zooveterinary Academy. He worked in the restaurant business and moved to Lviv before the full-scale Russian invasion. He transferred to the bounty hunters in June 2025, allegedly due to serious health issues.

The scene of the kidnapper's murder. Photos from the Lviv Regional Prosecutor's Office

On October 20, enlistment team raided the premises of some private enterprise in Kamenskoye (Kamianske). Security guards forced them to leave, but the workers pursued the visitors outside the gates after word got out that TRC had grabbed one of their colleagues. During the conflict, one TRC representative threatened them with a pistol, while another pepper sprayed into the eyes of an employee filming the incident. This is at least the second such incident after Kovel in Volyn.

Two days earlier, on October 18, near a supermarket in the city of Dnieper (Dnipro), police and TRC employees allegedly located a citizen wanted for violating military registration rules. He refused to go with them. Passersby came to his aid and attempted to free the man, striking the military servicemen several times and damaging the service vehicle. However, they were unable to free the kidnapped one.

On the other side of the country, in Ternopil, on the evening of October 13, TRC employees blocked the car of Sergiy Zadorozhnyi, head coach of the local football club Nyva, near a shopping mall. This also led to a mass brawl with civilians. Zadorozhnyi, who had a reservation, later left, but the clash continued amid chants of "Shame!" in the crowd. Police stated that no one contacted them or medical facilities with bodily injuries.

On October 17, around midday, on a road near the village of Plebanivka near Ternopil, two people in a Mercedes Benz G-Class reportedly cut off a TRC vehicle, took a mobilized one who was being transported to a training center, and fled the scene. One of the enlistment agents sustained a leg injury due to hit by a car. Police detained the suspects later that day, according to the regional TRC.

Flames on the central street of Ukraine's capital: on October 23, tires were set on fire in front of the Kiev City State Administration building. Police detained a local resident born in 1977. From social media

Mobilization bus smashing in Odessa. From social media

Also on October 30, a court in Odessa found guilty an unemployed resident who, on June 12 of this year, used tear gas against a TRC employee and wounded him in the chest with a knife. He was sentenced to five years in prison with two years of probation. The leniency of the sentence was influenced by sincere repentance, a full admission of guilt, the presence of a minor child in his care, and the transfer of 250,000 hryvnias to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The same day, in the region of Poltava, police escorted a man kidnapped from the street to the Kremenchuk District TRC’s assembly point. During the paperwork and search, in response to a cop's question about the presence of prohibited items or substances, he pulled out a pistol and fired several shots. As a result, two TRC representatives were injured in the legs by bullets. The shooter was detained.

Teenage blockade in Poltava. From social media

On the evening of November 16, a 37-year-old resident of a village in the Sambir district of the Lviv region violated traffic rules while driving an Alfa Romeo. During talk to the police near the car, the driver took out a grenade and detonated it. He received injuries and was taken to the hospital. Local media call him a runaway military man.

On November 24, the cops captured a driver on Pirogovskaya Street of Odessa. A crowd of passersby attempted to block the road and the police car, but the man was eventually taken away in handcuffs. The reason for the detention was not disclosed. The next day, a crowd of youth from the 23rd High Professional School in Poltava blocked a police car with two detained men. One allegedly managed to get out, the second was taken away. There were no official comments on the situation.

From the latest news: on December 24, in the Rivne region, a employee of the Sarny District TRC was beaten with a crowbar by a passerby from a group that was trying prevent the kidnapping of a person from the street. He is in serious condition with a broken rib and contusions of the parenchyma of both lungs. On December 25, in the city of Dnieper, a man stabbed two members of a TRC patrol. The suspect, 42-year-old, was detained, and the knife was seized at the scene. On December 28, a suspect in a penetrating stab wound to a TRC employee in early November was identified and detained in the city of Odessa.

On the other side of the Ukrainian South, annexed by Russia since 2022, there is no forced mobilization from the streets. On November 17, about 20 employees gathered in Melitopol near the Russian prosecutor's office of the Zaporozhye region. Since they work at the Voinikov & Co agricultural enterprise in Berdyansk, they demanded an end to its seizure and payment of wage arrears. Two months ago, on September 25, the company's territory was seized by representatives of Partner Union LLC. Since that time, salaries have not been paid, and shareholders have not collected rent for the land.

Rally near the prosecutor's office. From the relocated Ukrainian administration of Berdiansk

Residents of occupied Mariupol and Berdyansk, who were working on construction at a water pumping station, recorded a video message to the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, complaining that they have not been paid their wages for half a year. They claim several dozen people have been affected. "In response to our legitimate demands to pay our wages, Stanislav Vinnitsky threatened physical violence." At the end of December, the addressee of their statement Alexander Bastrykin demanded from the head of the regional investigative department to report on the investigation

The wave of protests against the rising cost of living, sweeping across the globe for years, has also finally reached our Slobozhanshchina, divided between Ukraine and Russia:

On December 8, displaced persons from border areas gathered for a spontaneous rally outside the Sudzha District Administration building in Kursk. According to activist Vladimir Sinelnikov, 150–200 people arrived, and district chairman Alexei Spiridonov came out to them. The rally was prompted by the governor's announcement the previous day that monthly payments of 65,000 rubles to people who lost their property due to the Ukrainian invasion would be cancelled starting in January. He claimed the Russian government had decided to reallocate the funds to other needs in order to "give a new boost to the region's economy." The protesters brought written appeals from initiative groups to the federal and regional leadership, declaring, "We are being strangled by debt. We are forced to pay mortgages and loans for houses that practically don't exist, while simultaneously paying our last rent on other people's apartments."

With the October 25 (or November 7 according to the new style) approaching, we spoke with another Kharkov resident nicknamed as Red October, who fled from the 122nd Airmobile Battalion of the 81st Airmobile Brigade. "My nickname is more of a reference to my birthday and red leaves. But if someone associates it with the great victory of all workers, that's also not bad," he explains. Regarding the state's countering the avalanche of desertions, the interlocutor tells:

"I went into SZCh [unauthorized leaving of a unit] through the hospital, I had hypertension, they took my blood pressure and took me to the medical unit in Kramatorsk, and from there I took the train home. I'm not hiding, I roam freely around the area. My brigade has so many SZCh that they haven't even opened a [criminal] case against me. Doesn't the SBI [State Bureau of Investigation] have any other work? There are already half a million like me. When I first joined the army, no one even knew what is SZCh. Even if it's not half a million, but 250 thousand, that's still a lot. No SBI could handle that many cases. Plus, in the units, SZCh cases are handled by ordinary soldiers, usually those who refused [to fight] or wounded. And when they hand over all the cases to the SBI, almost all of them are filled with mistakes, and the SBI returns them to the unit, while the soldiers who handled them have already been transferred, and other soldiers are doing the same. A Sisyphean task. I was mobilized in the summer of 2023, and in the summer of 2024, I went into SZCh, primarily because they wouldn't give me leave. A month before my SZCh, a guy who had been fighting from the very beginning went out and ran away from training to become an FPV drone operator. They didn't catch him. Incidentally, I was also an FPV operator. My buddy, who lives in Ternopil, even went over the mountains to Romania after SZCh. I gave the army a chance, a whole year, went to combat [missions], did everything conscientiously, and put up with all the injustice, and now I believe such an army shouldn't exist."

Overall, the fugitive drone operator is skeptical about the state's ability to stop this flow. He continues basing on the own experience:

"I don't quite understand how drones can be used for these purposes [to combat soldiers’ flee]. And how can they help if the person has already left the front line and is moving away from the front? We don't have enough drones to properly carry out combat missions. A drone can spot someone fleeing their position. But there's a problem: that person is holding an automatic rifle, four magazines, and at least a couple of grenades. If they don't have all that, then there's no point in bringing them back. But from what I've seen, people who abandon the front line aren't afraid of anything anymore. Personally, when I refused to serve as an infantryman a second time, I said no one would force me to go back; they could shoot me right away, so why bother? And after that, they transferred me to drone operators. There were hundreds of people like me in the battalion; they didn't leave right after their first combat missions, and command is trying to persuade them to take up other roles, like mortar, driver, mounted anti-tank grenade launcher, or drones, or, at worst, they transfer them."

As he added us some later:

"At the training ground is worse than in the TRC, only if you resist learning with the horns, and when it comes to shooting, all the instructors become like silk. As far as I understand, dying in training isn't considered heroic, and there won't be any payment."

October 2025 set a new record for unauthorized leaving a military unit and desertion: 21,602 such cases officially, compared to 17,000-18,000 per month during the summer and with around 30,000 mobilized personnel per month. And no one knows yet how many others left their bank cards for their commanders so they could receive money for them and not report them missing. That means, in the time it takes you to send a donation to the Assembly, several more people could have shed their uniforms bearing the fork-shaped slave brand. Since November, statistics on SZCh, desertion, and other crimes against the rules of military service have been classified by the Office of the Prosecutor General. And all this despite the fact that the Armed Forces' training centers are now like a prison: swarming with sentries, guards with night vision goggles, drones with thermal imagers, ditches, rapid response teams, and so on. Even from a temporary deployment point or a combat line, it can be easier to escape. This was reported to us, in particular, by Irina from Kharkov, whose husband was captured while attempting to go through the mountains to Romania and ended up at the 233rd Combined Arms Training Grounds near Rivne — the same place where, in early summer, 27-year-old Andriy Rybak from Khmelnytsky was beaten to death, according to his parents, for attempted escape.

On December 25, the Ukrainian media was shocked by a video filmed by Russian soldiers in the captured battalion command post of the 106th Territorial Defense Brigade in Huliaipole, Nestor Makhno's homeland in the Zaporozhye region. The reasons for this were explained yesterday by journalist and military veteran Volodymyr Boiko on his social media: "The territorial defense battalions are probably the most exhausted and war-torn units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But their combat capability primarily determines how far the enemy will advance deep into Ukraine. Because only the infantry holds the territory. And that is why the combat losses of the Territorial Defense, the Territorial Defense staffing on a residual basis, and mass desertion of the infantry are three components of Ukraine's defeat in the war with Russia. […] There was simply no one to defend [that battalion command post]. And a few hours later, 71 servicemen from the 102nd Brigade also deserted: 45 from Sofiyevka and 26 from Huliaipole. Two days later, another 23 servicemen "went on skis". The reason is no secret: the 102nd Brigade has long been "erased" and with such a shortage of personnel is unable to carry out combat missions. A week before the mass desertion, it was decided to finally withdraw this brigade from the combat zone to restore combat readiness — to give people a rest and at least some replenishment. But due to the catastrophic situation at the front, a new order was received before December 18: no rest, everyone was sent back to their positions. When the fighters found out about this, they simply got in their cars and drove home."

Along with this, we discovered a real concentration camp for recruits this month near the village of Malinovka of the Kharkov region: the former Figurovka recreation base. According to a Kharkov stormtrooper who fled to Romania after fighting since 2015 and a 2-year prison term in 2023 for SZCh, there is no other training ground like it — it's hell on earth, where the guards kill those who tries to run away. He claims there are graves in the forest of those who tried unsuccessfully to escape.

Another guy from Kharkov, named Sergei, was shot in both legs with rubber bullets at the end of summer during a clash with border guards while being detained right near the border line with Romania. "My brother was grabbed by 5 people right at the gas station and dragged to the TRC. And now he's been in the hospital for a year now, they're collecting into a whole. His legs were severely torn up; he fought in Kursk last year, and has been in Germany since the summer for rehabilitation. So I knew exactly what awaited me. I won't give up. And I’ll be free," he told us on October 16, adding that he had escaped from the training center in the Lviv region a week earlier and was packing his backpack for another trip to Romania using recommendations from our site. He received temporary protection there a month ago. On December 4, Sergei told us that he met his son in Germany that day and was applying for new protection.

Sergei's bullet wounds. Received from him

And his new mountain expedition, crowned with success. Also sent by him

Another amazing story of coming out was shared with us by Mikhail from Gorlovka. In 2012, he was close to anarchism, attended the May Day demonstrations of the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (RCAS) in Donetsk, and helped distribute their leaflets in his city, without being a member himself. In 2014, he left for Odessa, where he lived and worked as an IT specialist for all those years. That summer, a Shahed drone hit the building where he lived, damaging it and killing several residents. He moved to another apartment, and soon after, he was busified on the street. At the TRC, Mikhail demanded a medical examination, but they simply wrote that he was healthy and fit for service. He was taken to a village in the region of Nikolaev where such recruits are held. But they were not heavily guarded there, so he was able to escape, and then was smuggled out by a man for 4,000 euros. The same man, for 10,000 euros, brought Mikhail to the Transcarpathian region, from where our reader crossed the border and ended up in Slovakia. "There's a special story about how this escape was organized. I called my parents, who live in Gorlovka. (My father was mobilized in 2022 and served in the DPR units for over a year, then was discharged due to his age. Incidentally, he also served in the Kharkov region.) But he wouldn't have been discharged if not for my mother's active spam (a school teacher—a profession that involves regular brainwashing) to various agencies with complaints and calls to officials. My parents contacted their friends living in France, and they, through their connections, found this man. The man himself served in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and after being discharged, he went into this business. I rented a place from my online acquaintance who's currently working in Saudi Arabia. He's a chemist by education. By the way, this acquaintance is a Jucheist in his views. He was educated in Moscow. He's a Ukrainian from Moldova." Thus, after escaping, Mikhail lives in Moldova. You can read more details from him at the link in Russian.

Our anarchist readers from the EU countries recently launched a volunteer project Solidarity is the Way to support those who successfully came out in Romania. Those in need are offered free food, clothing, medicine, transportation, temporary accommodation, and legal advice. Two magpies helping each other build nests, according to the author, symbolize this mutual aid

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 anti-mobilization riots that took place this yearalso 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.