Graffiti by Hadad, 2022

This text is a collective statement of Russian-speaking anarchist collectives (see the list of signatories below). It should have been published even earlier, but now it’s really the time for a consolidated statement about the war in Ukraine. We do not claim to represent the stance of each and every anarchist from Russia, but the need for a clear position, and contradictions associated with the war in Ukraine lead to the necessity to act as a united movement.

In the eleven years of the war, and especially over the past three years, we have seen various reactions to the struggle of Ukrainian society against Russian aggression. Comrades from the Ukrainian anarchist movement joined self-defense both at the front line and behind it. Russian propaganda, the lack of awareness about what is happening, dogmatism and the contradictions brought by the war caused turmoil in all political movements.

The anarchist movement was also divided into two camps: support or condemnation. During the war, events organized in support of Ukraine by “Solidarity Collectives” and other anti-authoritarian initiatives have encountered great problems. At some European anarchist venues, talks by comrades from Ukraine and Belarus were attacked and sabotaged.

It is important to note that throughout the war years, there was no constructive discussion at the movement level to develop coordinated and cohesive stances and actions. This led to lack of practical solidarity and to superficial analysis. This also led to people trying to dictate what the Ukrainian anarchists should be doing, although these people themselves often do not know the practical reality of this war. This reveals a terrible lack of understanding and camaraderie within the movement. In addition to event disruptions, the problem got to the point of deliberate laughter during a minute of silence in memory of the deceased comrades. Such cases emphasize that we do not always remember who our enemy is. The authorities thrive on our separation, lack of respect for the deceased comrades, and hostile attitude towards each other. Discrepancy in tactics and views is inevitable for a revolutionary movement, but our enemies should not be allowed to use it.

Information warfare forms discourse, changing thinking. It’s difficult to resist it, because this war is not apparent. It does not act rudely and sometimes it is skillfully woven into existing stances, confirming them, instead of allowing our analysis to adapt to the changing reality. At the same time, information warfare pursues the same goals as real fighting. It is easy to forget that the war is fought on the information field as well. But, like in real fighting, it is necessary to take a stance based on ideology and principles.

The complexity of the situation in which the Ukrainian comrades found themselves, and the reaction to their actions by foreign collectives shows the reality of problems in the anarchist movement. Also, the war in Ukraine itself is another wake-up call showing what we will have to face in the future. We already observe the rise of right-wing forces in Europe, both in politics and in the mood of society in general. Taking this into account, we would like to call comrades from the Western countries to heed to the opinions of those who have already faced ugly and cruel reality of war and dictatorship. State systems are moving in exactly this direction, and at some point you can wake up in a country with a fascist regime and bombs flying over your head.

Russia is a pillar of authoritarianism and fascism
In its current ideological agenda, the Russian state uses the events of the past to present itself as an imaginary “anti-fascist” force. But, exactly like a century ago, Russia remains an empire today. Rewriting history, lies and manipulations with concepts follow the logic of empire-style patriotism, which has been imposed on Russian society since the Tzars’ times. This ideological brainwashing of the population is necessary to strengthen the state power, rally together the elites and classes of the country and to transform the economy to the military needs.

In their turn, far-right movements are thriving in this new phase of Russian authoritarianism. The war gave Russian ultra-right the carte-blanch and the opportunity to merge with the state in their agenda of ultra-violence. Many prominent Russian-side participants of the war, especially military propagandists, are associated with local fascist or Neo-Nazi groups. Ultra-right group “Russian commons” (“Русская община”) functions under the patronage Bastrykin, the head of the national Investigative Committee. Reports of far-right violence have been growing since the beginning of the war. For groups and bloggers supporting the war, any statements and actions are allowed, as long as they do not contradict the Kremlin’s political course.

Putin’s Russia actively supports far-right and conservative movements across Europe, from the National Front in France to the AfD in Germany. They thank the Kremlin with their demands to lift the sanctions against Russia and to stop military aid to Ukraine. Western anarchist groups should take it into account when formulating their positions on the weapons supply to Ukraine.

The Russian state’s claims about “fighting fascism in Ukraine” are hypocritical attempts to justify its military aggression motivated by capitalist and imperial interests. We do not deny that far-right groups do operate in Ukraine (as in many other countries). But it is also important to remember that Russian colonial policy contributed a lot to their emergence.

This is not simply capitalist and imperial confrontation between the two blocs
This war is imperial aggression of Russia and punishment of Ukraine for its disloyalty to Putin. That this war is also built into the global confrontation between many geopolitical forces does not change this fact. Imperialism of Western countries does not diminish or justify Russian imperialism, attacking the cities of Ukraine right now. Moreover, this war must be understood in the global context of what the Zapatistas call “The Fourth World War.” Consequences of neoliberalism and fascism are becoming more pronounced. Destruction of human dignity and our environment occurs on a massive scale. This is the reality and the challenge that the anarchist movement and all the freedom movements have to face. The war in Ukraine shows how much each and every society needs self-defense against the state. This is a part of the war that has long been knocking on your door. Comrades from Ukraine can be the best allies in this war, since they have already taken this terrible blow and they have a unique experience of survival and resistance in their context. If comrades in Europe really want to resist this and future wars, then it is of utmost importance to establish contacts and exchange experience in order to understand how to organize in their countries and societies.

Many geopolitical forces are participating in the Ukraine war, and each of them pursues its own interests. There is nothing new in it, so it will be in all future wars. Where is the position of the anarchist movement here? A simple “against the war” stance is not enough. Our movement needs to be on the side of the society. In Russia and Ukraine, in practice, this will mean different things. In the current situation in Ukraine, the interests of the society and the anarchist movement (the need for survival and self-defense) partially overlap with the interests of the state at the tactical level. In Russia, the situation is different: the interests of the aggressor state are opposite to the interests of the society. That’s why it might seem easy to fight against the empire from within, on the side of the society. However, Russian anarchist movement encounters many problems when interacting with the society, which is often brainwashed by propaganda. In reality, there are no contradictions between the interests of the societies of Russia and Ukraine, it is only the state standing on the way of cooperation.

In this regard, it is important to have a strong ideological core and a strategic line which will allow us to endure the long-term revolutionary struggle during and after the war. Already now, European movements and collectives could be in dialogue with comrades in Ukraine and discuss joint resistance against the invasion and future struggles after the war is over, when domestic policy of the Ukrainian state will become the subject of serious social conflicts. At the moment, there is no such strategic line, and no strong movement. Thus, there is no long-term perspective that would allow comrades in Europe to see beyond current contradictions and compromises.

Many readers of this texts are familiar with the notion of “Russian world”. In the understanding of the Russian state, “Russian world” is a sphere of political, economic, military or ideological influence of Russia. In other words, this is good old imperialism. But still there are people in global anarchist movement who harbor sympathy to “Russia as an idea.” The result is sometimes that trying to take a stance against Western imperialism, comrades miss the problem of “Russian world”, as well as the problems of a loose bloc of states historically opposed to the West in alliance with Russia: Belarus, China, Iran, North Korea, etc.

“Russian World” is not a solution to the problem of Western imperialism. All nostalgia about the former “socialist” state should be left to the past. Modern Russia is a mutated version of right-wing neoliberalism. It is much more aggressive than the European version, and in case of victory it will not flirt with freedom of association, assembly, or media. You don’t have to love Ukrainian state to resist Russian regime. Our Ukrainian comrades, many of whom have been to Russia, know very well what the defeat of Ukraine will bring. The same is true for Belarusian and Russian comrades who fled to Ukraine because of political repression in their countries well before 2022.

Means and goals are related, and goals do not justify the means. One of the main goals of the anarchist movement is resisting the state not only at the ideological level, but also in practice. Tactically, this may mean resistance to the rising of authoritarian states, of which Russia is a perfect example.

Think critically about your sources
Anarchist community is not homogeneous in any country or region. If you have a stance you cherish, anywhere you can find at least on (even if very marginal) group conforming to this stance. Often we see exactly this happening: European comrades stumble upon a Russian or Ukrainian group with the position like “all sides in this war are rotten, there is nothing to be done”, and they start propagating this stance.

Indeed, in Ukraine there is a group focusing mostly on criticizing the Ukrainian state: "Assembly" from Kharkiv. In Russia, the KRAS-MAT project (“Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists — International Workers’ Association”) takes a similar stance. They bombard Western anarcho-syndicalist organizations with statements. With the logic of “both sides are rotten”, these statements make it easy to avoid digging deeper into the problem of the war.

We believe that the KRAS-MAT statements should be taken with a large grain of salt. By inertia, it is still present in many international mailing lists and federations, but in reality it is a small group which does not represent the position of the majority of Russian anarchists. As far as we know, the “Assembly” project does not represent the position of the majority of Ukrainian anarchists either.

We are not trying to present the groups mentioned above as some sort of absolute evil. They may have useful projects and achievements in the past or in other directions not related to the war. But we believe that their “anti-militarist” position on the war in Ukraine seems is deeply wrong; it certainly is not mainstream among Russian and Ukrainian anarchists. Let’s look at this “anti-militarism” in more detail.

Passive anti-militarism is not a solution, it’s part of the problem
Criticism towards our Ukrainian comrades usually stems from dogmatic anti-militarism. This dogma pronounces that wars can be stopped only by the solidarity of the working classes of all sides. As a result, it leads to ideological puritanism — comrades are becoming unable to face contradictions of wars (for example, cooperation with state armies), they do not take into account geopolitical specifics in different contexts and they cannot continue struggle in practice because the ideals do not match ugly reality.

The “we must stop the war” mantra equates the war sides as if they were unruly kids to be reconciled. But in this war, the sides are fundamentally unequal, and “express peace” will mean victory of Russia, occupation of some part of Ukraine and strengthening Putin regime in the future.

Resisting Russian aggression led to a clash with the dogmas of our movement and to re-evaluation of what seemed unacceptable before. In this war, the interests of the Ukrainian state and the interests of the Ukrainian anarchists partially overlapped. It is obvious to us why the comrades prefer to fight in the ranks of the Ukrainian army and gain access to weapons and other resources. It is also clear to us why they did not try to resurrect some grotesque version of Makhnovshchina with three rifles per squad, just to valiantly fight “against all” and to be completely destroyed a week later. Having said that, we acknowledge that building some sort of a “third power” is a right goal strategically. However, under the conditions in which the war caught the Ukrainian anarchist movement, direct and effective action against the authoritarian regime expansion is a reasonable anarchist reaction to the war. Anarchist communities of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia acted in many different ways: organized street protests, mutual aid and volunteering, helped refugees in Ukraine, sabotaged military infrastructure in Russia, etc. This included joining the Ukrainian army. All these actions should be seen as a continuum of resistance against the invasion — resistance carried out across borders, different approaches, tactics and contradictions.

Therefore, we are worried about the trend among the Western anarchists on criticizing aid to Ukraine. It is not surprising that local struggles are often closer and more clear. For example, for Greek anarchists one of the most important topics is resisting US colonialism and NATO military bases. Of course, in general NATO is no better than Russia. However, in this case, support for Ukraine resistance is beneficial not only to the Western and Ukrainian elites, but also to the anarchist movement in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other neighboring countries subject to Russian state influence and threats. It is even more true if we recall that the anarchist movement has already been completely destroyed once in this part of the world by the Soviet Union. It will certainly happen again if Russia preserves its influence in the region via military means. The same future awaits all the countries that will go under the Russian sphere of influence.

Against the boycott of Ukrainian and Belarusian anarchists
A number of anarchist initiatives have decided to exclude Ukrainian and Belarusian anarchists from their websites and events. In particular, Balkan Anarchist Bookfair refused to accept the participation of the Ukrainian “Solidarity Collectives” project, justifying it as follows:

“We were very concerned that such a proposal is submitted while the Ukrainian state is kidnapping people from the street and sending them by force to the slaughterhouse of war. So our response to hosting the presentation you proposed is negative.”

Of course Ukrainian anarchists never called for kidnapping people to send them to the front lines. This justification of exclusion does not have anything to do with reality.

Also, anarchist Indymedia Athens refused to publish posts by “Solidarity Collectives” for the following reasons:

“This is a call to take sides in a war, with a nation that at this point stands as the frontline of NATO in the West-Russian war. This has nothing to do with the political views of Athens Indymedia, that are anti-war and anti-imperialist at their core.”

At the same time, Indymedia Athens is full of materials against Israel invasion to Palestine: a place which is as well a frontline of a war between NATO and Iran with its allies. Fighting imperialism is not always devoid of violence and often requires weapons provided by states. Anti-militarist stance of Indymedia Athens does not feel logical or consistent. Note that Berlin Anarchist Bookfair in 2024 and 2025 also rejected Belarus anarchists.

And here the main problem is not the stance of Balkan and Berlin Anarchist Bookfairs or Indymedia Athens. Anarchist movement should be open to discussion, and not everyone has to agree to one and only definition of imperialism or to specific anti-militarist tactics. The problem lies in the attempts to completely exclude anarchists from entire regions — at exactly the time when these regions are subjects of imperialist aggression aimed at fascist violent assimilation and destruction of national identity. While Putin is claiming that Belarus and Ukraine people do not exist, Balkan and Berlin Anarchist Bookfairs and Indymedia Athens are excluding Eastern Europe comrades from the anarchist movement: by the lack of understanding of different stances, by unwilling to see the context, by inability to accommodate the contradictions these comrades are facing right now.

What we suggest
Question the information coming to you. Try to learn the opinions of all relevant groups, especially those involved in local initiatives and less visible internationally.

When making statements about Ukraine, ask for feedback from local comrades to clarify and update your understanding of the situation.

We call on everyone to remember the basics of anarchist ethics: what is important is unity not estrangement, solidarity not opposition. It may be obvious, but still when we face contradictions, we often forget how to deal with our comrades in fighting.

Openly oppose attempts to exclude Belarusian and Ukrainian anarchists from anarchist movement.

Learn from the wars in Ukraine, Syria and other countries in order to create the conditions for the emergence of a revolutionary “third power” capable of defending the society at all levels in the case of a war.

To sign this statement, or for other questions, please write to anarchiststatement@riseup.net

Signatories as of November 28th 2025
(see the updated list here)

Autonomous Action

Antijob

DIAna (Irkutsk Anarchist Movement)

Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK)

Anarchist group in emigration “Peripheria”

Anarchist Black Cross — Irkutsk

Ivan Astashin

Khubiskhal

AKRATEIA

Black Square

Black Loudspeaker

Solidarity Zone

Feminist Anarchist Solution (Hamburg)

Lolja Nordic, co-founder of Feminist Antiwar Resistance, coordinator of FAR Vienna

Source: https://syg.ma/@antidzhob/statement-from-russian-speaking-anarchists-to…

Comments

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 11/29/2025 - 07:02

I've been listening to the voices coming from Ukraine the whole time. I listened to Petrov say conscription is a necessary evil. I listened to Kolchenko say the fascists of the UPA and Azov are good people. I just disagree with them. If you think anarchists are too dogmatic for being against the State, congratulations, you're a liberal, a marxist, a fascist, what have you, not an anarchist!

Baba (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 13:57

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

In the discussion here, someone said: "I heard Kolchenko say that the fascists from the UPA and Azov are good people."

Is there any evidence for this claim? When and where did Kolchenko say such crap? Please provide a source. Thanks.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 14:32

In reply to by Baba (not verified)

The defense of Azov, regurgitation of Azov propaganda is here:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-insider-denazification-done…

The UPA promo is on his facebook account. For example on International Women's Day he posted about the women of the UPA. Another time he posted about Vasyl Kuk, the last leader of the UPA.

Know your frenemies. Undo your ignorance. Stop calling "crap" what are factual statements about a person who's not trying to hide how much he likes fascist organizations. Stop providing cover for fash-lovers

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Fri, 12/05/2025 - 15:31

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

So I looked up the reference cited by 14:32. It does not defend Azov or say that it is good people. It does deny that the fascists dominate the government, the army, or the people of Ukraine. It makes clear Ukrainian anarchists' political opposition to the Ukrainian state.

In any case, the key question is whether a non-imperialist people (even one with a state) has been attacked by an imperialist state, and whether anarchists should be on the side of the oppressed people--and should find ways, under existing conditions, to oppose the imperial invader. I say "Yes."

Similarly, in the Israeli genocidal war on the Palestinians, the *main* issue is not the statist, jihadist, and nationalist nature of the Palestinian resistance, but whether anarchists should be on the side of the Palestinian people against the Zionist-U.S. imperialist forces. We should *also* denounce the statism and capitalism of the leading Palestinian organizations, their reliance on Iran, etc., but that is not the first and main issue.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/06/2025 - 09:50

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Hi Wayne, thanks for joining this good-faith convo.

Here's the specific part of the article where Kolchenko minimizes the fascist presence in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian state and its army, and more specifically regurgitates the propaganda of the fascist Azov regiment, trying to whitewash the group, as if they've moved away from fascism, which is a lie:

"Nazis were a force in the streets, but after the Maidan, they barely won one or two percent in the all-Ukraine elections. Before the war, Ukraine’s largest far-right organization was the National Corps – essentially, the political wing of the Azov Regiment. However, Azov has recently published a statement, equally denouncing Stalinism and Nazism as totalitarian regimes that inflicted the heaviest losses on Ukraine in its entire history."

This is very obvious fascist minimization and fascist propaganda spreading, when you yourself are not a fascist. There is absolutely no way around it. If you defend it, you're an apologist for the fascists too.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/06/2025 - 12:06

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

And this of course is on top of the fact that Kolchenko has posted on his own facebook account more than once in support of the fascist UPA who collaborated with the German Nazis in WWII. He is ideologically promoting fascism. There is no possible excuse for this. You can oppose Russian invasion without supporting Ukrainian fascists who carried out pogroms during WWII. It's quite possible to do so. But since there are fascist units involved in the current day Ukrainian army, and "anarchists" are joining them, we have "anarchists" not only down-playing this fact but up-playing the history of Ukrainian fascism. Fuck fascism and its defenders.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 12:12

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Say we agreed that Ukrainian “anarchists” praising and regurgitating the words of fascists was not the “key question.” Them doing so would still be bad, two things can be wrong at once, even if one is more “key.” Yet, you can’t even spare a bad word for the fascism apologia by “anarchists.”

As far as the “the key question” goes though, your stance is more Trotskyist or Kropotkinist circa WWI than it is anarchist. Are Ukrainians really a non-imperialist people? Their state helped invade and occupy Iraq in the 2000s, armed Myanmar and bought weapons from Israel in more recent years. It was the fourth largest arms exporter in the entire world in 2021, above Germany and France, for example. Ukraine also has trade deals with imperialist countries like Turkey and Israel. As of 2024, Ukraine became the biggest arms importer on the planet, far outpacing Israel and most other countries.

Furthermore, an invadee can also be an invader (or at least an imperialist country), as was the case in WWI, as Malatesta and Goldman, etc., pointed out, in argument against the newly imperialist warmonger Kropotkin. Germany invaded imperialist countries like Belgium and France in WWI. Belgium had invaded the Congo prior to this. Kropotkin was aware of this, he just didn’t care. He considered the people of the Congo to be of less importance, just as today you and the other warmonger anarchists for Ukraine place Palestinian lives below those of Ukrainians. Belgium didn’t release the Congo after Germany was defeated. It claimed another German colony in Africa as a compensation prize, Ruanda-Urundi. Belgium as victim was itself also a victimizer of others, both before and after the war. One imperialism doesn’t cancel out another, they can even strengthen each other.

As Malatesta pointed out in one of his 1914 articles, the “key question” for anarchists is that the main enemy is the one at home. We can technically do more about our own country than one across the globe. So, for an American anarchist, the key question is that America is supporting Ukraine and attacking Palestine, sometimes via the exact same American arms company. Ukraine doesn’t even need American anarchist help, while Palestine does. Since you are a simple euro/american chauvinist rather than an anarchist, that’s not the key question for you, but it is for the anarchist movement.

You are correct to the extent that the key question for American anarchists isn’t the necessity of denouncing the Ukrainian state, the hierarchical and statist Palestinian forces (who don’t have their own state like Ukraine), or the Ukrainian and Palestinian people. But as Malatesta pointed out in an 1897 article, anarchists can see a national liberation struggle as correct, as Crete was in its revolt against the Ottoman Empire, and at the same time see that direct anarchist intervention on the side of the national liberation forces would be wrong, for multiple reasons, in the case of Crete because of the intervention of the British Empire, etc., and the hierarchical and racist nature of the liberation forces. At the time, Kropotkin even agreed with Malatesta. Once WWI came around, he turned imperialist and militarist, just as you and your fellow warmonger anarchist have done today (if you weren’t always this way.) If the anarchist movement can’t reject your chauvinist politics, it serves no purpose, it is merely a pathetic and ineffective appendage of the western imperialist states. Most likely, however, there will always be at least a few anarchists who embrace Malatesta’s style of anti-politics and reject your reactionary views.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-our-foreign-po…

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Mon, 12/08/2025 - 14:31

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

For anarchists to praise or excuse fascists, in Ukraine or elsewhere, is wrong. However, I read the specific document as essentially denying that fascists have a major influence on Ukrainian government or society. But that can be discussed.

I repeat: the main issue is whether an imperialist power, Russia, is invading a non-imperialist country, in which case anarchists must support the oppressed and invaded people (mostly workers, farmers, the poor, women, and other oppressed) in their fight against the imperialist aggressor. Just how to support them is then the *next* question.

Ukraine is not like Belgium in World War I (and II), an invaded *but imperialist* country, whose rulers directly exploited the people of vast parts of Africa. Ukraine is part of the world market and its system of states, but that does not make it imperialist as such. It buys and sells goods (including arms) and makes alliances with imperialist and non-imperialist states, but that does not make it imperialist itself.

You cite an anti-war statement by Malatesta written during WWI when his emphasis was on opposition to both sides of the war among imperialist states. Yet you know that he had supported wars of national self-determination, such as Cuba against Spain, the Libyans against Italy, and quite a few others. You even mention his support for the Cretans against the Turkish state (that in this case he advised against Italian anarchists joining the Cretan forces is irrelevant to the political issue; I have not advocated US anarchists going to fight in Ukraine!).

It is unnecessary to respond to your typical name-calling. For all your denunciation of fascism, I need only refer to your de facto alliance with the semi-fascist Donald Trump on the question of Ukraine.

anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/09/2025 - 08:28

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

“For all your denunciation of fascism, I need only refer to your de facto alliance with the semi-fascist Donald Trump on the question of Ukraine.”

It’s not even clear to me what this lie of yours is supposed to refer to. You provide no reasoning or context for it. Perhaps that’s the point, just to be a lie to deflect from the bankruptcy of your politics. If you cannot come up with an argument, no problem, just lie.

This is also reflected in the previous part of your statement where you simply ignore every single point I made about Ukraine and replace them with your imagined statement, as if I had simply said that Ukraine is part of the world market and that market includes arms. This imaginary claim has nothing to do with any of the points I made about Ukraine. Not every country in the world invaded Iraq or armed Myanmar during the Rohingya genocide as Ukraine did. Some countries have paused or cancelled imports of Israeli weapons over the past few years. Ukraine saw that Israeli grenade launchers were good at crushing Palestinians and their homes in 2009 and said great, we’ll take those.

If I had wanted to make the claim you invent, I wouldn’t have even needed to mention Ukraine, since it applies to most if not all countries. You concoct a claim in order to deflect from all the more specific and factual statements I made about the history of the Ukrainian state. Such lying is befitting of Trotskyists and Stalinists but not so much anarchists. Lying to the public in order to preserve your ego is a form of petty authoritarianism. Lying to cops is fine. But lying to everyone simply because you’ve been shown to be foolish is not.

In any case, it also appears, ironically so, that you are unaware that Trump has been arming and otherwise supporting Ukraine’s war effort. In fact, during his first presidency he became the first to arm Ukraine and even criticized Obama for not doing so. It was under Trump that arms transfers to the fascist Azov regiment were banned. Under Obama, a ban on training Azov was lifted, and under Biden, the ban on arms transfers to Azov was lifted. Maybe three semi-fascists can exist at once and don’t cancel each other out. Who knows?

After a brief pause on weapons transfers earlier this year, Trump resumed them, even approved new sales to Ukraine. Then came Trump’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), under which Canada and Europe are spending billions of dollars buying weapons from American arms companies to send to Ukraine. The flow of weapons from the US to Ukraine has not stopped, it’s just different countries paying for it. The American arms companies have been profiting both ways (and reinvesting in weapons production for Israel), no matter the buyer.

Earlier this year Zelenskyy even came to the US and met with Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Hopefully they didn’t all share a laugh about dead Palestinians. A Ukrainian sociology institute did a poll at the end of 2023 that found that Ukrainians are much more racist against Palestinians than people in the US, UK and Russia are. School textbooks in Ukraine now teach kids that Israel is victimized by Arabs. But as you say, chauvinistically, Ukrainians have a right to Israeli weapons. An anti-imperialist people who happen to be white, the Ukrainians, who see a non-white colonized people, the Palestinians, as sub-human, and buy weapons from their oppressor who is actively massacring them. That’s anti-imperialism when you’re a Trotskyist, I guess.

It’s like Highlander, there can only be one imperialist, and his name is Putin. Once the global arms industry destroys the world via climate change and other calamities everything will be ok so long as Putin is dethroned. Normally war only leads to more war. But in this case, most life on earth will be dead, so we won’t have to worry about war anymore. That will be the final victory of anarcho-trotskyism and Wayne will finally be vindicated by history.

https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1334

https://www.newarab.com/news/ukraine-publishes-history-book-portrays-is…

anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/09/2025 - 16:57

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

I like how anews allows bad-jacketing comments like this. Nothing has ever gone wrong with bad-jacketing before in history. The commenter in question is anonymous but Wayne Price clearly believes in using harmful police-style tactics such as bad-jacketing when someone disagrees with him. Not really safe to let him hang around. Learn about AIM and the BPP.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/10/2025 - 07:15

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Is accusing anon commenters of being Trumpists a "police tactic"? Is USA Anarcho-Communist Antifa already? Must be the Deep State crawling its tentacles among Anews mod team!!! AaaaaaaaAAaaaaaaah! Let's call Tucker for an investigation.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 12/10/2025 - 07:22

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

anews knows if they try to censor the powerful anarcho-militarist voice that is wayne price, he will come pay a visit with his azov boys. since he's been on the front lines in ukraine for months he's leveled up and become even more dangerous.

word on the street is he's been leading the elite internal "anarcho-recruitment" squad that operates inside ukraine, tracking down and "recruiting" for war all those between the ages of 8 and 80-- to help unlock their hidden anarcho-military potential on behalf of the state errrr the people of ukraine.

anarcho-recruiting is kind of like a skillshare crossed with mutual aid: they get a free ride to the border, a gun, and then 5 days of complimentary infantry training. it's kropotkin's dream made real

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/11/2025 - 08:48

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

During WWI, liars would call Emma Goldman pro-Germany simply because she was against all sides of the war. It's good to see Wayne, senior commander of the American anarcho-militarist movement taking up this mantle today. Trump is the Prince of Peace. And that's why we anarcho-militarists oppose him! Anyone who points out that Trump arms Ukraine is our enemy and must be smeared immediately. Protect Trump, Raytheon and the Ukrainian state at all costs by deflecting from anti-militarist arguments and portraying them as the real Trumpists. Smear campaigns are our specialty.

Tim Declercq Tue, 12/09/2025 - 13:32

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

Wayne, several months ago already I linked you to a specific post on Kolchenko's facebook account where he openly praises a Right Sector leader: https://anarchistnews.org/comment/81315#comment-81315

Not that I'm going to get involved in this discussion between yourself and the other commenter, but it would be nice if you could at least try to remember information you've already been provided with on this site, so things don't have to keep going in circles every couple of months.

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Tue, 12/09/2025 - 15:35

In reply to by Tim Declercq

As I wrote in this list: "I repeat: the main issue is whether an imperialist power, Russia, is invading a non-imperialist country, in which case anarchists must support the oppressed and invaded people (mostly workers, farmers, the poor, women, and other oppressed) in their fight against the imperialist aggressor. Just how to support them is then the *next* question." Whatever wrong things Kolchenko wrote.

Tim Declercq Thu, 12/11/2025 - 06:03

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

My point is that this particular thread was started by someone saying they had done what this statement is asking, namely they did listen to Ukrainian anarchists and found them lacking, giving the example of Kolchenko's propensity of glorifying fascists. This point was then challenged by some people including yourself, even though just a couple of months ago on this very website you were already provided with direct links to Kolchenko's social media glorifying a Right Sector leader. And that is my point, what's the point of arguing with you if every couple of months or even weeks you're just going to reset again and everything has to start from zero again?

As for your insistence that this isn't the main issue, it's obvious why it would be in your interest to divert from that point, but this is still the point that was brought up by the original commenter who started this thread. If you want to talk about something else then why not start your own thread? All you're really doing here is complaining "No don't talk about the fascists behind the curtain, talk about this other thing instead."

Lastly, I'll posit that this point is quite relevant indeed, if the best they got is a bunch of UPA shills fighting in fascist paramilitary groups then maybe we shouldn't just take them at their word about their description of the situation?

Wayne Price@ (not verified) Thu, 12/11/2025 - 15:11

In reply to by Tim Declercq

T.D. Thu ends his comment with this revealing line: "maybe we shouldn't just take them at their word about their description of the situation?" The "situation" which they describe is the invasion of Ukraine by the imperialist Russian state. Does Tim regard Russian imperialism as the aggressor and does he believe that Ukrainians are right to resist this aggression? In the past he has expressed sympathy for Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainians who fought in Russians puppet armies and supported the Russian invasion. As I said, this remains the key, fundamental, question.

It is my impression that this thread was started by the declaration of the Russian anarchists which began this discussion.

Embarrassingly, I have to admit not knowing the word "bad-jacketing." It seems to be used here to refer to my sarcastically calling one anon (who had called me an "anarcho-Trotskyist") an "anarcho-Trumpist." What's sauce for the goose.....

Apparently some anarchists will not admit that Trump is an admirer and ally of Putin's who has repeated sabotaged Ukraine's defense and who is again pressuring Zelensky to surrender to Russian conditions for an end to the war. As head of US imperialism, Trump cannot simply drop all US aid to Ukraine (as he has repeatedly threatened to do) since this would completely remove the US state from any further influence on the war, but he has given Ukraine just enough to keep going while pressuring it to surrender. This is so obvious it is hardly worth debating.

Tim Declercq Fri, 12/12/2025 - 04:47

In reply to by Wayne Price@ (not verified)

"T.D. Thu ends his comment with this revealing line: "maybe we shouldn't just take them at their word about their description of the situation?" The "situation" which they describe is the invasion of Ukraine by the imperialist Russian state."

By "their description of the situation" I meant their description of the situation within Ukraine. A supposedly non-authoritarian regime (they go on and on about how Russia represents authoritarianism which Ukraine is supposedly fighting against) where every citizen is supposedly lining up to volunteer to fight for freedom in the State army etc, a description which you by and large share. Not a word about the busification, not a word about the prisons overflowing with political prisoners, not a word about the repression of the left, not a word about the linguistic & cultural repression in the South-East, etc etc.

What post-Maidan Ukraine most closely resembles is the Latin-American regimes of the 70s, but of course you won't hear a word about any of this from these self-styled anarchists, hardly surprising if their reference for freedom fighting is the UPA. To the contrary, they tell us that we should question the veracity of the information about this given to us by the local groups like Assembleia which do talk about that, insinuating that it would be Russian propaganda on no grounds whatsoever and despite the fact that this information isn't that hard to verify. At the same time the AD and other signatories of this statement demand of us ad nauseam that we have to respect neo-nazis like Petrovichev or Right Sector commanders like Samoylenko, to be welcomed as comrades and listened to in the anarchist movement. You really don't see a glaring problem here?

"It is my impression that this thread was started by the declaration of the Russian anarchists which began this discussion."

This particular thread was started by a comment by someone saying they listened to Ukrainian anarchists and found them lacking giving the example of Kolchenko and his glorification of fascists: https://anarchistnews.org/comment/85089#comment-85089

I suppose we could argue on the technical definition of what constitutes a "thread" but I'm using it in the sense that the first comment (not responding to another comment) constitutes the start of a distinct "thread" where the comments responding to that first comment and so on constitute that particular thread.

anonymous (not verified) Sat, 11/29/2025 - 07:17

I don't know what is more ridiculous: the nonsense written in this idiotic statement, or the signatures underneath it.

Tim Declercq Sat, 11/29/2025 - 07:35

There is a whole lot that can be said about this statement, but I'm just going to mention a specific thing which I happen to have some personal relation with, namely:

"deliberate laughter during a minute of silence in memory of the deceased comrades"

This refers to the gathering in St Imier in July 2023 where some of these Solidarity Collectives types planted a tree in memory of Sergey Petrovichev et al. A few months earlier I had been the first (at least to my knowledge) to publish information on Sergey as a long-term neo-nazi and cop, which I wrote a short post on Facebook about: https://www.facebook.com/groups/531237307356785/?multi_permalinks=15540… A year or two later this information made its way through Lukas Borl into the wider anarchist movement by an article on LibCom: https://libcom.org/article/national-dictatorship-goal-unbreakable-anarc…

So what we have here are a couple of Solidarity Collectives people planting a tree in memory of a neo-nazi cop while going on about their "anarchist comrades." You know what I think is a proper response to such a display? Laughter. Laughter is a proper response.

While at the time of the St Imier gathering in 2023 this information was (again at least to my knowledge) only known in Belgium/Netherlands and Greece (I had passed it on to my Greek comrades in Athens) so people might have found such responses to this tree-planting ceremony strange, we are now in November 2025, almost a year since this information has been widely available internationally through LibCom and other sites, and this statement from Autonomous Action is still calling Sergey et al "anarchist comrades" and admonishing people for not being respectful of them. At this point I suppose anyone can draw their own conclusions from this, I'll sure draw mine.

Laure (not verified) Mon, 12/01/2025 - 08:39

We should be paying attention to comments like those above. Unfortunately, there is a long history of "anarchists" cooperating with or being comrades with the far right in Eastern Europe and of some people speaking about them as anarchists or comrades. It might be a bit off the main topic, but it shows a type of flexibility with ideas and labels that many would not agree with.

That said, I dislike this way of framing it, as if people are excluded all Ukrainians or all Belarussians. I certainly know people who would disagree with the positions here. It is just simply that some people would not like to be associated with militaristic calls, which would be consistent with their point of view. I read most recently that some Ukrainian anarchists now don't want to call themselves anarchists because of the others trying to impose a fake unity of ideas. That's an attempt at enforcing conformity.

Tim Declercq Sat, 12/06/2025 - 00:58

In reply to by Laure (not verified)

It's not just that some East-European "anarchists" are being comrades with the far right, it's that this statement (and thereby the signatories of it) is imploring us to do the same. That incident in St Imier with some people laughing at that tree-planting ceremony wasn't just about Petrovichev but about 5 people in total in whose honour ceremony was held. Petrovichev, a long-time neo-nazi and cop who was in the OUN group, Samoylenko who was a commander in the Right Sector, and 3 others who were in Korchinsky's Bratstvo group. Every single one of them without fail, 5 out of 5, were in fascist paramilitary groups. Yet this statement is complaining that some anarchists laughed at this ceremony? Heck, I'm surprised more people weren't laughing at this charade. In the very next sentence this statement continues about this incident: "Such cases emphasize that we do not always remember who our enemy is." And here I was thinking that the far-right, and in particular fascist paramilitary groupings, was in fact our enemy...

But indeed a whole lot more can be said about this statement, almost every sentence of it can be picked apart, I just chose to focus on this specific thing because I happen to be the person who had originally made this information about Petrovichev et al public in the anarchist movement (at least in Belgium/Netherlands and Greece) back in February 2023.

NONAME (not verified) Wed, 12/03/2025 - 13:00

What everyone should pay attention to in that war - is how small the world became. How hard it became to leave a huge territory with very long border. The states are the jails, but nowadays that means people can't move basically anywhere. The whole world is fucking concentration camp. The are entire countries like El Salvador and Albania turned into huge prisons used by other states like US and Italy. That's fucking shame folks.

anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/04/2025 - 14:05

In reply to by NONAME (not verified)

There's a still few slacker regions, but sure, it's pretty depressing how siloed the world is becoming despite the internet. And the process might go on further. Fucking '90s neolib Boomer promises of a "global village" and World Citizens has only become true for the billionaires and some of their petty managers... for obvious reasons.

No Borders camps should have been developed in all directions and for everyone. The hyper-focus on migrants might have made a lot of "us" overlook what's been going on in these non-Western countries with far more brutal policies on borders and migration.

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