The trial and sentencing of Ruslan Sidiki has exposed both the terror of an authoritarian state and the power of clandestine direct action
At the Ryazan garrison military court, Judge Oleg Shishov on 23 May sentenced Ruslan Sidiki to 29 years of imprisonment for bombing railway tracks leading to the front and a drone attack on a military base. Sidiki will have to spend the first 7 in a high-security prison and after that in a high-security penal colony. He would also have to pay about 58 million roubles in fines and damages (about 640,000 Euros).
Russian Railways reported damages of more than 17 million Rubles and the disruption to 61 trains using the same line. Petrochemical outfit Apatit said that 700 tonnes of concrete crumbled and mixed with the soil, causing damage of 38 million Rubles. Bogdan Fedak, a representative of the Ministry of Defence, confirmed the drone at Dyagilyevo airfield caused minimal damage, but it did threaten “the combat readiness of the military unit” although when pressed, he could not say what the threat was.
“Of course, any loud bang and news of an explosion can scare someone”, Sidiki said in his final statement to the court. “Just as missiles flying over houses and the start of military operations carry with them intimidation of the population of the country against which these actions are being carried out”.
Sabotage of the railways carrying military equipment through Russia into Ukraine rose sharply after the announcement of the full-scale war in 2022. The violent suppression of street protests and anti-war demonstrations has left no avenue but clandestine direct action.
“Early in the morning of February 24th” Sidiki wrote, “I was riding in the train Ryazan-Moscow… I began to monitor the news and saw that a large-scale invasion had begun. It was a very unpleasant feeling (knowing) that you couldn’t do anything. I saw how trains with military equipment are going, out of desperation I wanted to overshadow the gun trucks”.
By early March, Sidiki had written to a comrade in Ukraine to ask if they would fight in the armed forces. The comrade replied: “We burn their equipment in the hundreds, and they wipe our cities from the face of the earth”.
‘Beware, Moscow’
63 trains had de-railed in Russia in the first four months of full-scale war, according to media reports seen by The Insider. Several underground groups were claiming responsibility, uploading reports to social media and sharing recipes for explosives. Russian Railways has claimed that half of these derailments were due to technical problems rather than political sabotage—preferring to be accused of criminal negligence than admit to the scale of actions.
Already in 2020, the Rail Guerrillas in Belarus were active in sabotaging state infrastructure as part of the uprising against dictatorship in the country. In 2022 the focus mainly changed to sabotaging the Russian war machine in Belarus. The same year the Belarussian regime passed legislation that would allow the death penalty for attempted acts of sabotage, and violently crushed the movement in the country.

In April 2022, the Russian security service (FSB) announced it they had detained two Russians who were “supporters of Ukrainian Nazism” and were being charged with sabotage. A video was released as ‘evidence’ for their crimes, with one blurred-faced man talking to camera and wearing a shirt with Union Jacks on it. Their names were not released, but even after an investigation by The Insider, no data could be found on charges being brought in the region reported.
The announcement by the FSB did fit the public narrative of the “de-Nazification of Ukraine” as propagated by Russian leadership a little too well. Behind the scenes, the FSB was looking for the anarchists and other political activists. In the public chat ‘Beware, Moscow’ a message warned that the security service was after a “militant organisation of anarcho-communists”.
According to investigators, the group responsible for several acts of sabotage were not supporters of Ukrainian fascism but their political counterforce; the Combat Organisation of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK). The underground militant direct action group had managed to delay military freight trains by unscrewing 8 nuts, splitting a rail joint and partially dislodging the tracks. “As anarchists and revolutionaries”, a member of BOAK wrote in February 2025, “it was obvious that we needed to stand in defence of society when it faced fascist imperial aggression”.
“The defeat of Ukraine will bring about the triumph of the most reactionary forces in Russia”, another statement from BOAK reads, “finalizing its transformation into a neo-Stalinist concentration camp, with unlimited power concentrated in the FSB and totalitarian Orthodox imperialist ideology”.
Several BOAK comrades went to fight in the resistance in Ukraine, including one of the founders of the combat organisation Dmitry Petrov. From the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, Petrov worked to establish anti-authoritarian and autonomous military units, including the Anti-Authoritarian Platoon that fought until the summer of 2022.
“Right now we are going through a turning point in the history of eastern Europe”, Petrov wrote in ‘To be an independent force’. “In the abyss of events, the small black sail of the anarchist movement is clearly visible”.
In the following year, Dmitry Petrov was killed alongside Finbar Cafferly and Cooper Andrews as they were fighting close to Bakhmut in Ukraine.
Terror state
As Sidiki reflected in court, he was forced underground when “all opportunities to influence the situation peacefully” were cut off. “Whoever opposes war is declared a traitor and subject to repression… it is not surprising that someone would prefer to leave the country and someone will take up the explosives”.
Sidiki’s defence lawyer had argued that the charge of terrorist training should be dropped, referring both to the defendant’s prior knowledge of explosives and drone operations, and the court’s recognition of the defendant as a prisoner of war. Destruction of the property of the military is known as sabotage, Sidiki argued, whereas it is the Russian military targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure that fits the legal definition of terrorism — “committing an explosion or other actions that frighten the population in order to influence decision-making by the authorities”. Access to water, electricity and gas were severely restricted in order to put pressure on Ukraine’s leadership.

As reported by Mediazona, Sidiki previously reflected from prison, “did I feel like a guerrilla? I think I could be called that. If during the Second World War, people opposing the Third Reich on its territory were called partisans, then I can be attributed to them…”
“Torturing with electricity and beating up a tied up person is an extremely low act” Sidiki said at his last hearing. “Here, responsibility falls not only on the one who used these methods, but also the one who knows, and the one who does not react and helps hide it”.
Standing in a cage, his final words to the court were from a fragment of a poem by Nestor Makhno:
Let them bury us now,
but our essence will not
sink into oblivion
It will rise at the right time
and win. I believe in it
Comments
Nice
Ji Fu (not verified) Thu, 06/12/2025 - 13:46
This is beautiful
Russia: Anarchist partisans sabotage the war machine
Jeffrey Falconer (not verified) Sun, 06/15/2025 - 06:19
In reply to Nice by Ji Fu (not verified)
Actually I don't have much sympathy for this guy. He is only aiding and abetting the EU & NATO.
Yeah Jeffrey, if he was an…
anon (not verified) Mon, 06/16/2025 - 19:48
In reply to Russia: Anarchist partisans sabotage the war machine by Jeffrey Falconer (not verified)
Yeah Jeffrey, if he was an authentic anarchist he would have avoided having anything to do with a binary war between nations. What the hell was he thinking, possibly a parallel inverted authoritarian socialist authoritarian alternative.
"parallel inverted…
anon (not verified) Mon, 06/16/2025 - 19:50
In reply to Yeah Jeffrey, if he was an… by anon (not verified)
"parallel inverted authoritarian socialist authoritarian alternative." = Nazism
No Good Choices
I am (banned) Makhno (not verified) Sun, 06/15/2025 - 07:43
Jeffrey Falconer is absolutely right. This Russian anarchist, acting from the most sincere principles, is contributing, even if in a very small way, to advance the agenda of the Western masters of Ukraine - which is to prolong the conflict as long as possible, weaken Russia as much as possible, in every way short of provoking a nuclear exchange. This war will end on Russia's terms sooner or later, and the sooner it does, the more Ukrainian lives will be saved. This outcome will be a severe blow to what is left of Western hegemony, which is an outcome that anarchists can be grateful for.
Since when is the anarchist…
EmmaAintDead Sun, 06/15/2025 - 18:38
In reply to No Good Choices by I am (banned) Makhno (not verified)
Since when is the anarchist position to appease the state in hopes of less violences being visited upon people? That position is typically viewed as cowardice, not liberation.
Anarchists cannot, in fact, be grateful for an eastern empire being victorious.
The comment above you is…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 09:31
In reply to Since when is the anarchist… by EmmaAintDead
The comment above you is rather silly, but I hope we can agree that fighting for the Ukrainian government is also fucked…
“Multipolarity” seems like another name for the sort of chaotic competition between states pre-1914; it’s also as fucked up to cheer for that as the other person on this page who is saying how western liberal democracies are worth supporting because they’re nicer places to live
I am not advocating for…
EmmaAintDead Tue, 06/17/2025 - 19:23
In reply to The comment above you is… by anon (not verified)
I am not advocating for fighting on behalf of any state, Ukraine included. Only that "im grateful for a different empire winning" isn't gonna go over well when we go around the table at anarcha-so-called-th@nksgiving
Why all the hate on Western…
anon (not verified) Mon, 06/16/2025 - 18:22
In reply to No Good Choices by I am (banned) Makhno (not verified)
Why all the hate on Western liberal democracies? They are deteriorating anyways... but is more authoritarian states (either illiberal hardcore democracies, or just monarchies) within national silos the shit an anarchist would root for?
Not exactly...
Even if Western democracies are godawful, most anarchists I can imagine couldn't even survive in a place like Saudi Arabia, current Afghanistan & maybe even the Emirates. The current, apparent trend in "world politics" for hard authoritarianism isn't likely to be helping the anarchist cause that much either...
Yeah, it's sorta cosy and…
anon (not verified) Mon, 06/16/2025 - 19:40
In reply to Why all the hate on Western… by anon (not verified)
Yeah, it's sorta cosy and smug being an anarchist in a Western liberal democracy, though Stirnerian individualists can still feel a little left out and lonely in the corporate consumerist hegemony; but, they still have their pride and stalwart independent sovereign selves to see them through the harsh ignorance and blindness which surrounds them *sigh*. I just thought of a cool neat name to call a Stirner social club,,,,,The Sovereign Selves,,,,Neat huh, and it's gender neutral of course, as Stirner regarded moral and patriarchal roles as spooks.
As if liberal democracies…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 09:33
In reply to Why all the hate on Western… by anon (not verified)
As if liberal democracies aren’t authoritarian and national, and as if they didn’t require the “bad countries” to exist for lots of political and economic reasons so that we can have all the commodities and “rights” that make life so “nice” here…
But that's blaming a group…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 15:47
In reply to As if liberal democracies… by anon (not verified)
But that's blaming a group of people who happened to be born in a fertile and mineral rich region for their collective serendipity and saying that those who happened to be born in a barren and mineral deficient region are the victims of the Other, who by the way donated medicine, roads and sewerage systems to them. Sure, they have been ripped off by colonialism, but look at India now, which is fertile and mineral rich, and what did they do with their gross surplus, they depleted it on the reproduction of more people. Birth control is the most crucial and neglected ideological aspect of patriarchal cultures, it's not so much about equity, especially in most underdeveloped republics where shanty towns negate the dominance of the property market in the general regional economic order.
Is this comment misplaced in…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 18:11
In reply to But that's blaming a group… by anon (not verified)
Is this comment misplaced in the thread? I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say or what it has to do with my previous comment.
NoOo, it's is not misplaced,…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 19:02
In reply to Is this comment misplaced in… by anon (not verified)
NoOo, it's is not misplaced, nor have I drifted off topic. I have gone BEYOND the tired and divisive arguments related to rich and poor nations! For a start, ALL the inhabitants of Earth (except children and radical individualists) are brainwashed by the notion of obedience to another entity. I chose India, but infact I should have selected the whole of Asia for its hUge 6 billion population of capitalist driven inhabitants producing 3/4 of the world's commodities by being the obedient factory slaves of powerful spooks represented by gods, dictators and their own desperation for survival, a condition resembles the overcrowded rat cage dynamic. What is this petty binary war between corporate funded spooks got to do with pure anarchist desire! ? What is this involvement in confrontation with the "enemy" when the enemy is actually an omnipresent mentality infecting your neighbour, even your own mother and father?! The answer to war is to escape the battlefield and to run for the hills, not to blow-up petty little railway lines which feed the brainwashed cannon fodder fighting incorporate proxy wars!
We must focus on changing the human will and consciousness away from one of hatred on the battlefield, and excess lust in unprotected sexual behavior.
Okay…… To just unpack what I…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 19:29
In reply to NoOo, it's is not misplaced,… by anon (not verified)
Okay……
To just unpack what I was saying: the Ukraine war has drawn out a consistently repeated fallacy of certain “anti-authoritarians”: the idea that liberal democratic states are “freer” than certain less-liberal or “more authoritarian states”, and therefore worth supporting on the grounds that this somehow makes them more fertile grounds for revolution (e.g., Wayne Price has many times posted in this vein here to justify anarchist participation in the armed forces of the Ukrainian state).
This is a fundamental myth of democracy, inherited from its origins in the struggle between the bourgeois and the aristocracy which birthed the modern capitalist world order. It is “freer” in the sense of “free markets” but it is really just a political mechanism that legitimates rule by the capitalist class, smoothing over conflict and inefficiencies born out of the “anarchic” competition inherent to such “free” markets.
The commodities that make such a nice “quality of life” in western style “free market” countries (not “rich countries” if you like, but the countries with the richest elites) depend on neocolonial resource extraction and cheap foreign/migrant labor which are just as essential to our “freedoms” here as our elites’ hypocritical and selective interest in things like civil and human rights.
Meanwhile in the “illiberal” states capitalism also flourishes, maybe with more or less efficiency, and often with some form of electoral democracy (I’ll leave it to the liberal social scientists to explain in detail what makes some countries “actually democratic” and “freer” than others, despite all being equally under the heel of transnational capitalist ruling classes, after which maybe they can tell us how many angels can dance on the head of a pin)
Whatever… the critiques of democracy are out there already. Soooo, do you want to explain how Asian slum dwellers having to work for a wage to survive is a “spook,” or…???
"how Asian slum dwellers…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 19:52
In reply to Okay…… To just unpack what I… by anon (not verified)
"how Asian slum dwellers having to work for a wage to survive is a “spook,” or…???"
Umm, well, "spook" is just a term which refers to the illusion of subservience to another entity's desire. Like the sacrifice to a God, in this case, "God" is the spook. Or subservience to a politicians policy, nay, to the nationalist blueprint, "national goal" is the spook. Any obedience to another's desire or plan, the "plan", the "constitution" the "moral/social code" are spooks, illusions which make you do things you don't want to do or obey because they take away your autonomous choice in your own will and desires.
For instance, Wayne P tells you to pick up a gun and kill Russian soldiers in the name of anarchism in Ukraine. In this case, "nationalism" is the spook, the imaginary border which defines "nation" is a spook, an abstract construct which controls and interferes with the individual lives of individuals, murders innocent people in its enforcement, and tricks people into maintaining an elitist ruler and their greedy wealthy evil overlords.
Typo-- 4.7/8,2 so not 2/3 of…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 20:08
In reply to Okay…… To just unpack what I… by anon (not verified)
Typo-- 4.7/8,2 so not 2/3 of global population but just over a half of global population.
PS I didn't entirely answer…
anon (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 20:59
In reply to Okay…… To just unpack what I… by anon (not verified)
PS I didn't entirely answer your question, a very nuanced answer is required for "work for a wage to survive is a “spook,” or…???"
Initially, if one can manage to get just enough protein and nutritional vitals to breath and having ones internal organs functioning, you would be surprised that very little is actually required. Thrpugh whatever markets at whatever distances from the consumers, overpopulation has increased so much that e even this simple availability nolonger exists in overpopulated and arid regions. Modern medicine and vaccinations have interfered with the ancient organic regulators of population co troll, and this surplus of "hungry" people will work at slave wage levels for just this simple nourishment, often sold at inflated prices by the very employers of the consumers. Yes, the ol' circular argument of demand, supply and profit. Human greed becomes the dominant master of any population which lacks an individualist consciousness which empowers stealth, critical thinking and stubborn defiance in the name of authentic autonomous liberty.
These methods of attaining personal liberty must be the foundational curriculum in any child's learning space.
Reply
SoOo I may be "jumping the…
anon (not verified) Wed, 06/18/2025 - 18:53
In reply to Okay…… To just unpack what I… by anon (not verified)
SoOo I may be "jumping the gun" in assuming your long silence and delay in replying could be interpreted as a favourable response to my answer to your question, no?
"often with some form of…
anon (not verified) Thu, 06/19/2025 - 07:48
In reply to Okay…… To just unpack what I… by anon (not verified)
"often with some form of electoral democracy (I’ll leave it to the liberal social scientists to explain in detail what makes some countries “actually democratic” and “freer” than others, despite all being equally under the heel of transnational capitalist ruling classes, after which maybe they can tell us how many angels can dance on the head of a pin)"
You don't need a political scientist to awknowledge that a state that, say, has brutally ignored the last two elections just to favor the monarch's designated right-hand man ain't exactly a "liberal democracy". Or maybe a place like Myanmar is closer to an anarchy, but would that mean to say we need a bloody junta in order to slaughter enough people so to have a civil war and therefore a decentralization of power? Sound like a great whack idea for psychopaths and fascists.
I personally hate the both, as
CalvinSmith (not verified) Tue, 06/17/2025 - 15:57
In reply to Why all the hate on Western… by anon (not verified)
western liberal domcracies are a pretty slick way to perpetuate authoritarian ideology
Well it's true but that was…
anon (not verified) Sat, 06/21/2025 - 10:25
In reply to I personally hate the both, as by CalvinSmith (not verified)
Well it's true but that was also true for the Modern age. I might say that an hyper-consumerist system is more powerful for how it is totalizing as an order while giving on a daily basis the illusion of "freedumb"... like let's looks into why Saudi dictator MBS had been "modernizing" (or rather post-modernizing) Arabia with such system while dodging a liberal democratic political system, kinda like China did as well as some failed states like Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia....
Liberal democracy = a screen…
Max Gunter (not verified) Sat, 06/21/2025 - 21:37
In reply to I personally hate the both, as by CalvinSmith (not verified)
Liberal democracy = a screen or spectacle infront of everyone and propaganda as the prime narrative.
That's only true if we…
anon (not verified) Sun, 06/22/2025 - 09:34
In reply to Liberal democracy = a screen… by Max Gunter (not verified)
That's only true if we assume that the electoral systems are a scam. Which is possible but far-fetched and borderline conspiratorial.
And then what of hyper-consumerist orders, where people got drastically less leverage and status, as de facto slaves to big business?
That's why I embraced "really free" as a form of liberation from the dominant system, as votes are just a joke anyways. People really vote with money... or they don't vote. I seen people offering me free goodies even in those hyper-consumerist banana republics, and despite me offering them something. THAT is freedom.
CHÉ GUEVARA REALLY FUCKED MY…
anon (not verified) Sat, 06/21/2025 - 00:40
CHÉ GUEVARA REALLY FUCKED MY HEAD UP!
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