Support Russian anti-war prisoners

These prisoners have been jailed due to anti-war protests or opinions. They have a wide variety of positions, but all of them are against the Russian attack against Ukraine. There are more prisoners than whom we know the addresses. This list was compiled by Ivan Astashin. 

Please translate your letters to Russian for example with Google translate, as currently letters in other languages except Russian are very seldom accepted in Russian prisons. 

Another reply on Ukraine, war and class war

A continuation of a debate over anarchist positions on Ukraine that previously ran on It's Going Down:

It’s good to see that my article on Ukraine and anti-war/class war positions has provoked a few responses, and I hope that discussion will continue elsewhere. By this point, the most important arguments have probably been made, so there’s a danger that diminishing returns and petty point-scoring might set in; but for what it’s worth, here’s a few comments on the two responses.

Moscow Anarchist Black Cross updates, May 2022

Possibilities to protest in Russia were already significantly limited before the pandemic, and during the last two years, from March 2020 to Russian attack to Ukraine, street demonstrations have been banned with the pretext of the Covid Pandemic. People were demonstrating persecutions against opposition leader Alexey Navalnyi, and in few other cases, but these ended in massive arrests.

Tekmil: A Tool For Collective Reflection

Tekmil is an instrument of collective reflection. This article conveys a specific experience of the anarchist organization in Rojava with tekmil.

Tekmil is an instrument of collective reflection. The historical root of what we know as tekmil can be traced to authoritarian communist traditions, such as Stalinism. Although, Mao was the first one among these traditions to put so much emphasis and importance to the methods of criticisms and self-criticism. Overall, we can state that critique and self-critique has been valuable for revolutionary movements in general, and has never been alien to non-authoritarian revolutionary movements in general.
In the context of Rojava, tekmil can be translated as "report" - further, one can trace the development and transformation of this meaning depending on the situation. Still, the literal translation makes sense to keep in mind - humbleness and shortness are valued in tekmil. It contains many cultural codes, mechanisms and ideological assumptions, and it requires an understanding and a solid philosophical and ideological foundation.

War and Social Struggle

The worst thing Putin has done in Ukraine is to reconcile the authorities with the people. The president has turned from an object of universal criticism into the Ukrainian Charles de Gaulle.1 The general of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry offers to deliver himself to the Russian army in exchange for the release of civilians from the besieged city and becomes a national hero. The entire population of Ukraine, from the homeless to the oligarch, unites in a common struggle.

Festival Feast After Plague (formerly Father Frost against Putin) is postponed to the next January

Unfortunately, we must once again delay our festival, this time due to war. Our concept was always to be an open meeting of Russian (and not only Russian) activists in Helsinki. But now borders are closed, and it is unclear if any open social activism in Russia will be possible from now on.

But we plan to organise our festival anyway. We still have spaces and organising group. Our preliminary new dates for the festival are 6th-9th of January 2023.

Ivan Astashin: Violence Is the Norm

An unknown activist’s protest performance titled “Bucha-Moscow” against the war crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine

I’m not surprised by the violence. I am not surprised because I know about the violence that occurs in Russia every day. Senseless cruelty is seemingly the norm for some Russians. I don’t have a ready answer to why this is the case. It’s worth asking sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists for an explanation.

A Russian Anarchist on the Ukraine War

This week, The Final Straw Radio spoke with Petr, a Russian anarchist member of the group Autonomous Action, who is living in Europe right now. For the hour we speak about the invasion of Ukraine, a bit about the resistance inside of Russia to the war drums and the Putin regime, the dangers of a nuclear conflict, the impacts of increased sanctions and anarchists organizing across the borders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus against the war and against tyranny.

The Kremlin's fatal miscalculation: «Trends of order and chaos», episode 44 (March 6)

Hi, it's Sunday and you are listening to our podcast «Trends of order and chaos». This is episode 44. Here are the main events of the past week: the week of the war.

Listen on SoundCloud

Download as an audio file

The Kazakh insurrection

Казахская Инсуррекция

The theory of the state is the reef on which the revolutions of our century have been shipwrecked.1 During the revolutions of the Arab Spring, the people brought about the fall of the regime, but the institutions of the state remained intact. Elsewhere the revolutions were drained in protracted civil wars. Everywhere that the old regime has seemed to be thrown down, it has found new sources of strength and risen again. What would it look like to finally break with this cycle?

In the past, insurrections have managed to defeat the state, rather than just a particular government. Insurrection is something more than a wave of riots, militant protests, blockades, occupations, and so on. It is the opening of a rupture, the search for that point after which no turning back is possible. If the revolutions of our time haven't defeated the state, we argue this is because there haven't been insurrections: there have been nonviolent uprisings, riots, armed struggles, and civil wars, but not yet insurrection.

Solidarity with Ukrainian anarchist and anti-fascist resistance

We visited Yango premises in the Lauttasaari neighbourhood of Helsinki, on the night between the 9th and 10th of March. Yango is a Taxi application of Yandex, an IT company connected to the Russian state. Yango has hastily hidden its company symbols from the premises, but there has been no announcment of withdrawal from Finland. We do not care if business with connections to the Russian state are against the Russian invasion or not. Capital of these companies is maintaining the Russian war machine every day.

Moscow Anarchist Black Cross updates, March 2022

War in Ukraine has already increased the level of repressions in Russia, but there are not yet any new criminal proceedings against anarchist or anti-fascist activists. In this new exceptional situation, we are channeling some of our resources to humanitarian needs which go beyond our usual narrow focus of supporting repressed anarchists and anti-fascists. 

In picture: action of Left Bloc activists against FSB.

An Anarchist Analysis on the Anarchists in Ukrainian Resistance against Russian Invasion

A group of Ukrainian anarchists living in Kyiv declared that they have joined popular resistance against Russian invasion and organized their own group- leading to many debates among anarchist circles. As long as we do not exactly know their own circumstances, one might think that they are purely pro-NATO people, confused nationalist-anarchists or even neo-Nazi supporters. Actually, they are not! According to their declarations before and during the war, they do exactly know what NATO, capitalism, nationalism and imperialism is; and they are against all of them.

Russian anarchists against Putin's war in Ukraine

Нет войне с Украиной

As the full scale military operation began this morning, it is important to show that the Russian people don’t need this shameful war. There were dozens of antiwar protests all over the country in the past days mostly in the form of single-person pickets, which according to Russian laws don’t need any notifications. But the majority of protestors were detained nevertheless.

Author columns

Антти Раутиайнен

June 11th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. This action day has a long history, it was organized first time 20 years ago in 2004. In the first year, we managed to paint a graffiti to wall of one of the most guarded objects of Moscow,...

3 months ago
Антти Раутиайнен

Anarchist group ANA Regensburg hosted my online-presentation on 16th of May 2024, in which I discussed tactics of anti-war activism in Russia, and reasons why the anti-war movement has not been able to make an impact to change the course of events yet. Cases of anarchists repressed for anti-war...

3 months ago