After one year, the war in Ukraine has become everyday life. For people here who are not directly affected, life simply goes on. Therefore, it was especially important for us to pause and commemorate on this anniversary of the full invasion by Russian troops.
Unfortunately, there are many friends of Russia in Dresden who also decided to take to the streets. So the focus on this day was then again on these right-wing, conservative and fascist ideologies. The harassment of the cops also took a lot of space, who wanted to prevent protest against Pegida and AFD.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who was on the streets that day and showed their solidarity with the people of Ukraine and that Russian propaganda has no place. Thanks to Hope for the strong joint demonstration.
We would like to document some of the speeches from our kick-off rally here.
ABC Dresden (de)
Until the Kremlin burns down! – Solidarity with the people of Ukraine!
People don’t like our slogan for different reasons. Some people are against violence, others like Russia, others think we are warmongers.
Our friends from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia loved it! – Why?
Because it is an expression of their political and personal and existential perspective on Russian politics for many years.
The Kremlin is THE Russian centre of power. Various Tsars, the Bolsheviks, the leadership of the Soviet Union and later the government of the Russian Federation ruled or govern there.
So Kremlin is the symbol of domination and oppression for very many people over several centuries. It represents THE Russian-World today.We are against this Russian-World. Because it creates an authoritarian, imperialist, queer-hostile and racist world that destroys the livelihood of our friends and many people in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and other places.
Therefore, at the beginning of the full invasion in February, we allied ourselves with anarchist/anti-authoritarian friends in Ukraine and other parts of the world.
The wishes were very clear: to support people who are fleeing as well as the people who have decided to stay in the country and defend their community militarily.
That is what we did. We launched an appeal for donations and to date we have redistributed almost half a million euros. To military, medical and humanitarian projects.
It was a big responsibility, because it involved a lot of money and the lives of friends and political fighters.
Life is not without contradictions, especially in war.
We talked a lot about nationalism, militarism and solidarity.
It is important to have political debates and to check our own actions again and again. But we should always be aware from which perspective, from which security, from which privileged situation we look at it.
However, this year we have also experienced again that there is no so-called left consensus. With every new crisis, the rifts break open. People are suddenly on different barricades. It is really unbearable. People are still spreading Russian propaganda. People call on Ukraine to surrender and call it pacifism. People keep talking about the NATO war. People expose their years of anti-imperialism as anti-Americanism.
It is the people who are suffering from the war. They did not choose it. Russia invaded Ukraine exactly one year ago. Tens of thousands of people are murdered, raped, tortured. Russia is waging an imperialist and ideological war against Ukrainian culture and for influence and resources.
We have also lost friends! Several anarchist and anti-authoritarian fighters have been killed.
Direct solidarity is important and allows us to support the people who are affected. And that’s what we are doing until today.
Thanks to all who supported us in whatever way!
After one year the war is not over, and everyone is tired and goes on with their lives, but it is as important as on the first day to continue to support.
Russia can not win this war.
The Russian world can not be allowed to spread any further.
Against all imperialism!
Until the Kremlin burns down!
Resistance Comittee (eng)
Hello, dear comrades!
My name is Ilya Leshy. I am an anarchist from Russia fighting in the ranks of Ukrainian defense forces against the imperialist and enslaving invasion of the Russian state.
I write you this message in the early morning from the quite cold house somewhere in the outskirt of one of the frontline towns in Donbass.
Now a year has passed since the day our lives suddenly changed dramatically. Even though actually it became one more page in the long story of the fight of many thousands of people against Putin’s regime dictatorship.
I don’t think it would make much sense to speak about all the deaths, tortures, distruction and myriad of injustices brought to Ukraine by the occupiers and aggressors. You know it well from the media.
So I just briefly explain why I am sure that this fight has great revolutionary importance. First of all we defend the potential of freedom which exists today in Ukraine. In this society with lower repressive state control and more space for pluralism. Especially if we compare it with cryingly authoritarian „neighbor“ threatening the very existence of local people. Not less meaning this fight has for peoples of Russia and Belarus. Because it clearly gives chance for the collapse of tyrannies oppressing this countries for decades. Even if this break gonna be painful.
After a year of war we all are exhausted and it feels like all our blood has gone away. But still this fight can not be finished with sort of compromise with a monster, with any reconciliation with the cannibal aggressors. It should be finished with the ultimate defeat of this evil.
So we still mobilize our energy for the fight and we call and count on your continuous support and solidarity!
Long live relentless resistance of the people against the occupation!
Solidarity Collectives (eng)
Solidarity Collectives are an association of anti-authoritarian activists who defended the ideas of equality, solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid before February 24.
defended workers’ rights
drummed in the Rhythms of Resistance at feminist marches
organized anti-racist actions
organized environmental marches
supported vulnerable population categories
danced at punk rock concerts
gave anti-discriminatory lectures
played football (Football Against Racism)
organized free markets
…
But on February 24, our lives changed, just like the lives of millions of Ukrainians has changed forever.Hundreds of anti-authorians went to fight in the war and to volunteer. In peaceful life, they were artists, railway workers, journalists, metal workers, medics, human rights advocates, most of whom had no military experience. They decided to resist the occupier with weapons in hand. Just like thousands of other Ukrainians, Belarusians and international volunteers, they are not willing to accept the Russians’ barbaric invasion. This is a war of the people. And we have found our place in this war.
We are an initiative created by anarchists to support anti-authoritarians at the front and to help people suffering from the consequences of the war every day.
In a year of the war, we have delivered equipment worth hundreds of thousands of euros to soldiers:
11 vehicles
hundreds of tactical med kits
helmets, bulletproof vests
20 drones
We carried out 12 humanitarian trips.We support the international volunteer medics who evacuate and stabilize injured civilians and military in Bakhmut, a group of anarchists from the Committee of Resistance organization who deal damage to the occupiers with mortars.
We help air reconnaissance troops who fly in Bakhmut, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv Region, we help paratroopers who defend every meter of land near Bakhmut with incredible effort.
We help the Belarusians who know better than anyone what life under a permanent dictator is like and who know the value of uprising. We help the Russians who, unlike most of their compatriots, have come to believe that they can change their country in some way, so they joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
We support feminists who have gone to defend their loved ones together with men.
We support environmental anarchists who haven’t abandoned their veganism even in the trenches.
We support many others as well.This year claimed the lives of our brothers and sisters in struggle. Ihor “Cain/Crimean” Volokhov, Yuriy “Yanov” Samoylenko, Serhiy “Rubin” Petrovichev, Tisha.
Three of our comrades have been captured by Russia, but we will not name them for their own safety.
Six have been wounded.
We know for sure that our initiative will keep on working. We will continue to equip the fighters who fight at the front. We will continue to support the wounded and the families of our brothers who have lost their loved ones.
We will continue to organize humanitarian trips to areas close to the frontline to help people.
We will develop solidarity networks both within Ukraine and outside its borders.
We will support and cooperate with progressive volunteer and grassroots initiatives who channel their efforts into bringing our shared victory closer.Solidarity Collectives is not just a name, it’s the essence and core idea of our work.
It is thanks to dozens of collectives and thousands of engaged people that we are capable of overcoming external and internal challenges and keep on going.
Finding an ultrasound machine for a feminist medic from Belarus who saves lives of people from positions on the front and near the front, delivering a drone to a non-binary person to discover enemy equipment in Bakhmut, bringing clothes and basic necessities to children and women in de-occupied Lyman—none of this would be possible without your help.
Every dollar, hryvnia, euro or zloty sent by you are significant, they are what makes our work possible. And therefore what makes the work of our comrades at the front possible.
Peace and militarism
Hello, my name is Sasha an I´m an anarchist. For over a year I´m organizing solidarity with my comrades and friends in Ukraine. For over a year we all dream about peace. However one year later since the full scale invasion I learned that peace has many different sides. While for many peace means defeat of Russia and fall of Putin´s regime, for some in Europe it is different. Right now fascists and Putin fans across the Elbe are gathering to call for „peace“, the one where Ukraine has to give up so the europeans can leave in their illusion of peace. Those behind this calls are not striving for peace, but rather helping their allies in Moscow and other parts of the world to win and continue imperial expansions all across the globe.
But if with AFD and other fascists evrything is clear – their pockets are filled with dirty oil money from Russia, and their dreams are filled with violence and war in which they win, there is a different side to this. In last year I met a lot of leftists and even anarchists who believe that people in Ukraine should also lay down their weapons for peace. From radical pacifists to authoritarian marxists – in their dream the euopean peace is ignoring the fact of daily violence on occupied territories. A year of russian world didn´t teach those a simple lesson – if Putin wins in Ukraine we will all see war spilling further around the world.
8 years ago Merkel with her friend Holland brokered „peace“ in Minsk that was supposed to stop russian war in Ukraine. Instead it just postponed it. Putin is a monster ready to consume everything on his quest to power. History showed us that the only way to stop the empire on it´s war spree is to destroy the empire. Not with hundreds years old slogans and ignoring the peace, but with courage and strong spirit. And thie peace will be happening only when the last empire burns down.
Till then we will continue supporting our friends and comrades in Ukraine and other parts of the world for no one is free until we all are free!