European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine

🟥 "Down with the Tsar!" — arrests at a Moscow protest

Russian police detained 60 young people for chanting anti-government slogans at a rally commemorating the 1993 coup d'état.

🟥 A loyalist rally turns into dissent

Mass detentions took place in Moscow during an annual rally marking the victims of what is often described as Russia's "mini civil war" of 1993.

The event is traditionally organized by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), a party that remains highly loyal to the Kremlin and openly supports Russia's war against Ukraine.

Yet such rallies have become one of the few legal opportunities for younger activists from more radical left-wing groups to take to the streets and express dissent.

🟥 Anti-war slogans return to Moscow

It was precisely these young activists — from independent left-wing and liberal groups — who transformed the march into a genuine protest.

They chanted "No to political repression," "Freedom for political prisoners," and "Power to the people, peace to the world." Police began carrying out mass arrests immediately after young demonstrators started chanting "Down with the Tsar!"

It was perhaps the first street protest in Moscow featuring anti-war slogans since March 2022.

🟥 The 1993 coup d'état

Every year on October 4, demonstrations are held in Moscow to commemorate the victims of the 1993 constitutional crisis.

During the confrontation between President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament, Yeltsin deployed troops in Moscow and ordered tanks to shell the parliament building.

The concentration of power in the presidency that followed the events of 1993 laid important foundations for the authoritarian system later consolidated under Vladimir Putin.

[Source: Astra]

🟫 It's all about empire

Without Ukraine Russia cannot become once more the empire. With Ukraine inside of Russia's zone of control it will become the empire once more. [...] This war or special military operation in Ukraine is about that.

– Alexander Dugin
Kremlin-linked ultranationalist ideologue

🟧 €100,000 winter aid appeal for Ukraine

The International Solidarity Convoy has launched a fundraising for generators and stoves to help Ukrainians survive the winter.

🟧 Why now

Putin is intensifying attacks on Ukraine's energy system, water supply, sanitation and transport networks in an attempt to freeze the country into submission.

Last winter, people-to-people solidarity from across Europe helped Ukrainian communities endure.

This year, even heavier attacks on civilian infrastructure are expected.

The Convoy is going to deliver generators, stoves, and other types of aid to help Ukrainians get through this winter.

🟧 Strengthening solidarity

The campaign aims not only to deliver aid, but also to raise awareness about Ukraine's resistance.

The Convoy works to strengthen support for Ukraine among European civil society — trade unions, social movements, NGOs and local authorities.

The "Generators and Stoves for Ukraine!" appeal is launched in ten languages.

Aid will be distributed in cooperation with Ukrainian trade unions, social movements and the most vulnerable communities.

🟧 How to help

Donations can be made through the Convoy's official fundraiser.

solidarityconvoyukraine.com

[Source: International Solidarity Convoy to Ukraine]

⬜️ Winter as a weapon: Russia aims to cut 90% of power and heat in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa

According to The New York Times, Russia is preparing a massive campaign of up to 1,000 missiles, drones and bombs to "freeze" Ukraine this winter.

⬜️ A humanitarian disaster plan

The intercepted Russian plan calls for strikes on substations, hydro and thermal power plants, as well as boiler houses.

Dozens of ballistic missiles and bombs are also aimed at the water supply system — pumping stations and treatment facilities.

The goal is to cut major cities off from electricity, heating and water, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa are listed as priority targets, with plans to reduce electricity and heat supplies by 90%.

⬜️ Threat to nuclear power

Russia intends to force Ukraine’s three operating nuclear power plants to shut down by striking distribution substations located less than 1 km from the reactors.

Energy Minister showed Europeans the intercepted plan, which describes "forcing Ukrainians into submission through cold."

Ukrainian officials have expressed concern that the country has limited backup plans in case of serious water supply disruptions.

Russia has never before carried out attacks specifically targeting water infrastructure.

[Source: The New York Times]

⬛️ Ivanka "Haika" Kutsenko killed resisting the invasion

Ukrainian feminist and anti-authoritarian activist Ivanka "Haika" Kutsenko (33), originally from Donbas, was killed in action.

⬛️On the night of October 1, it became known that our comrade Ivanka “Haika” Kutsenko was killed by Russian artillery fire while moving to a combat position.

She was 33 years old.

Kutsenko served as a senior combat medic in the 39th Separate Marine Brigade.

She was originally from Rubizhne in Luhansk region (Donbas). Her native town was occupied by Russia in 2022 when the full-scale invasion started.

⬛️ Comrades remember Haika as an anarchist, feminist, and vegan who took part in anti-authoritarian projects and initiatives in Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Lviv, and beyond.

She gave lectures, wrote articles and fairy tales, published samizdat materials, researched landfills and the communities living around them, and travelled extensively.

At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ivanka worked on humanitarian projects helping women and children from frontline areas.

⬛️She later joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine and served in the Marines.
Haika carved her own path through the prejudices and sexist barriers of the military system, eventually serving alongside her comrades on difficult combat missions.

I felt that I would keep hammering away at this rock, and eventually it would bring results.

By her example, she inspired and supported other women who wanted to join the military.

⬛️

She was the embodiment of inspiration and resistance: sincere, stubborn, and full of life.

Ivanka "Haika" Kutsenko
26.06.1993 - 01.10.2026

🟫 The Russian Pinochet

The doctrinal foundations of the 'Vladimir Putin' project were laid in the late 1990s by Russia's systemic liberals. To stop a communist comeback, they argued, Russia needed a 'Russian Pinochet.' [...] To preserve the results of the 1990s privatizations and keep the masses under control, a fascist dictatorship was required.

— Stanislav Belkovsky
Russian opposition political analyst

⬛️ "The city reeks of death. Stray dogs are feeding on the dead. People are eating dogs."

Residents of Russian-occupied Oleshky have gone without food supply since May. Civilians face hunger and drone attacks.

⬛️ "From 26 May until today, no food has been delivered to Oleshky. Not a kilogram of flour, not a kilogram of vegetables — nothing. People are eating 'fat grass' [purslane] that grew in their gardens, boiling it and eating it."

— Nadiya
resident of Oleshky

⬛️ "[Russian soldiers] can sit there hungry themselves, without food. They rob people every day. An elderly woman I know had everything taken from her. She asked them, 'How am I supposed to survive the winter? What are you doing?' They told her to shut up. They openly admit they don't care about people — they came here to make money, that's all."

— Kseniia Arkhipova
resident of Oleshky, volunteer

⬛️ "In the morning — a watery soup without potatoes. In the evening — a few spoonfuls of buckwheat. Supplies are running out rapidly."

— Ester Vrataryova
volunteer, quoting a letter received from Oleshky

⬛️ "If a drone wounds you, you can simply bleed to death in the street and nobody will even know. No one is allowed to retrieve or bury the dead. If someone approaches a body, a drone immediately appears and leaves another corpse nearby. Then the dogs start tearing at them."

— Tetiana
resident of Oleshky

⬛️ "In Oleshky, it's not only impossible to live — it's impossible to die. Bodies are lying in the hospital basement. There has been no electricity for four years, and the morgue has been destroyed for three. The smell of rotting corpses hangs over the hospital and the whole city. [...] There are already known cases of people eating dogs."

— Pavlo Vuiets
journalist in contact with residents of Oleshky

[Source: Ukrainska Pravda, Glavkom, Suspilne]

🟩 Ukraine-related initiatives that deserve your donations. Suport them today!

Humanitarian aid to frontline cities, FPV-drone workshops, equipment for resistance fighters — check out the list of initiatives we support.

🟩 Solidarity Collectives

Anti-authoritarian volunteer network

• Support of the resistance fighters
• FPV-drone workshop
• Humanitarian aid for civilians
• Animal rescue

www.solidaritycollectives.org
IG: @solidaritycollectives
PayPal: solidaritycollectives_ua@proton.me

Donation link: https://www.solidaritycollectives.org/en/support/

🟩 International Convoy to Ukraine

International solidarity convoy organized by European labor unions and civil society groups. It will deliver medical aid, hygiene supplies, and winter gear to civilians and independent labor unions.

solidarityconvoyukraine.com
IG: @solidarity_convoy_to_ukraine
Donation link: https://solidarityconvoyukraine.com/donate/

🟩 Radical Aid Force

Anarchists delivering humanitarian aid and supplying comrades fighting Russian imperialism

IG: radicalaidforce
PayPal: @radicalaidforce161

Donation link: https://www.paypal.me/radicalaidforce161

🟩 Good Night Imperial Pride

Raising funds and supply equipment to anti-authoritarian fighters in Ukraine.

IG: gnimperialpride
PayPal: @gnimperialpride

Donation link: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/gnimperialpride

🟩 Solidrones

Solidarity-driven initiative that builds and supplies FPV and bomber drones for the Ukrainian anti-authoritarian fighters.

IG: solidrones

Donation link: https://www.darujme.cz/projekt/1213293?locale=en

🟩 Ukraine Solidarity Bus

Volunteer initiative from delivering humanitarian aid to Ukraine, particulary medical supplies.

IG: ukrainesolidaritybus

Donation link: https://ukrainesolidaritybus.org/en/how-to-help/

🟩 Ending the war requires Russia to give up trying to dominate Ukraine

Neither new strikes on Ukrainian power plants nor another round of mobilization will bring this war to an end. [...] Only abandoning claims to Ukrainian territories and giving up ambitions of domination over Ukraine can stop the war and allow the peoples and working classes of both countries to breathe again.

— Left for Peace Without Annexations
Russian anti-war coalition of revolutionary defeatists

🟨 "The Donbas republics were a Kremlin project" — testimony from an insider

Former press secretary to militia leader Igor Strelkov says Moscow engineered and controlled the "civil" war in Donbas in 2014.

– From Anastasia Mikhailovskaya’s interview for Ksenia Sobchak

🟨 "The Donbas republics were a Kremlin project" — testimony from an insider

Former press secretary to militia leader Igor Strelkov says Moscow engineered and controlled the "civil" war in Donbas in 2014.

– From Anastasia Mikhailovskaya’s interview for Ksenia Sobchak

🟨 From Strelkov's inner circle

Anastasia Mikhailovskaya is a Russian journalist with ultranationalist imperial views. She is closely associated with Alexander Dugin and previously worked for the monarchist Tsargrad TV.

In 2014, arrived in Donbas, where she became the press secretary of Igor Girkin (Strelkov), FSB officer and the key commander of the pro-Russian militia.

Working directly within his inner circle during the early stages of the war, she is now publicly revealing details about how Moscow managed the entire process.

🟨 Who sent the first armed units?

According to Mikhailovskaya, the Russian operation in Donbas began just after the occupation of Crimea. The first armed groups were backed by Russian money and people closely connected to the Kremlin:

Do you remember where Strelkov came from? It was all part of the same story: Crimea is ours, then Strelkov... Malofeyev sends Strelkov [to Donbas].

Konstantin Malofeyev, a far-right pro-Kremlin oligarch, financed and directed key figures involved in the initial phase of the Donbas "uprising."

🟨 The Kremlin's Donbas project

The creation of the puppet "people's republics" was designed and supervised by Putin aide Vladislav Surkov:

Basically, the [People's Republics of] Donbas — the original Donbas project — was his project [...]. He put the whole thing together, but he also distorted it, because everything was built on rotten and fundamentally flawed foundations.

According to Mikhailovskaya, local commanders operated under instructions from Moscow and had little autonomy.

🟨 Moscow's order to Strelkov

When Strelkov refused an order to remain in Sloviansk and die there with his forces, he immediately fell out of favor:

He was ordered to stay in Sloviansk. He was not allowed to withdraw to Donetsk. By remaining there, he was supposed to die together with those two thousand men [...]. But he left on his own responsibility and at his own risk. If you're the commander-in-chief and you've accepted responsibility, then you're supposed to carry out the command's orders [from Moscow] to the very end.

🟨 Executions in Donbas

Mikhailovskaya also openly acknowledges that Strelkov suffered from serious psychological problems that contributed to deadly violence behind the front lines:

He executed people, literally! This is not a joke — he sentenced people to death. [...] Anyone normal would lose their mind from that, but he already had a somewhat unstable psyche.

This episode highlights the brutality and terror that accompanied the early stages of the Russian occupation of Donbas.

🟨 It was never a "civil war"

The war in Donbas was never a civil war. It was a proxy occupation, entirely engineered and controlled by Moscow.

Even the key figures in the "republics"—military commander Igor Strelkov (Girkin) and political leader Alexander Borodai—were Russian citizens and had no connection to Donbas.

Anastasia Mikhailovskaya’s testimony is just one of many pieces of evidence confirming that the Kremlin was in control of all aspects of the conflict from the very beginning.

[Source: Denys Kazansky]

🟦 Right to resist... with no arms

[Affirming] the Ukrainian people’s "right to resist the invasion" [...] [is meaningless when] combined with a demand on Western governments for "no arms shipments to Ukraine!" [...] Of what does the “right to resist the invasion” consist, if not of the right to ask for weapons, be it from Western governments, Ukrainians abroad, or anyone else? This is not just about politics, but about socialist morality.

– Simon Pirani
International Network for Solidarity with Ukraine

⬛️ "People are poisoning their dogs so they won't suffer from hunger"

How the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky is surviving, with no food deliveries since May

– Excerpts from an article by Natalia Mazina, Hromadske

⬛️ "People are poisoning their dogs so they won't suffer from hunger"

How the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky is surviving, with no food deliveries since May

– Excerpts from an article by Natalia Mazina, Hromadske

⬛️ Trapped in occupied Oleshky

Around 2,000 civilians, including 47 children, remain trapped in Russian-occupied Oleshky [...] where residents are running out of food and medicine and evacuation is effectively impossible. [...] Then, in June 2023, the destruction of the Kakhovka dam flooded the area, leaving Oleshky without centralized water supplies, electricity or gas. Now, the only road into the city is mined and watched by drones.

⬛️ The struggle for food

In early September, after drones destroyed a convoy carrying food toward the city, residents walked seven kilometers along a mined road to salvage what remained: burned potatoes, a little onions and flatbread soaked by rain. [...]

Alla Lykhman-Malysh runs an animal shelter [...] and has stayed because she cannot abandon the animals in her care. “People survived the summer somehow on cucumbers and tomatoes [...]” But with the growing season ending [...] residents had exhausted what little reserves they had.

⬛️ Extreme hunger

One relative of journalist Mariia Semenchenko, who remains in Oleshky, now drinks water in the morning, eats one meal during the day and has grapes for dinner. In late September, his lunch was soup cooked outside on a wood-burning stove: soaked beans, a potato, a tomato and a pepper fried in margarine manufactured five years ago and recently found in a basement. [...] People feed their pets boiled snakes when they can catch them, while some dogs are being poisoned by their owners to spare them a prolonged death from starvation.

⬛️ Market collapse and barter economy

Food can still occasionally be found at Oleshky's market, but supplies are scarce and prices have soared. A kilogram of potatoes, onions, sugar or salt costs around 1,000 rubles ($12). Ten eggs cost about 1,500 rubles ($18), while a kilogram of margarine produced in 2021 was recently offered for 2,000 rubles ($24).

“Money has almost no value there because people rarely have anything to sell,” Hasanenko said. “People survive through barter.” [...] residents go there to exchange news.

⬛️ A city of shallow graves

The basement of Oleshky's hospital now serves as a makeshift morgue. Around 100 bodies are being kept there, according to Hasanenko, some of them since winter. The normal process of burying the dead has largely broken down. [...] But as the number of deaths has risen and ambulances have stopped operating, some residents have begun burying their dead in shallow graves in their gardens. Stray dogs sometimes dig up the graves.

⬛️ Walking through minefields

“These people need to be saved. The city has turned into a death trap,” [Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner] Dmytro Lubinets said. [...] “The most frightening thing is that people are already walking through mined fields on their own,” Lubinets said. “They risk being blown up by a mine or hit by a drone, but they still go because staying in Oleshky is even worse.” [...] Semenchenko fears time is running out. “They will not survive this winter.”

– Natalia Mazina

[Source: Hromadske]

🟫 Lavrov on the Israeli "denazification" of Gaza

Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Hamas must be destroyed as a whole and as a military force. It sounds like demilitarisation. He also said that extremism must be eliminated in Gaza. It sounds like denazification. However, I do not understand the reaction of the previous Israeli government [...] to our special military operation.

– Sergey Lavrov
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia

Interview with RIA Novosti, 28 December 2023