Version imprimableYet precisely through these struggles, Ukraine’s military culture demonstrates something authoritarian armies cannot replicate: democratic organising strengthens rather than weakens combat effectiveness. When soldiers collectively refuse strategically stupid orders and succeed in reversing them, when families protest for rotation and force parliamentary debates, when women veterans produce the equipment the state failed to provide, when LGBT+ personnel organise openly for partnership rights, when trade unions defend both national sovereignty and workers’ rights simultaneously—these aren’t distractions from military necessity. They constitute Ukraine’s strategic advantage. Democratic feedback mechanisms catch catastrophic errors. Horizontal solidarity networks compensate for state capacity limits. Inclusion expands recruitment pools. Accountability builds trust that sustains morale through years of grinding warfare. This is how smaller nations resist larger empires: not through authoritarian discipline, but through the adaptive resilience that only democracy enables.
Ukrainian soldiers defending Pokrovsk in January 2025 did something unthinkable in authoritarian armies: they filmed a video demanding their commander’s reinstatement, posted it publicly, and challenged military leadership to reverse its decision. [1] The 48th Separate Assault Battalion’s collective action wasn’t insubordination—it was democratic accountability in wartime. Their commander, Lenur Islyamov, had just been removed during the defence of a critical logistics hub, and his troops refused to accept a decision that threatened their survival. This wasn’t an isolated incident. From repair battalions threatening collective absence over misdeployment to thousands of family members protesting for rotation, [2] from LGBT+ soldiers organising for partnership rights to women veterans producing uniforms the state failed to provide, [3] Ukraine’s democratic military culture represents a fundamental contrast to Russian authoritarianism—and a strategic advantage.
The Western Left often misunderstands Ukraine’s struggle, trapped between widespread anti-west reflexes that treat anyone fighting Russia with suspicion, and liberal narratives that ignore class struggle in war or peace. But Ukrainian soldiers and trade unionists are demonstrating something the anti-imperialist movement needs to understand: democratic organising during resistance isn’t a luxury or a weakness—it’s what makes victory possible. When Russian authoritarian culture produces intelligence officers who lie to avoid execution, Ukraine’s democratised intelligence networks crowdsource tens of thousands of reports daily from citizens. [4] When Russian commanders threaten to shoot retreating troops, Ukrainian battalion leaders publicly petition for rest and rotation. When Russia criminalises queer existence, over 600 LGBT+ Ukrainian soldiers organise openly, wearing unicorn patches as sardonic rebuke to the claim they don’t exist. [5] This article examines how Ukraine’s culture of dissent, accountability, and bottom-up organising strengthens its resistance—and what this means for anti-imperialist solidarity.
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Repair specialists aren’t cannon fodder: the strategic logic of soldiers’ protests
September 2025. Twenty-four military personnel from the repair battalion of Ukraine’s 125th Separate Heavy Mechanised Brigade announced they would collectively go absent without leave rather than obey orders transferring them to assault positions. Most were over 50. They were drone repair specialists, operating self-organised workshops with 3D printers and microscopes funded by their families. [6] Volodymyr Romaniv, one of the soldiers, explained the absurdity to Ukrainian media: "My son graduated from a polytechnic institute with a degree in computer technology. He is not yet 25 years old, signed a contract, and volunteered... now a combat order comes – my son is being sent to the 218th Battalion. To the ’meat grinder,’ to rifle companies... The greatest absurdity is that now it’s a war of drones, specialists are needed. My son, who is a specialist, is being thrown into the trenches." [7]
The order was cancelled within 48 hours. This wasn’t desertion—it was a military strike, and it was successful. The repair battalion’s protest revealed something Western analysts often miss: Ukrainian soldiers can identify strategically stupid decisions and, more importantly, sometimes they can stop them. In hierarchical Russian forces, such orders would proceed regardless of tactical insanity, because honesty is rewarded with imprisonment or death. As War on the Rocks documented, Putin sacked over 150 intelligence officers in early 2022 for providing accurate assessments, creating "a military and political culture of providing inaccurate or outright deceptive intelligence upwards" which has only worsened as Russia has become blocked in South-Eastern Ukraine, at a tremendous human and material cost.
Two months earlier, in January 2025, the 48th Separate Assault Battalion faced similar command interference. Just days after redeployment to Pokrovsk—one of the most contested battlegrounds—their founding commander Lenur Islyamov was removed. The battalion, 90 per cent volunteers, many Crimean Tatars [8] fighting to reclaim occupied homelands, issued a public video: "Changing the commander at a critical moment is a direct threat to the unit’s combat capability and undermines the trust of the fighters... We consider this decision unacceptable during the active phase of the war." Unlike the repair battalion, their demand wasn’t immediately met. But the fact they could issue it—that soldiers fighting Russia’s assault could pause to film collective testimony questioning military leadership—demonstrates a culture authoritarian armies cannot replicate.
These protests matter strategically. When specialised personnel can challenge misdeployment, skills get matched to missions. When units can advocate for commanders they trust, cohesion strengthens. The fact they could organise publicly demonstrates fundamentally different values from Russian military culture.
The 125th Brigade’s September success was temporary. By October, the same repair battalion—sent to Kupiansk ostensibly to "dig trenches"—was instead ordered into combat positions. During deployment, they came under fire. Two were wounded; Senior Driver Oleksandr Bezsmertnyi died during evacuation. Junior Sergeant Nazar Mykytynsky, a drone pilot from the former 219th Battalion, was killed. [9] The betrayal was complete. Yet the initial protest’s success matters: it demonstrated that soldier organising can work, that collective action can reverse deadly decisions, and that Ukrainian military culture permits challenges to authority that authoritarian systems cannot tolerate.
’Human-centredness is loving your personnel’: rotation demands and the crisis of exhaustion
By late 2023, the same soldiers who had volunteered at the start of Russia’s full scale invasion in February 2022 were approaching two years without rotation. Anastasia Bulba’s 50-year-old husband, recovering from concussion, was one of them. In December 2023, she joined over 100 women in a Kyiv snowstorm, holding signs reading "Exhausted soldier = lost war" and "My husband has been on this war for 636 days." Their demand was specific: demobilisation after 18 months, not the government’s proposed 36. As Bulba told the Kyiv Independent: "They propose 36 months, but it’s not fair for those on the fighting line. It would be a death sentence for them."
The families’ protests—occurring across at least 11 cities from October 2023 through early 2025—represented the first sustained social protest movement during wartime. [10] Their slogans challenged both the enemy and Ukrainian society: "It’s their turn now," "Soldiers are not made of iron," "Everyone is responsible for victory." One mother noted the class dimension starkly: "My son goes to school, out of 24 pupils in his class, men serving come from only two families." The protests weren’t anti-war—they were pro-fairness. Taiisia, a soldier’s wife at a February 2024 protest, clarified: "The protest is not about stopping the war. It’s about the fact that the guys fulfil their civic duties. As any other citizen of our country, they should not have only duties, but also rights."
Parliament initially drafted legislation including a 36-month rotation limit. Under pressure from newly appointed Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, the provision was removed before the April 2024 vote. [11] The military’s reasoning was coldly pragmatic: Russia outnumbers Ukraine seven to ten times in eastern sectors; rotating experienced soldiers without trained replacements would collapse defences. Soldiers understood this dilemma. One from the 47th Brigade near Avdiivka told CNN: "Postponing the consideration of demobilisation is unfair, but the world is unfair in general. Demobilisation will be possible when the recruits are trained. Properly trained."
But Commander Yurii Zaluzhnyi’s removal as Commander-in-Chief in February 2024—shortly after he requested 500,000 additional troops to enable rotation—suggested the issue was as much political as military. Zaluzhnyi had opposed a proposed six-month rotation system, arguing conditions were too unpredictable. Yet his dismissal, coming amid mobilisation debates, indicated President Zelenskyy preferred a commander less willing to demand resources enabling soldier relief.
By 2025, exhaustion reached crisis levels. Lieutenant Colonel Oleksandr Yurin, commanding the 7th Rifle Battalion of the 65th Brigade, spoke to Hromadske with unusual frankness: "A week ago, I submitted a report to the brigade commander that the unit needed to be withdrawn from the combat zone, re-staffed and rested." [12] His battalion, averaging over 50 years old (oldest: 59), had lost 160 soldiers to family reasons since April 2023, received only 40 replacements, and suffered 10-15 per cent irrecoverable losses in six weeks. "Spending the third year without rotations is also a problem," Yurin stated. "Fatigue is a bad fighter." Like many serving soldiers, he contrasted Ukrainian and Russian approaches: "We should not imitate the Russians who despise their soldiers. We should not repeat this Soviet practice."
Ukrainian military medics and officers developed a discourse around "людиноцентричність" (human-centredness)—the principle that effective military organisations prioritise personnel welfare. This culture—where commanders publicly advocate for subordinates’ welfare, where exhaustion is acknowledged rather than punished—fundamentally differs from Russian military culture’s "high tolerance for suffering and violence."
The rotation crisis exposed Ukraine’s mobilisation failures and society’s unequal burden-sharing. Approximately 650,000 Ukrainian men aged 18-60 left for Europe since February 2022; wealthy evaders bought medical exemptions for $3,000; roughly one million government officials held mobilisation exemptions. Meanwhile, desertion rates exploded: over 100,000 soldiers charged since 2022, with 88,000 cases in just January-October 2024—nearly double 2022 and 2023 combined. [13] By early 2025, approximately 576 soldiers deserted daily. [14] These weren’t cowards; they were men who’d served continuously for two to three years whilst society failed to share the burden.
Ukraine responded with reforms authoritarian systems couldn’t implement, though implementation revealed democratic promise confronting bureaucratic resistance. In November 2024, the "Army+" digital platform launched under government resolution No. 1291, allowing soldiers to request transfers electronically without commander approval—requests sent directly to the Personnel Centre of the Armed Forces, which must respond within 72 hours. [15] But significant restrictions apply: soldiers must serve at least six months in their current unit before requesting transfer, can submit requests only once per year, and transfers from combat to non-combat roles remain restricted except with medical evaluation. [16] Activist Lyuba Shipovich, who advocated for the reform, characterised it accurately: "This is treating symptoms, and we need to work on structural reform of human capital in the army. But right now, it’s crucial to give military personnel the ability to transfer to units where they can be more effective."
An amnesty programme invited first-time deserters to return voluntarily without prosecution. The government initially set a 1 January 2025 deadline, then extended it to March 2025. Over 9,000 military personnel returned during the initial amnesty period, choosing new units to serve. [17]
This represents minimal success against the scale of the crisis: 88,000 desertion cases in January-October 2024 alone, with approximately 576 soldiers deserting daily by early 2025. These weren’t cowards; they were men who’d served continuously for two to three years whilst society failed to share the burden. The amnesty’s limited uptake—9,000 returning versus 100,000+ cases—demonstrates that the problem isn’t individual moral failure. Quite simply, mobilisation is collapsing.
These reforms treated symptoms rather than causes—mobilisation remained inadequate, rotation non-existent, compensation delayed across years—but they demonstrated democratic responsiveness impossible in authoritarian systems. The reforms could only happen because Ukrainian civil society could pressure government, because soldiers could organise publicly, because desertion was understood as systemic failure rather than individual cowardice.
Unicorns and body armour: queer and feminist organising as military strength
The unicorn patch appeared on Ukrainian uniforms in 2014 as sardonic response to Russian propaganda: since Putin’s forces claimed "there are no gay people in the army," LGBT+ soldiers adopted the mythical "non-existent" creature as their symbol. By 2022, the shield-shaped insignia with unicorn had become official symbol of the Ukrainian group LGBT+ Military for Equal Rights, sewn into epaulettes just below the national flag. Over 600 LGBT+ military personnel and veterans now organise openly, serving in at least 59 Ukrainian units. Their visibility marks a profound contrast with Russia’s militarised homophobia, where Putin frames the war as defence against "degenerate Western values" including queer existence.
Viktor Pylypenko, the organisation’s 38-year-old founder and first openly gay Ukrainian soldier, explained the stakes starkly: "The dead don’t need rights. If Ukraine loses, our community—especially activists and openly LGBT+ soldiers—will face a stark choice: death, torture or escape... This is probably the first war where so many openly LGBT+ soldiers are fighting on the frontline." [18] Pylypenko’s journey from closeted Donbas volunteer in 2014 to public activist by 2018 traces Ukraine’s democratic evolution.
The organisation’s core demand—partnership rights enabling LGBT+ soldiers’ partners to visit them in hospital, make medical decisions, inherit property, receive military pensions, and arrange funerals—addresses material vulnerabilities. When Maria Zaitseva was killed in service, her partner Anna Honcharova could only see Maria’s body because "a comrade made arrangements." Maria received the Order of Courage posthumously, but the award went to "next of kin"—Anna wasn’t notified. This legal invisibility compounds battlefield trauma.
Ukrainian society responded. Public support for LGBT+ partnership rights grew from 44 per cent in January 2023 to 70 per cent believing the LGBTQ+ community should have equal rights by June 2024. In November 2024, Zelenskyy publicly committed to signing civil partnerships legislation. By May 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers’ EU accession roadmap included "development and adoption of a law defining the legal status of registered partnerships" with third-quarter 2025 deadline. [19]
The third-quarter 2025 deadline passed without legislation. Draft Law 9103 on civil partnerships, introduced by MP Inna Sovsun in March 2023, stalled in the Legal Affairs Committee despite positive assessments from five other parliamentary committees. [20] The Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s Synod opposed the bill, describing same-sex civil unions as "contrary to the natural law established by God" and "a threat to public morality." Despite Presidential support, despite 72 per cent public backing, the legislation remains blocked.
Yet in June 2025, a Kyiv district court issued Ukraine’s first legal recognition of a same-sex couple as a "de facto family." [21] The case involved Zoryan Kis, a diplomat, and his partner Tymur Levchuk, who had lived together since 2013 and married in the United States in 2021. After the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to recognise Levchuk as family—denying him the right to accompany Kis on diplomatic posting—the couple sued. The Desnianskyi District Court ruled their relationship constituted a de facto marriage under Ukrainian law, citing the Constitution and European Court of Human Rights case law. The Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the ruling. Whilst applying only to this specific case, it establishes legal precedent that future couples can cite.
Combat service changed minds faster than pride marches, but legislative change requires confronting entrenched power. The gap between 70 per cent public support and parliamentary inaction reveals how democratic institutions can lag democratic culture. LGBT+ soldiers continue fighting without the legal protections their service demonstrates they deserve.
Women’s organising: from Invisible Battalion to armed feminism
Ukrainian women’s integration into combat roles followed similar patterns of grassroots organising forcing institutional change. Before 2018, women served as "seamstresses" and "cooks" in official records whilst performing assault operations. Andriana Susak-Arekhta received a medal "for courage" as a seamstress while actually serving as an assault soldier since 2014. The "Invisible Battalion" campaign, founded in 2015 by veteran Maria Berlinska, documented women’s actual combat participation through sociological research, building the case for legislative change.
Hanna Hrycenko, sociologist at the Gender Research Institute and co-founder of the Invisible Battalion project, describes the transformation: "A few years ago, the standard media coverage consisted of photos of female soldiers putting on make-up in the trenches, or interviews in which they were asked what their husbands thought of their work. Happily, this type of situation is now rare." [22] The Invisible Battalion’s systematic documentation—interviewing women combatants, mapping their roles, quantifying their participation—provided empirical foundation for political demands.
In September 2018, Parliament passed Law № 2523-VIII granting women access to all military ranks and positions—opening 63 combat positions officially. By July 2024, over 67,000 women served in Ukraine’s Armed Forces, with over 10,000 in active combat roles on front lines—nearly 8 per cent of total forces, up from perhaps 30,000 pre-invasion. [23]
The feminist critique of Ukrainian military culture extends beyond demanding access. Oksana Potapova and Irina Dedusheva’s "Five Theses on Feminism and Militarism" argues that "Western anti-militarism (including its feminist version) is laudable in its intention, but is completely unsuited to the situation in some colonised countries." This position—that pacifism can be a luxury unavailable to those facing genocidal imperialism—represents the mainstream Ukrainian feminist position since the 2022 full-scale invasion.
Hrycenko notes the transformation: "Just a few years ago—when the war was confined to the east of the country—Ukrainian feminists were opposed to giving women a greater role in the army, out of pacifism. They changed their minds as soon as missiles started falling on their heads." The shift reflects material conditions: when Russian soldiers systematically employ sexual violence (208 documented court cases by August 2023, with Ukrainian feminist activists estimating actual victims in the thousands or tens of thousands), when occupation means gang rape "with the use of weapons and in the presence of children," armed resistance becomes feminist practice.
Some Ukrainian feminists now advocate extending conscription to women. According to Hrycenko, "this is a view you can often hear from women fighting in the Ukrainian army," whilst "’civilian’ feminists are more reticent on this subject." Since October 2023, Ukrainian women aged 18-60 working in medical fields (doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists) must register for possible military service, with exemptions only for pregnant women, those on maternity leave, single mothers, mothers of large families, mothers caring for disabled children, and wives of military personnel.
The Ukrainian Women Veterans Movement (Veteranka), founded in 2018, grew from approximately 20 initial members to over 1,700 by October 2024. [24] By October 2025, over 70,000 women served in Ukraine’s Armed Forces, [25] with over 10,000 in active combat roles on front lines. Membership growth tracked women’s wartime integration and reflected Veteranka’s effective work on two fronts: advocacy for legal equality and practical support where the state failed. When the Ministry of Defence issued no women’s uniforms until February 2024 (summer only; winter uniforms remain unavailable as of late 2025), Veteranka’s sewing workshop produced approximately 700 free uniform sets tailored to women’s bodies. When sexual harassment cases in the Armed Forces remained unresolved, Veteranka’s March 2024 presidential petition gathered over 25,000 signatures demanding accountability. When women veterans needed community, Veteranka organised psychological support groups and fundraising campaigns. Between February 2022 and mid-2025, the organisation raised over 90 million hryvnias ( €2.1 million), delivering 98 vehicles, 1,961 drones, and 34,000 pieces of ammunition and gear. In April 2025 alone, Veteranka delivered 1,875,976 hryvnias worth of aid to frontlines; in May 2025, 1,493,906 hryvnias. [26]
Kateryna Pryimak, Veteranka’s head, described the organisation’s political significance: "Gender equality isn’t our ultimate goal; it’s a marker of how developed a community is." When awarded the Franco-German Human Rights Prize for defending servicewomen’s rights, she clarified: "Today, the military is the group in society with the fewest rights, and women in the army face the greatest restrictions."
Women’s and LGBT+ military organising strengthens Ukraine’s resistance in ways authoritarian militaries cannot replicate. It expands the recruitment pool by making military service viable for populations Russia excludes. It builds morale through inclusion—soldiers fighting for a society that recognises them fight harder than those defending systems that oppress them. It demonstrates to international audiences that Ukraine’s struggle isn’t reactionary nationalism but democratic liberation. It also leverages civil society resources—Veteranka’s workshops, LGBT+ Military’s legal services—to address state failures through horizontal networks.
Compensation crisis: the state’s broken promise to fallen soldiers
The Ukrainian state promises families of fallen soldiers 15 million hryvnias. The reality exposes how wartime pressures interact with institutional failures to abandon those who sacrificed most.
The compensation arrives not as a lump sum but over 40 months: 20 per cent paid immediately, the remainder in equal instalments across more than three years. [27] But this schedule assumes the state recognises a soldier as dead. Many Ukrainian soldiers are listed as "missing" rather than officially declared dead. By law, judicial recognition of death becomes possible only two years after the war ends, and only by court order. This means even under ideal conditions, families will have to wait at least 24 months post-war before beginning the compensation process.
According to Verkhovna Rada [28] deputy Sofia Fedina, the payment period has expanded from three to eight years, "but even this figure is merely a formality. In practice, many families will not receive a penny." The Ukrainian state has effectively absolved itself of immediate responsibility. The International Committee of the Red Cross documented approximately 50,000 missing persons cases by February 2025—90 per cent of them servicemen and servicewomen from both Ukraine and Russia combined. [29] By August 2025, this had grown to 146,000 open cases. [30] The ICRC’s definition of "missing" includes anyone not accounted for—those whose remains haven’t been retrieved even when death is confirmed, POWs whose location Russia won’t disclose, and civilians who lost contact after fleeing. Bodies cannot be retrieved from Russian-controlled territory, and Russia refuses to allow ICRC visits to confirm detention of many Ukrainian POWs. [31] For families, this "ambiguous loss" compounds grief: they know their loved one is dead, but without remains or official declaration, compensation remains legally impossible.
The compensation system for wounded soldiers operates on similar principles. The government sets disability compensation based on subsistence minimums: Group I disability receives 1,211,200 hryvnias (approximately €28,000); Group II receives 908,400 hryvnias (approximately €21,000); Group III receives 757,000 hryvnias (approximately €17,500). [32] But these figures represent potential total liabilities, not immediate payments. The instalments stretch across years. Meanwhile, Fedina acknowledged that "some of the money intended for military personnel and their families is not reaching their intended recipients"—corruption compounds delay.
For foreign volunteers fighting in Ukrainian forces, the compensation bureaucracy proves even more impossible. Ukrainian law requires families to open bank accounts in Ukraine to receive payments, necessitating visas for countries without visa-free regimes, and temporary or permanent residence permits. Currency restrictions prohibit transferring compensation abroad—even state payments for fallen soldiers. Foreign families effectively cannot access the compensation provided by law unless they relocate to Ukraine permanently. [33]
The compensation crisis reveals how wartime mobilisation without economic transformation produces systemic injustice. Social Movement’s demand for confiscating oligarch property and imposing 90 per cent top tax rates directly addresses this failure: if Ukraine mobilised economic resources as thoroughly as it mobilises working-class men, compensation could be immediate rather than spread across a decade. The fact that families must wait eight years whilst oligarchs evade service through $37,000 (€30,000) bribes demonstrates whose interests the state protects.
Class war and people’s war: Social Movement’s socialist critique
The Ukrainian democratic socialist movement, particularly Social Movement (Sotsialnyi Rukh), has produced the most systematic analysis of mobilisation inequities during the 2022-2025 war. Their critique centres a fundamental truth: forced conscription systematically burdens the working class whilst middle and upper classes evade service.
Social Movement’s October 2024 conference resolution stated plainly: "Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the core of resistance to aggression—both at the front and in the rear—has been the working class." [34] This observation anchors their comprehensive critique of mobilisation inequities documented across multiple dimensions.
The class dimensions manifest most clearly in who can evade service. $37,000 (€30,000) buys a fake medical exemption from draft-dodging doctors. In August 2024, Security Service detained two Kyiv Oblast enlistment chiefs who made over $1.2 million (€973,000) through such schemes. For those unable to afford such bribes, an estimated 600,000-850,000 Ukrainian men fled abroad despite exit bans—requiring significant financial resources for smuggling operations charging thousands of dollars.
Government attempts to formalise wealth-based exemptions proved explosive. Draft laws proposed "economic reservation" allowing companies to exempt employees by paying UAH 20,000+ ( €493+) monthly per worker. Critics warned this creates a war for the poor where "those who have financial stability and money would effectively be able to ’buy their way out.’"
Social Movement leader Vitaliy Dudin, a labour lawyer, criticised economic reservation for provoking "division within society because they were developed without considering the opinions of trade unions." [35] The organisation’s analysis connects mobilisation inequity to broader economic structure: "The uncertain prospects of Ukraine’s victory stem from the fact that the only reliable strategy to oppose the aggressor—mobilising all available economic resources to support the frontline and critical infrastructure—contradicts the interests of the oligarchy."
Social Movement’s March 2025 statement "For a Ukraine Without Oligarchs and Occupiers" presents their most detailed policy programme. The ten-point plan explicitly links mobilisation reform to economic transformation:
– Introduce progressive taxation with top rate reaching 90 per cent of income—"To preserve the country, the wealthiest must sacrifice their fortunes"
– Establish state control over strategic sector enterprises for mass production
– Raise the social prestige of military personnel
– Payment of fair financial compensation to wounded soldiers
– Restore the practice of maintaining the average salary for mobilised workers, which will ensure the Armed Forces of Ukraine have the necessary personnel potential
– Fund education and science adequately—"The high technological nature of modern warfare makes the role of engineers and skilled workers just as important as that of soldiers"
The statement insist that "the implementation of these steps is impossible without a break between the country’s leadership, big business, and its agents of influence. If even some of these measures are implemented, they will increase public trust in the government. True guarantees of Ukraine’s security lie in strengthening internal societal ties."
Social Movement’s October 2024 resolution’s central mobilisation demands were explicit: "We advocate for ending the uncertainty regarding the duration of military service, as it is a matter of elementary fairness." Most comprehensively: Social Movement advocates for the development of the state sector of the economy, subordinated to the priorities of defence and full employment, and defends the rights of conscripts and servicemen to dignified treatment, demobilisation after a defined term of service, and rehabilitation.
Dudin’s March 2022 public letter to Zelensky opposing wartime labour deregulation connected mobilisation to economic justice: "Such measures will transfer the burden of war from the richest to the working majority. They must be rejected... It is necessary to confiscate the property of Ukrainian oligarchs on the grounds of public necessity. The capital of Ukrainian oligarchs must work for the economy." [36]
Coercive mobilisation reflects and deepens legitimacy crisis. When combined with corruption scandals (draft exemption bribes), oligarch evasions, and attacks on labour rights, forced conscription compounds injustice rather than sharing sacrifice.
Social Movement argues that voluntary recruitment would revive if linked to comprehensive economic mobilisation: nationalise production capacities, impose 90 per cent top tax rates on wealthiest Ukrainians, confiscate oligarch property, maintain mobilised workers’ salaries, guarantee defined service terms with clear demobilisation. The group argues that "gaining technological superiority combined with a careful approach to people is the path to victory"—reducing personnel demands through equipment whilst treating soldiers with dignity creates sustainable defence.
Pacifism as privilege: the Ukrainian left rejects conscientious objection
The Ukrainian left’s position on conscientious objection (CO) reveals a fundamental divide from some Western progressive movements. Mainstream Ukrainian socialist organisations explicitly reject pacifism and do not advocate for CO rights, arguing armed resistance is necessary against genocidal imperialism. Only the small Ukrainian Pacifist Movement—facing prosecution and marginalisation—continues advocating for constitutional CO protections suspended since February 2022.
The dominant Ukrainian left position crystallises in the phrase "pacifism is a privilege." Anna Zyablikova, an anarcho-feminist rifleman and medic from Kharkiv, articulated this forcefully: "You can be a very good person and follow all the rules, but a Russian missile will still hit you. They reject the feeling of powerlessness in the face of military aggression and hide behind pacifism: ’war is bad’. We in Ukraine don’t like war either! I don’t like that I had to give up my career dreams. But I can’t give it up. I cannot afford to hide in pacifism." [37]
Social Movement, Ukraine’s largest democratic socialist organisation, has produced no official statements advocating conscientious objection rights. Their September 2022 conference resolution stated: "the working class constitutes the core of the Ukrainian resistance to Russian imperialism." Multiple Social Movement members joined Territorial Defence Forces and Armed Forces voluntarily.
Feminist organisations have similar positions. Feminist Workshop and Bilkis have not advocated for conscientious objection rights. Instead, members stated: "Readiness to fight and defend your country does not depend on gender." Bilkis members serve actively in the military. As Bilkis member Tania Vynska explained to New Politics: "If Ukraine is defeated and Russia conquers Ukraine that would mean the end of civil society organisations, and especially of feminist LGBT groups." [38]
Commons journal has published extensively on armed resistance, without addressing conscientious objection. The journal memorialises fallen leftist contributors: "In 2023-24, several authors of Commons died at the frontline defending Ukraine from Russian invasion: journalist Evheny Osievsky, Russian anarchist Dmitry Petrov, and lawyer Yuriy Lebedev." Editor Oleksandr Kravchuk died in combat June 2023 at age 37. The journal’s editorial line consistently opposed what it calls "false pacifism disguised under Left slogans."
In stark contrast, the handful of members of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement advocate persistently for CO rights despite prosecution. Executive Secretary Yurii Sheliazhenko faced house arrest August-December 2023, apartment searches, and device seizures. The organisation filed multiple applications to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of conscientious objectors, documented that Ukraine suspended alternative service claiming it only applies during peacetime, and reported that as of 2024-2025, hundreds face prosecution under Article 336 (draft evasion) which could result in 3 years imprisonment.
The Ukrainian Pacifist Movement’s April 2022 statement condemned the Russian invasion whilst criticising Ukrainian government’s suspension of CO rights, calling for protection of "the absolute right to conscientious objection to military service, by all legal means." They documented at least 17 conscientious objectors sentenced to imprisonment by November 2023, with numbers growing—primarily Jehovah’s Witnesses (they have talked of 700+ cases by February 2024) plus protesters like Dmytro Zelinsky whose case reached the Constitutional Court.
The Venice Commission [39] issued an opinion in March 2025 finding that conscientious objection rights "cannot be fully excluded even in wartime," and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights called Ukraine’s CO prosecutions "alarming." These international legal positions find no echo in mainstream Ukrainian left discourse. The Ukrainian left views the conflict through anti-imperialist rather than pacifist frames—comparable to anti-fascist resistance in WWII—making conscientious objection appear implicitly as abandonment of collective defence against genocidal aggression.
Solidarity Collectives: anarchist logistics as resistance infrastructure
Beyond state and quasi-state organisations, horizontal networks provide critical military support. Solidarity Collectives, a Ukrainian anarchist grouping, operates what international visitors describe as a "secret warehouse" filled with equipment: bulletproof vests (level 4 body armour), helmets, night vision equipment, thermal detection, drones, tactical medical equipment, uniforms, and boots. The collective prioritises "comrades and allies who have previously participated in political activity—such as trade unionists, anti-fascists, feminists, climate and eco-activists and other progressive left-wing activists who have decided to participate voluntarily in the war against Russia’s invasion or have been recruited through Ukrainian conscription." [40]
The warehouse includes dedicated workspace for drone construction: "Work tables full of soldering irons, circuit boards and wires, a shelf with stacks of small drones that can be used for logistics, reconnaissance and combat." In collaboration with Czech and German anti-authoritarian forces, Solidarity Collectives builds, assembles, and distributes these drones. The collective has delivered over one hundred effective bulletproof vests and "countless helmets" through international donations from private individuals, activists, and anti-authoritarian groupings across Europe.
This infrastructure matters strategically because Ukrainian soldiers "are largely expected to purchase their own equipment"—a reality that places enormous burden on individual fighters and their families. Horizontal solidarity networks compensate for state failures whilst building international anti-authoritarian connections that transcend nationalist frameworks. When anti-fascist activists in Germany help build drones for Ukrainian trade unionists fighting Russia, they create internationalism grounded in material solidarity rather than abstract declarations.
As one Solidarity Collectives activist explained: "For us it was important to show the perspectives of the left, the activities and the stories of anti-authoritarian militants on the front line. Many anti-militarists in the past, such as the people who accused others of the militarisation of society here in Ukraine, for example, ended up taking up arms, and we try to explain why." [41] The collective’s work bridges ideological commitment to anti-militarism with material recognition that resisting Russian imperialism requires armed defence.
Territorial Defence and democratic military organisation
The Territorial Defence Forces, organised similarly to regular military but acting as light infantry without heavy weapons, demonstrate democratic military potential. They "generally stay in the city or village where they were formed to defend it." Multiple Territorial Defence units "successfully defended their cities from the regular Russian army on their own, without any or with very little support from the Ukrainian army." [42] Their structure—locally-based, volunteer-heavy, defending communities rather than abstract territory—enables a degree of democratic accountability impossible in conventional hierarchical forces.
In places where Territorial Defence fights alongside regular army, "they are sometimes used to make hit-and-run attacks on Russian positions, in order to harass enemy lines and exhaust them. In other places, where the fighting didn’t take place, the Territorial Defence provides patrol duties, thus working as a deterrent for the Russian army from trying to invade." This flexibility—switching between offensive harassment, defensive operations, and deterrent patrols based on local conditions—requires initiative authoritarian command structures suppress.
International volunteers joining Ukraine’s Foreign Legion "most often state that they have come to fight for democracy and to prevent Russian war crimes." The Foreign Legion officially accepts only those with military experience, transferring others to auxiliary roles. Belarusian volunteers proved particularly active, with "a special Belarusian unit which is the size of a regiment now and are making plans of going to Belarus and start a revolution there in order to overthrow Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko after the war in Ukraine is over."
One anarchist Territorial Defence organiser explained the stakes starkly: "Unfortunately, this is not a war where there is space for ideological purity or any choices. Putin’s regime is an extremely authoritarian one, with no freedom of speech or assembly, suppression and murder of political opponents, fake criminal allegations against activists, including anarchists, prosecutions against LGBTQ+ community." The analysis continues: "After the massacre in Bucha [43] it is clear that my assumption was too optimistic, all of political activists (or people who will be suspected of activism) would be straight up murdered. Moreover, the massacres would likely increase to a scale of genocide, as Russian propagandists are already openly speaking that all who are in Ukrainian military or help it should be considered ’Nazis’ and therefore purged."
The comparison is deliberate: "We consider this situation quite similar to that of Spanish anarchists, who fought under operational command of Spanish Republican army against Franco’s dictatorship, and who later joined the Free French army to fight against Nazism."
Conclusions
Ukrainian soldiers defending their country from imperial conquest shouldn’t have to simultaneously fight for basic rights like rotation, demobilisation terms, and partnership recognition. The fact they do fight—collectively, publicly, through democratic organising—reveals both the ongoing weaknesses of Ukrainian state capacity and the fundamental strength of Ukrainian democratic culture. When repair specialists can stop strategically stupid orders through collective action, when families can pressure parliament to address rotation, when LGBT+ soldiers can organise for legal recognition, when women veterans can produce uniforms the state failed to provide, when trade unions can support the war effort whilst opposing neoliberalism, when anarchist collectives can build international solidarity networks providing drones and body armour, these democratic practices aren’t distractions from military effectiveness—they constitute it.
Ukrainian soldiers have won more democratic reforms during three years of total war than many militaries achieve in peacetime. Compare Ukraine’s trajectory to historical and contemporary examples. The United States military only racially integrated in 1948—three years after World War II ended—and resisted women in combat roles until 1994, fifty years after women served extensively in WWII support roles. The British military banned openly LGBT+ personnel until 2000. France conscripted soldiers for indefinite service during the Algerian War (1954-1962) with no rotation, no fixed terms, and brutal suppression of dissent. Turkey’s military imprisoned conscientious objectors throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Authoritarian militaries like Russia’s permit no independent soldier organising whatsoever—dissent means imprisonment or worse.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine’s achievements during existential warfare are extraordinary. The Army+ transfer system, however limited, gives soldiers agency impossible in hierarchical forces. The desertion amnesty programme, however incomplete, treats absence as systemic failure rather than individual cowardice—9,000 soldiers returned voluntarily, something unthinkable in Russia where deserters face summary execution. The June 2025 court ruling recognising same-sex couples as families, whilst not yet legislation, establishes legal precedent during active conflict. Veteranka’s production of women’s uniform sets compensated for state failure through horizontal solidarity. The 125th Brigade’s successful protest against misdeployment demonstrated that collective soldier action can reverse command decisions without destroying unit cohesion—a capability authoritarian armies structurally cannot permit.
These victories remain incomplete and contested. Compensation for fallen soldiers takes eight years to process fully, with families receiving only 20 per cent of the 15 million hryvnia immediately. LGBT+ partnership legislation missed its third-quarter 2025 deadline. The corps reform continues plagued by scattered units and undertrained commanders. Rotation remains non-existent for most soldiers. But the struggle itself—the fact that soldiers, families, veterans, and civil society organisations can organise, protest, demand, and occasionally win—marks Ukraine’s fundamental difference from the imperial power it resists.
Democracy and anti-imperialism are inseparable—because only democratic organising enables the feedback, adaptation, mobilisation, and solidarity that make resistance possible. Ukrainian soldiers are proving this truth in the hardest way possible: by fighting for both their country’s independence and their own democratic rights simultaneously, winning battles on both fronts that militaries in peacetime fail to achieve.
15 November 2025
Source: ESSF.
