Despair and anger in a concentration camp. Assembly’s interview on the second anniversary of big war in #Ukraine
▻https://libcom.org/article/despair-and-anger-concentration-camp-assemblys-interview-second-anniversary-
3. From the very beginning, your political work and agitation was strongly focused on facilitating desertion and anti-war boycotts. How has this work changed in the last year?
– Not really. The Assembly is an online newsletter, and if we can help the deserters in any way, then only by giving them a political justification for their acts, so that they do not suffer from remorse, but are proud of their refusal to choose between serving either Vladolf Putler or François Zevalier, personifications of the darkest reaction that only possible in today’s Europe, refusal to choose between the occupying colonial expedition and the defense of what has been grabbed by the Ukrainian ruling class since 1991. Help to deserters is being provided by the Russian liberal initiative Go to the Forest, which has dozens of volunteers and much more experienced organizers than us (By the way, the number of requests to them is growing rapidly: if for the entire 2023 they gave 727 consultations on desertion issues and provided assistance in this matter 235 times, in January 2024 alone – already 161 consultations and 35 assistance provisions, at that such stories usually take place precisely in borderland of our region with Donbass, where the majority of Russian mobilized soldiers serve). We are in contact with them and share their information, but it is impossible to do the same in Ukraine due to the much smaller size of the country (that means a higher likelihood of catching the one who has escaped from a unit) and a ban on departure even for men who are not serving in the army. That’s why we only strive to become some kind of ideological core for those who do not want to fight (not only military but also civilians), in order that this is not just a manifestation for their self-preservation instinct, but a conscious position – disagreement to kill and to die for other’s villas and yachts. Even adherents of pro-Ukrainian positions already often understand that there are no other options: last year convincingly showed that if Russian troops do not leave the occupied territories themselves, the Ukrainian army also will not be able to drive them out, so this will yield nothing except meaningless disposal people. Since there is no reason to believe that the Kremlin is preparing to surrender them, hope remains for processes from below. Soldiers should understand that the real enemy is not on the other side of the trenches, but on the other side of the fence around the administrative buildings.