Dear Zarah,

Recently, several journalists and left-wing activists reached out to me asking for a comment on your position regarding the suspension of political and military support for the Ukrainian people. Whilst reflecting on how to respond, I decided to write you a personal letter instead. As a leftist and feminist activist from Russia who has been living in Ukraine for the past eight years, this seemed more appropriate than offering a dry neutral comment.

I am addressing you personally also because I see how people like you — those who appear on the global political stage — become a source of hope for many of the oppressed, whose voices and cries are still being drowned out by the speeches of dictators and the “pragmatic” calculations of capitalists who prefer to continue doing their dirty, bloody business with them.

For many younger generations of leftist activists, your name is associated with a promise of future and progress, as so many are tired of politics being made behind the closed doors of elite “men’s clubs,” to which we will never be invited. I know how important this is for my comrades in the UK, and during my visit to London on the eve of the pandemic, we spoke a lot about it —reading political poetry in squats and arguing in small bars about the future of our planet.

From birth until the age of 27, I lived in Russia. I grew up in Western Siberia, in the workers’ settlement of Chkalovsky in the city of Omsk, in a poor working-class family of mixed Moldovan, Romanian, and Ukrainian descent. We lived below the poverty line; we didn’t even have money to pay for electricity, so our home was often dark and without food. My parents still live in Chkalovsky, in a place that successful Europeans would probably call “the social bottom.” My friends, classmates, and lovers still live there. I am now 35, and I am still poor. I remain connected to my class and to the people who are losing their minds in this “prison of nations.” Since childhood, I have faced multiple forms of discrimination and persecution based on my ethnicity—simply because of my name, surname, and appearance. Later, I lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where I studied literature and then turned to research in the “philosophy of war,” seeking to understand the foundations of the idea of transforming an “imperialist war into a civil one” (a development best traced in Lenin’s Clausewitz Notebook). [1]

I have also observed the consistent policies of discrimination against the millions of people in Russia who are not members of the “titular nation,” [2] and whose peoples and cultures Russia is currently erasing from the face of the Earth. Many left-wing activists from anti-colonial movements, who are fighting for the survival of their peoples within the territory of the Russian Federation, say that the Russian regime is pursuing a deliberate policy of ethnocide. [3] And no cessation of hostilities will stop them. Right now, the Russian regime and the Russian elites are destroying dozens of peoples living within the internationally recognised borders of the Russian Federation.

Whilst living in Russia, I engaged in student, leftist, and feminist activism. I also wrote — and continue to write — poetry, seeking ways to give visibility to the protest voices of my comrades and like-minded people. In my poetry, I pay close attention to the development of leftist political imagination and radical protest subjectivity. I write the story of my own experience, of my family, and of my class — right now, whilst other powerful and influential leftists seek to wash their hands in new blood and strengthen the Putin regime to such an extent that it becomes incompatible with all life on this planet.

Speaking from my experience in the Russian political space, I have consistently faced immense pressure and hatred coming from conservative cultural elites and neo-fascist political forces. After I wrote two poems — “My Vagina” and “Great Russian Literature” — criticising gender discrimination, Russian imperialism, and its brutal patriarchal power reinforced by numerous institutions of violence, many enraged Russian men and activists from Russian neo-fascist organisations began to persecute me.

The first thing they told me was to “get out of Russia and go back to your black-arse Moldova.” Their next advice was to stay, but to abandon “Russian literature” entirely and do what “Moldovan and Ukrainian women” are meant to do in Russia — repair apartments, mop floors, and serve in the homes of wealthy Muscovites.

During all eight years of my life in Ukraine, I have never once faced discrimination like this. On the contrary, my experience in local social spaces and cultural communities has been supportive and healing.

It was for this reason that I was deeply dismayed to hear your recent interview following the anti-war congress on 4–5 October in Paris, [4] where you said that you had met “truly inspiring speakers from Russia and Ukraine” who support halting political and military support for Ukraine and believe that “Zelensky is not a friend of the working class” or the people of Ukraine.

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The problem with this opinion, which has influenced you and your political party, is that the speakers you met in Paris not only cannot represent or know the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, they do not even represent any significant leftist force in Russia, Ukraine, or the leftist diaspora. Most leftist activists from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia distance themselves from the political programmes of these individuals and from the political organisations they have created (PSL [5], Mir Snizu [“Peace from Below”]).

Another problem is that these organisations cynically use activists from so-called “men’s movements,” incels, [6] and radical masculinists in their “political struggle,” presenting them to European leftist politicians and comrades as “Ukrainian oppositionists and dissidents.” They mobilise these activists for rallies in EU cities and prepare long-term programmes of political collaboration with masculinist and radical misogynist movements in the diaspora. Under the guise of speaking about “violations of Ukrainian men’s rights,” these activists then spread various conspiracy theories — for example, publicly claiming that Russia’s war against Ukraine was actually instigated by “females” and women to “organise an androcide,” and promoting disgusting racist stories that Ukraine is not actually governed by Ukrainians, but by other “cunning peoples,” “Jews,” and “disgusting dwarves.”

The leaders of these groups, such as Sergey Khorolsky, who cooperate with PSL and Mir Snizu, publicly and openly call for physical and sexualised violence against women and girls, and incite hatred against Ukrainian refugees, referring to them as cynical “subhuman beings” who left Ukraine not to escape bombings but to “sleep with migrants, Arabs, and Muslims,” whom they also despise. At the same time, they (including Andrey Konovalov himself) produce cruel and humiliating antisemitic caricatures of Zelensky and liberal Ukrainian journalists with Jewish cultural identities. Their political views represent a combination of neo-fascist and alt-right narratives, conspiracy theories, and prohibited methods of promoting their misogynistic and anti-Ukrainian agenda, which goes far beyond anything acceptable even in the field of harsh political criticism.

None of them are “Ukrainian deserters” and none have any experience participating in combat. Andrey Konovalov, who presents himself as a “conscientious objector from military service,” in fact cannot be considered one, since he left Ukraine in 2021, and no one here was calling him up for military service. In Ukraine, men under 25 and students are not subject to mobilisation.

Furthermore, Andrey Konovalov, speaking at the congress on 5 October and at other European platforms, claimed that there are repressions against leftist organisations and movements in Ukraine, that the leftist movement is weakened, and cannot assert its will to dialogue with Russia.

In reality, however, Konovalov has no connections or contacts with Ukrainian leftist movements or organisations, of which there are many in Ukraine at present, none of which are banned. I spoke with activists from a number of Ukrainian leftist organisations, platforms, and movements, as well as with human rights organisations documenting human rights violations in Ukraine—and none of them confirmed any cooperation with PSL, Mir Snizu, or Andrey Konovalov. Moreover, they do not know this person and have never heard of him before.

I also think it is important to note that in their public statements and contacts with European politicians, PSL, Mir Snizu, and their leaders (Liza Smirnova, Alexey Sakhnin, Andrey Konovalov, and others) criticise the mobilisation strategies in Russia, which are currently carried out through a “neoliberal system of contracts” and effectively turn the aggressor’s army into motivated mercenaries. Yet, in their statements to a Russian audience, whilst criticising mobilisation in Ukraine, they urge Ukraine to take Russia as an example and create exactly the same system of “neoliberal” military contracts and financial incentives for the Ukrainian people in order to “solve the problem of men’s rights.” I see this rhetoric as manipulative, contradictory, and cynical.

A heavy and large-scale war of attrition without sufficient support from allies always generates mobilisation crises. However, many Ukrainians of diverse political views continue to serve voluntarily. Ukrainians cannot be turned into an army of calculating mercenaries, because for them this is a national liberation, anti-colonial war—a war for survival and the preservation of everything they hold dear.

In turn, money and contracts can only motivate the aggressor’s army, because despite the intensity of fascist propaganda amongst its citizens, the Russian regime still cannot offer its people clear ideological principles or political motivations capable of compelling broad poor masses to kill their neighbours simply out of conviction.

It was also sad to hear how Konovalov, in his speech on 5 October, manipulated the tragedy in Gaza and the hearts of thousands of leftist activists who sympathise with the people of Palestine. In his speech, he referred to Ukraine as a cruel state, comparable to Israel. Following this logic, does it mean that Russia is Palestine? Why did 4,500 critically thinking leftists in that hall not only swallow this terrible bait but also respond with applause to manipulations that have nothing to do with the historical and political realities of the states mentioned? What do you think about this?

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In fact, many of my comrades amongst Russian and Ukrainian leftists, who have been familiar with the political careers of the leaders of PSL and Mir Snizu since the late 2000s and early 2010s, are not even surprised by what they do and say, using every possible European political platform. Both organisations are affiliated with the notoriously known Russian political technologist Alexey Sakhnin, whose work in leftist movements has long been deeply discredited. In a recent broadcast following the Paris congress on the Russian media YouTube channel Rabkor, he implied that he primarily sees politicians like you and Mélenchon [7] as forces and resources through which he can transmit his political ideas and influence arms supplies to Ukraine.

You may already know that Sakhnin was previously an ideologist and political ally of the radical Stalinist organisation Borotba, [8] which emerged in Ukraine shortly before the Revolution of Dignity [9] (linked to the Communist Party of Ukraine, which, with the help of Russian special services, oversaw separatist “protests” in the east of the country and supported Russian military aggression). There is also irrefutable evidence of Borotba’s cooperation with the Administration of the President of Russia under the supervision of Vladislav Surkov. [10]

Only after Borotba and the CPU, having allied with pro-Russian neo-fascists, became organisers of brutal attacks on anarchist activists during the Revolution of Dignity and organisers of the “Anti-Maidan” [11] (also supported by Russian special services and militarised groups that arrived in Ukraine from Russia), did Alexey Sakhnin act as the chief advocate and “promoter” of these organisations on the international leftist stage.

In numerous interviews with European leftist media, he presented Borotba and the CPU as “leftist dissidents” and “anti-fascists” who were allegedly subjected to “repression” in Ukraine and in need of support. Meanwhile, activists of Borotba and the CPU participated in campaigns of “political destabilisation” in Moldova, allied with the Russian neo-Nazi organisation Slavic Unity, [12] and a significant number of activists from these organisations in 2014–2015 joined militarised groups fighting on Russia’s side in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Despite this, Sakhnin continued to support Borotba over the years and in a 2021 interview with Russian Radio Svoboda called it a “brotherly organisation”. He also published calls for international “anti-fascist solidarity” with Vlad Voitsekhovsky — an activist of Borotba, who joined the fascist Prizrak battalion, [13] which fought on Russia’s side under the command of Alexey Mozgovoy and is infamous for its particular cruelty. Whilst the majority of Ukrainian leftists have strongly criticised Borotba and called on European leftists to be cautious in cooperating with this organisation.

I think it is no coincidence that today one of the leaders of PSL and the Mir Snizu coalition, conducting political work to stop European arms supplies to Ukraine, is the committed Stalinist Viktor Sidorchenko. In my recent column, published by the partisan media collective Media Resistance Group, I noted that Viktor Sidorchenko was for a long time a functionary and secretary of one of the branches of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU). Already in 2014 —immediately after the Revolution of Dignity — Sidorchenko became one of the activists of the Kharkiv Anti-Maidan and an organiser of pro-Russian March rallies of the so-called “people’s militia” in Kharkiv, where he demanded a referendum and “full economic and cultural-historical autonomy” of the Kharkiv region — that is, the creation of a so-called “KhNR” [14] analogous to the “DPR” and “LPR.” These “rallies” were organised by the CPU, Borotba, as well as Russian special services and neo-Nazi pro-Russian militarised organisations such as Rus Triyedinya, Russian East, Great Rus, and Oplot.

In 2014, Ukrainian anarchists, analysed the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) as being rooted in “Great Russian chauvinism,” they noted that this party advocated for restricting LGBT rights, introducing the death penalty, and pursued antisemitic, Tatarophobic, [15] and Ukrainophobic policies. In their newspaper Kommunist, they published “racist articles in which African Americans suffering from unemployment were called idlers, and the shootings of striking workers in Kazakhstan were welcomed as a ’struggle against imperialism.’”

Many leaders of the Borotba movement also came from the CPU, including Alexey Albu, who called for the introduction of Russian troops into Odesa, and Viktor Sidorchenko’s long-time comrade, Alexander Fedorenko, known for his participation in the brutal attack on unarmed Ukrainian anarchists and on Ukraine’s most famous poet, Serhiy Zhadan, [16] on 1 March 2014. Sidorchenko’s comrades split open Zhadan’s head after he refused to kneel before them and salute Russia. Viktor Sidorchenko and Alexander Fedorenko remain co-founders of the charitable foundation Angel, which still operates on the territory of Ukraine, though the nature of its activities cannot be determined from open sources.

I believe that the leaders of PSL and Mir Snizu whom you met at the congress in Paris — and who inspired you — do not actually want to stop Putin and are incapable of helping the poor and the oppressed, either in Russia or in Ukraine. When they call for pressure on Ukraine through restrictions on arms supplies, they know perfectly well that Putin will not stop. He has no intention of stopping anywhere. A call for Ukraine and its allies to “stop” can only mean one thing: an invitation for Putin to go further — wherever he chooses. And then our Ukrainian schools and hospitals will be bombed, and the cruel “drone safaris” on civilians will continue.

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Zarah, honestly, I’m scared to live in a world that feels like a kingdom of crooked and shattered mirrors — where misogynists become “Ukrainian dissidents” and “human rights defenders,” and Kremlin political technologists, killers, provocateurs, and warmongers rebrand themselves as “leftists” and “anti-fascists.”

I think this still vividly illustrates how Russian influence campaigns and soft power can operate. They manipulate our nostalgia and our hope for a better future, our blind spots in understanding each other’s cultures and traditions, our most intimate experiences and emotions — and they turn our worlds of liberatory, radically democratic values upside down.

And we no longer feel at home in our own “leftist worlds.” We feel damn uneasy. Whilst above our homes, drones are flying and the flashes of phosphorus bombs are lighting up the sky. Many of my friends who have seen phosphorus bombs explode above their heads say that it is incredibly beautiful. When a phosphorus bomb explodes, it leaves in the sky countless tiny, tailed sparks — it looks like fireworks. It is mesmerising. I think this image, and its emotional effect, perfectly captures the essence of what fascism is — and of Russian fascist propaganda, which today is being discussed loudly by many influential intellectuals, from Slavoj Žižek to Peter Pomerantsev.

Russian propaganda in the “Western world” is no longer wrapped in the symbolic tricolour and St. George’s ribbons. It enchants you; it confronts you with those who say what you need to hear —what you want to hear — and what might please your voters. And it kills.

I am afraid to live in a world where Russian fascism can so easily penetrate the thoughts, words, and hearts of our comrades-in-struggle. Where it can so effortlessly seize the islands of freedom that are dear to us, and undermine our already fragile networks of international struggle, trust, and solidarity. I do not agree to live in such a world. This is not my “world from below.” And I will fight it. Because I — not the Kremlin’s political technologists — am truly “from below,” and I think about the peoples. And that is why I choose to speak in ways that are neither beautiful nor comfortable.

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Zarah, if we ever met in person, I would very much like to tell you that Ukraine truly has its own deep, complex, and incredibly rich traditions of leftist and radically democratic struggle — deeply rooted in its culture and everyday life.

Historically, all Ukrainian leftist political cultures differ profoundly from the imperial, Bolshevik, and Stalinist ones. The Ukraine of Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Mykhailo Drahomanov, and Nestor Makhno [17] still exists. And it continues in the Ukraine of Davyd Chychkan, Marharyta Polovynko, [18] and Artur Snitkus. [19] In the Ukraine of Maksym Butkevych, [20] Artem Chapeye, [21] Vladyslav Starodubtsev, and other comrades who are now resisting Russian aggression and building broad, horizontal networks of leftist international solidarity with Ukrainian anti-authoritarians.

This Ukraine is unknown and incomprehensible to most Russian leftists — and to those Ukrainians who now act as their protégés and “dependents.” This is an Ukraine with strong anarchist traditions of self-organisation and radical democracy — traditions that always survive, despite occupations, colonisations, crises, and internal conflicts.

I believe that any international dialogue about resistance in Ukraine and about the possibilities of military and political support from abroad should begin with a story about these traditions—and about those who are fighting for them right now. But your disarmament comrades, Konovalov and Smirnova, remain silent about these traditions and about the local leftist resistance. It seems to me that this happens not only because they themselves are structurally and discursively situated within a “Russian frame,” but also because this silence is, for them, deliberate and strategic. It allows them to deny the real Ukrainian people and the real Ukrainian left their subjectivity, presenting everything we do and think as “submission to NATO.” And we already know one arrogant dictator and his henchmen who also like to construct such frames whenever it comes to Ukraine and the political agency of its peoples.

I do not want to ask for your empathy or solidarity. I have lived most of my life in one of the most brutal and conservative empires on this planet, not belonging to the “titular nation,” and being at the same time a queer and intersex person with the experience of womanhood and of radical poverty. And I understand all too well where the point of political tension lies — the one at which asking for empathy or solidarity becomes impossible, even humiliating.

For too long I was made to believe that I am a “nobody,” who must submit to “everyone,” who must play by the rules of a world where politics is made only by powerful men — and a few women—behind closed doors in cold rooms, where, as my favourite anti-fascist poet from the UK, Sean Bonney, [22] wrote, the air is icy, lonely, because “it is the fascists who breathe there”:

for tranquil and safe are the arms of the cruel
and tranquil and safe is the mind of the fool
those minds that hate and those minds that sleep
and those minds that kill and those that weep

I understand that the bitter reality is this: you will not fight alongside us.

And we will fight — even without you.

Galina Rymbu is a Russian poet, feminist, and anarchist who has lived in Lviv, Ukraine since 2018. She is the editor of F-Pismo, an online magazine for feminist literature and theory, and has published poetry collections in multiple languages.