Someplace within the streets of Russian-occupied Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, a girl places a sticker on the wall. It’s a brief message, but when she is seen doing it, she is going to face arrest, prosecution, and certain, torture.
The message is: "Quickly, we might be house once more." On one other sticker, probably the most harmful three phrases within the occupied Crimea: "That is Ukraine."
What makes it much more dangerous for his or her bearer is the language. The phrases are in Ukrainian.
The girl placing up the stickers is a member of Zla Mavka, an all-female resistance group. She is on a harmful mission: to provide hope.
Within the occupied territories, hope is a prized commodity. As Russia's full-scale conflict is about to succeed in its grim third anniversary, its grip over one-fifth of Ukraine's territory solely grew tighter.
The prospects for full army liberation of the occupied areas — together with Crimea and components of the Donbas area occupied since 2014 — appear ever extra distant.
After seeing the liberation of the components of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson oblasts in 2022, Ukrainians in different occupied areas have been hoping that their flip will come quickly. Now they battle to seek out consolation within the newest information.
Nonetheless, Olesia, one of many three ladies who based Zla Mavka, an all-women resistance motion that operates throughout occupied territories, together with Crimea and Zaporizhzhia Oblast, says she plans to struggle so long as attainable. Olesia’s title has been modified and her final title just isn’t being disclosed to guard her id as she lives beneath Russian occupation.
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"So long as there may be hope, we are going to proceed to withstand," she informed the Kyiv Impartial.
The title, Zla Mavka, or Evil Mavka, harkens again to outdated Ukrainian folklore — the mavka is a woodland feminine spirit who makes use of its lovely look to lure males to their deaths. A picture of a younger lady, clad in white garb and carrying a wreath of flowers, grew to become probably the most iconic attribute of their imagery.
Mavkas aren’t simple to succeed in. Their members by no means know when a Russian soldier will cease them on the street to examine the contents of their telephones.
Olesia sends her solutions in writing via an middleman. Audio or video is deemed too dangerous. Her responses are somber and freed from gildings.
"If we lose, we received't have a life right here," she writes. "We should go away our properties as a result of dwelling beneath Russian occupation is worse than jail."
The Kyiv IndependentDanylo Mokryk
Mavka cocktail
Olesia comes from a metropolis in southeastern Ukraine that was seized by Russia mere days after the outbreak of the full-scale conflict.
After Moscow illegally declared the annexation of the lands they seized, hers and different cities beneath Russian management have been to be transformed into Potemkin villages — a veneer of a harmonious cohabitation overlaying up arrests, torture, and repressions.
On Ladies's Day on March 8, 2023 — greater than a 12 months after the beginning of the occupation — Russian troops have been lined up within the metropolis's streets to dutifully hand out flowers to Ukrainian ladies. The gesture had a special impact than Russia might need hoped.
It was the "insolence of Russian occupiers and their attitudes towards ladies" that impressed the Zla Mavka founding, Olesia explains.
"We wished to remind them that they don’t seem to be at house, that that is Ukraine, and they don’t seem to be welcome," she says.
"We wished to remind them that they don’t seem to be at house, that that is Ukraine, and they don’t seem to be welcome."
The trio of founders, certainly one of whom is an artist, started distributing posters bearing an inscription in Russian studying "I don't need flowers! I would like my Ukraine again!" and a drawing of a girl smashing a Russian soldier with a bouquet.
Since these early days, the motion grew to lots of of activists, forming a decentralized group coordinated via nameless chatbots on a messenger app. The group unfold to totally different occupied areas and have become particularly lively in Crimea, with few members hailing even from Donbas.
Zla Mavka could also be solely certainly one of a number of resistance teams that sprung up in Russian-held areas, together with the Yellow Ribbon and Atesh. However its all-female character and the usage of humor and creativity units it aside from others.
Creativity is the group's best power, Olesia says, half-jokingly suggesting that ladies might be extra subtle within the methods of resistance than their male counterparts.
Among the many many acts of resistance because the basis of the group, Mavkas say they created faux ruble banknotes reminding the Russians that "Crimea is Ukraine," burned Russian flags, and stuffed the streets with pro-Ukrainian graffiti, posters, and poetry. At occasions, they are saying they combine laxatives into meals and alcohol served to Russian troopers, a deal with they mischievously dubbed the "Mavka cocktail."
Their actions additionally enterprise into extra normal resistance actions, together with the distribution of self-published newspapers to counter Russian propaganda or — in accordance with the Ukrainian military-run Nationwide Resistance Heart — passing details about the Russian army to Ukraine.
However Olesia emphasizes that Zla Mavka is greater than only a resistance group. It has turn out to be a supply of assist for Ukrainians amid the hardship of occupation — a neighborhood the place anonymity is not any impediment to connection.
The Kyiv IndependentFrancis Farrell
Omnipresent worry
"It's disgusting, nauseating," Olesia describes what she feels seeing Russian troopers within the streets of her hometown each day.
"It's particularly tough when you must discuss to them. You wish to say every thing you concentrate on them, scratch out their faces, I don't know what… however you must be discreet and never reveal something."
The Mavka diaries, vividly illustrated tales written by particular person members and revealed by the group on social media, current poignant accounts of life beneath Russian conflict and occupation.
"We held on to the final second however needed to go away for Zaporizhzhia," reads one of many diaries, revealed in February 2024. "My husband stayed in Mariupol. Perpetually. My coronary heart remained there, proper within the yard of our home that we had been constructing with love for thus lengthy. We buried him in our yard.”
Omnipresent worry and suppression of Ukrainian id have turn out to be eponymous with the Russian occupation.
Ukrainian residents are denied medical care until they settle for Russian passports. Males are forcibly drafted to struggle towards their very own nation. The Ukrainian id of youngsters is being erased in faculties earlier than they're despatched off to "patriotic" army coaching camps.
"I’ve by no means felt a lot worry in my life as I do now. Being beneath occupation, I continually really feel in peril; I worry for my life. I’m afraid that they’ll come for me and imprison me for supporting Ukraine. I’m afraid that they’ll torture me. I’m afraid that I’ll by no means see my son," reads one other passage from a Mavka from Starobilsk, a metropolis in Luhansk Oblast occupied since March 2022.
"I’m afraid that they’ll come for me and imprison me for supporting Ukraine. I’m afraid that they’ll torture me."
Even for many who don’t plant bombs beneath railway tracks or report the motion of Russian troops to Ukrainian authorities, the realities of the occupation are unavoidable and deeply private. Displaying Ukrainian symbols is punished, and persons are afraid to talk the Ukrainian language.
It’s within the acts of resistance, nice or small, that Ukrainians discover power whereas dwelling beneath occupation.
"You are feeling that you’re doing one thing for which you’ll not be ashamed to look your kids within the eyes, that you’re serving to, that you just didn’t break," Olesia explains.
However each time, it’s as scary as the primary time, she admits, utilizing a standard Ukrainian saying that interprets to: "The eyes are scared, however the palms are doing."
The destiny of hundreds of thousands
On the time when Zla Mavka was based, the hope felt throughout Ukraine was palpable. Not solely have been Russian forces humiliated in Kyiv Oblast, however Ukrainian counteroffensives within the fall of 2022 liberated dozens of cities and villages in Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts, together with town of Kherson.
However then a brand new counteroffensive, the long-awaited one which was meant to chop into Russian traces in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in the summertime of 2023, didn’t succeed.
Since then, the entrance line has been shifting in Russia’s favor, with Ukraine struggling a collection of painful losses within the japanese Donetsk Oblast.
Each Kyiv and its Western companions now acknowledge {that a} liberation of Ukrainian land by drive of arms is unlikely within the close to future. As U.S. officers suggest ceasefire offers that would depart hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians beneath Russian occupation, hopelessness is creeping in.
The Kyiv IndependentEmmanuelle Chaze
"It's scary. Individuals are fascinated about choices of what to do if it occurs," Olesia says of a ceasefire that would depart the occupied lands beneath Russian management.
"Many individuals despair, many try to resolve easy methods to reside (beneath the occupation)."
Information from the entrance line brings no consolation as nicely, as Russia continues to raze and seize new villages, one after the other.
"Typically plainly behind all these headlines about territories and kilometers, some neglect that these are all individuals, lives, properties, destinies," Olesia says.
Because it’s capturing extra Ukrainian land, Russia can be tightening its grasp on the occupied territories, in accordance with Olesia. The occupation administration has ramped up surveillance, with more and more widespread safety checks and extra cameras within the streets.
Even the preliminary benefit that Mavka held — that Russian troopers wouldn’t suspect ladies to be resistance members — has misplaced its edge because the occupiers develop extra cautious, Olesia says.
It’s laborious sufficient to struggle towards overwhelming odds in fixed worry. It’s more durable nonetheless when hope is briefly provide. Regardless of this, the Mavkas struggle on.
Speaking about what retains her motivations, Olesia says laconically, "Any individual has to do it. It simply occurs to be us."
Though layered with melancholy, her messages reveal a way of function and perseverance.
"The ability is within the individuals. Every of us has the ability to do one thing to assist this world, from a leaflet to huge choices on the planet's seats of energy," she says in a message from occupied Ukraine to the free world.
"We’re right here, and regardless of every thing, we proceed to withstand as a result of evil should not win. Please struggle with us and for us."
Observe from the creator:
Hello, that is Martin Fornusek.
With our group, we try to convey you true tales of the Ukrainian resistance, of the bravery of Ukrainian women and men like Olesia defying Russian occupation for thus a few years. We wouldn't find a way to take action with out the assist of readers such as you. To assist us proceed on this work, please consider becoming a member of the Kyiv Independent's community.
Thanks very a lot.