Bomb shelters, guerrilla warfare: building Ukrainian resistance

KHARKIV, Ukraine

The table tennis coach, the priest’s wife, the dentist, and the fiery nationalist have little in common except a desire to defend their hometown and an sometimes stalled effort to speak Ukrainian instead of Russian.

The situation in Kharkov, which is only 40 kilometers (25 miles) away from some of the tens of thousands of Russian troops gathered on the Ukrainian border, feels particularly dangerous. Ukraine’s second largest city is one of its industrial centers and includes two factories renovating old Soviet-era tanks or building new ones.

It is also a city of fractures: between Ukrainian speakers and those who hold on to the Russian who ruled until recently; between those who eagerly oppose the Russian invasion and those who just want to live their lives. Which side wins in Kharkov may well determine the fate of Ukraine.

If Russia attacks, some of Kharkiv’s more than a million people say they are ready to give up their civilian lives and launch a guerrilla campaign against one of the world’s largest military forces. They expect many Ukrainians to do the same.

“This city needs to be protected,” said Viktoria Balesina, who teaches table tennis to teens and dyes her cut hair deep purple in a crown. “We have to do something, we don’t panic and fall to our knees. We don’t want this.”

Balesina recalls being pressured to take part in pro-Russia protests during a protest movement that swept Ukraine after Russia invaded in 2014 – a year that completely changed his life. Born and raised in Kharkov, a lifelong Russian-speaking man he changed to Ukrainian. She then joined a group of about a dozen women who meet weekly in the office building for community defense training.

Now his Ukrainian is spoken almost fluently, although he still occasionally understands the words, and he can load the submachine gun almost comfortably.

He did not expect this life when he was 55, but he has accepted it as necessary. Many in his social circles feel compassion for Russia, but they do not lead him today.

“I’m going to protect the city not for the people but for the women I train with,” he said.

Among her is Svetlana Putilina, whose husband is a Muslim chaplain in the Ukrainian army. The 50-year-old has made emergency plans for his family and ward: Who will take the children to safety outside the city? Who follows elderly parents and grandparents into one of hundreds of mapped bomb shelters? How do women use resistance?

“If it is possible and our government gives up arms, we will take them and defend our city,” said the mother of three and the grandmother of three more. If not, then she has at least one of her husband’s service weapons at home, and now she can use it.

Elsewhere in Kharkov, Dr. Oleksandr Dikalo dragged two creaking test chairs into a labyrinthine basement and filled yellow cans with fresh water. The public dental station he runs is located on the ground floor of a 16-storey apartment building, and the security of the underground rooms is listed as an emergency shelter for hundreds of residents.

Dikalo can also handle weapons, from the Soviet Army military days when he was in East Germany. His wife works as a doctor at the Kharkiv Emergency Hospital and regularly treats wounded Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines.

The conflict that began in the Donbas region of Ukraine plunged into a low-level trench war after agreements between France and Germany. Most of the estimated 14,000 people died in 2014 and 2015, but each month brings new victims.

“If God forbid something happens, we have to stand and protect our city. We have to stand hand in hand against the attacker,” Dikalo said.

The guerrilla warfare waged by dentists, coaches, and housewives defending the hometown of a thousand cellar shelters would be a nightmare for Russian military planners, both analysts and U.S. intelligence officials.

“The Russians want to destroy the Ukrainian combat forces. They don’t want to be in a position where they have to occupy a country where they have to deal with civilians, where they have to face rebellion, ”said James Sherr, an analyst at Russia’s military strategy who testified earlier last week. British Parliamentary Committee.

Washington is increasingly calling on the CIA and the Pentagon to support a possible uprising in Ukraine. Although Russian forces are larger and more powerful than Ukraine, a revolt backed by U.S.-funded weapons and training could prevent a full-scale attack.

An opinion poll of ordinary Ukrainians audited by intelligence services has strongly shown that there would be active resistance in the event of an attack, said two knowledgeable individuals who wanted to be anonymous to discuss sensitive information. A spokesman for the intelligence service declined to comment.

Russia denies its intention to attack, but demands promises from NATO to keep Ukraine out of the alliance, suspend the deployment of NATO weapons near Russia’s borders, and withdraw NATO troops from Eastern Europe. NATO and the United States call these demands impossible.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said recently that any escalation may depend on Kharkov. The city is also the base of Yevheni Murayev, identified by the British intelligence service as a person Russia was considering appointing as president.

“There are more than a million citizens in Kharkov,” Zelenskyy told The Washington Post. “It’s not going to be just an occupation, it’s the beginning of a large-scale war.”

This is exactly what Anton Dotsenko is afraid of. At the age of 18, he was at the forefront and in the middle of a wave of protests that overthrew a pro-Russia government in 2014. He is now a 24-year-old technology worker, and he has had enough upheavals.

“When people are calm and prosperous and all is well, they don’t dance very well. But when all goes bad, then they celebrate loud, as if for the last time, Dotsenko said during a smoke break outside the pulsating Kharkiv nightclub. “This is a silly war, and I think all of this could be resolved diplomatically. The last thing I want to do is give my life, my precious life, out of some futility.”

The same would be said by the young people dancing inside, he declared in Russian: “If the war starts, everyone will flee.”

One nationalist youth group wants to prevent this. They meet weekly at an abandoned construction site in disguise and dressed in black as they practice their movements. Men who join this group or government-led units have already shown they are ready for the challenge ahead, said one of the trainers who identified himself nom de guerre on Pulsar.

“Kharkov is my home and the most important city in my country that I need to protect. Kharkov is also a front-line city that is economically and strategically important, ”he said, adding that many people living in the city are“ ready to protect theirs to the end, ”like many Ukrainians.

The same opinion prevails among Ukrainians in the capital Kiev and far west of Lviv.

“Both our generation and our children are ready to defend themselves. This is not going to be an easy war,” said Maryna Tseluiko, a 40-year-old baker who signed up as a reservist with her 18-year-old daughter in Kiev. “The Ukrainians have a rich tradition of guerrilla warfare. We don’t want to fight the Russians. The Russians are fighting us.”

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Lori Hinnant reports from Paris. Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Kiev and Nomaa Merchant in Washington participated in this report.

This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 6:32 p.m.