One of the most secret weapons to combat Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has started to raise its profile.
A new video posted on social media seeks to promote the covert activities of a network of Ukrainian civilians, living – and fighting – behind Russian lines.
Run by the Ukrainian special forces, this resistance movement is growing, according to its commander, who said any adult – old, young, male, female – can join.
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They just need to be loyal to Ukraine – and brave.
In an echo of Britain’s Special Operations Executive that ran missions behind enemy lines during World War Two, the tasks of the Ukrainian resistance inside territory captured by Moscow include espionage, sabotage and “eliminating” Russian forces, the commander told Sky News.
He said the men and women of the resistance are active in Crimea as well as parts of southern and eastern Ukraine and have carried out jobs within Russia.
Groups are also being created – as a precaution – in parts of Ukraine that may yet fall under Russian control.
In addition, civilians in Russia who oppose Vladimir Putin’s rule have started learning from Ukraine’s resistance to help them with their own operations.
Sky News spoke to the resistance group’s anonymous commander
Security and defence editor Deborah Haynes interviewing the leader
“Of course, the work that our people are doing is dangerous,” said the commander, a special forces colonel, who asked to be anonymous for security reasons. We are calling him Mykola.
“Many of our people have died during their work and many of them end up in Russian prisons,” Mykola said.
“But this does not scare us, because our goal justifies the losses we are suffering.”
It is the first time the head of the Resistance of Ukrainian Special Operations Forces – the name of the military branch that runs the resistance movement – has given an interview.
“Among us are those people who calmly, quietly, covertly perform their tasks without expecting a quick reward or glory,” the colonel said, speaking at a hotel in Kyiv.
“The main motivation of our people, all of us, is freedom. We want to defend our country… the Russians will have to either kill us all – or leave.”
Another screenshot from the promotional video
Video footage shared with Sky News by the Ukrainian special forces purportedly shows a number of resistance missions – though the commander was very reluctant to talk about any specific operation because of the danger to his people on the ground.
One clip from last year purportedly shows members of the resistance setting fire to electricity transmitters in Russia’s southwestern region of Voronezh, next door to Ukraine.
There is also footage from 2023 of individuals, their faces covered, spray-painting in black the logo of the resistance – two arrows pointing in opposite directions, and a dot in the middle – on the side of buildings in an occupied part of Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
The group’s symbol
In addition, a video from the first days of the full-scale invasion in 2022, offered evidence of a member of the resistance filming Russian troop movements in the town of Irpin, just outside Kyiv, during a failed push by Moscow to assault the capital.
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The commander said the resistance is used to monitor Russian troops and share information on how the Russian authorities are operating in an occupied area.
They have more active roles too.
Some members are deployed to disrupt supply lines to make it harder for Moscow to transport food and ammunition to its frontline forces.
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“We also try to kill the military personnel of the Russian Federation at all costs – and destroy their military equipment,” Mykola said.
The information provided by resistance members is shared with the Ukrainian armed forces to help coordinate military strikes and other offensives, including into Crimea.
The commander said the resistance will be key in any future push to force the Russian military to withdraw from the peninsula that they have occupied since 2014.
“A lot of our subordinates there are carrying out reconnaissance missions,” Mykola said.
“It’s not surprising that the FSB [Russian security services] is doing a lot of work [in Crimea]. But they still can’t catch our people.”
Hinting at the weight of responsibility on his shoulders for being in charge of such high-risk operations, he added: “Thank God for that.”
Mykola said the resistance began informally after Russia first invaded Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine a decade ago.
However, it became a more formal structure, under the command of the special operations forces, in the run-up to Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
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He described the programme as being like an iceberg.
Mykola said he sat on the visible part at the top of the iceberg, with special forces officers – who are in charge of different parts of the resistance – placed beneath him and then the vast network of resistance members spreading out underneath them.
Asked how big the resistance was, he said: “I can’t tell you a specific number, because this information is secret. But I can tell you that there are thousands of these people… I am happy to see it is growing.”
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The promotion video directs anyone who is interested in joining to contact the special forces team via a website.
“We have now started a campaign to popularise the resistance movement and we are creating the conditions for every citizen of Ukraine to be able to communicate with us in a confidential way and to offer their services,” Mykola said.
While boosting its ranks, this open-door policy also raises the risk of pro-Russian infiltrators penetrating the network. But the commander said his team was alert to this and they cut ties with anyone they suspect as being a mole working for the other side.
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As well as expanding the resistance in Ukraine, Mykalo said his unit has recently started to receive expressions of interest from civilians inside Russia.
He said any Russian resistance would not be run by his team but they could learn lessons from Ukrainian resistance operations.
“It is a part of the resistance, but their resistance is against Putin’s regime. It is not our movement that we organise inside of our country,” Mykalo said.
“They are already learning from us and they are starting to use our methods already within the Russian Federation and we see a great potential in those things.”