Scale and Structure

• The Ukrainian resistance in occupied territories is not a single organisation but an ecosystem of overlapping and separately organised networks: Ukrainian state-sponsored networks run by the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and GUR (Main Intelligence Directorate) with pre-positioned agents and remotely coordinated cells; spontaneous civilian networks formed by ordinary residents who chose to resist; networks formed after occupation by people who remained in their homes and subsequently made contact with Ukrainian authorities; and diaspora networks connecting displaced residents who evacuated with family members who remained and can serve as trusted communication channels; the compartmentalised structure means that the arrest of one cell does not expose other cells, but it also means that coordination of simultaneous action across multiple cells is difficult and operations remain largely opportunistic rather than centrally planned
• Geographic distribution: resistance activity is confirmed or credibly reported in all occupied territories, but the intensity varies significantly by geography; areas closest to the front line — the northern Zaporizhzhia Oblast villages, the left bank of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast — have the densest resistance activity because the proximity to Ukrainian lines makes exfiltration and communication more feasible; Crimea has a particularly notable resistance tradition given the decade of occupation since 2014 and the presence of an indigenous Crimean Tatar population with deep grievances against Russian administration; deeply occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts where Russian control has been consolidated for years have comparatively lower visible resistance activity

Intelligence Collection Networks

• The intelligence collection function is the most operationally valuable resistance contribution to the Ukrainian war effort; human intelligence (HUMINT) from people living inside occupied territory can confirm the presence, size, and movement of Russian military units with a granularity that satellite imagery and drone reconnaissance cannot match in areas with good Russian camouflage and dispersal discipline; Ukrainian strikes that have achieved unusually high precision against Russian command posts, ammunition depots, and vehicle concentrations in occupied or Russian territory have often been enabled by HUMINT that satellite or drone reconnaissance alone could not have provided; the GUR has confirmed, post-success, that specific high-value target strikes were enabled by "patriots on the ground" who provided targeting information — the intelligence infrastructure that made the successful deep-strike raids against Russian air bases possible was partly enabled by occupied-territory ground intelligence
• Communication methods: communication between resistance networks and Ukrainian controllers must operate against Russian signals intelligence (SIGINT) that actively monitors mobile phone networks, satellite communications, and internet traffic in occupied territories; methods employed include encrypted messaging applications on changed SIM cards, dead drop intelligence passed to couriers moving between occupied and government-controlled areas, coded messages embedded in apparently innocuous social media posts, and physical dead drops that are accessed during routine civilian movements; the Russian FSB has invested heavily in capturing encrypted communications and breaking resistance communication protocols, forcing continuous adaptation in methods

Sabotage Operations

• Railway sabotage has been among the resistance's most impactful operational contributions; Russian military logistics in occupied Ukraine depends heavily on rail networks to move supplies from Russia to frontline distribution points, and periodic disruption of key rail junctions, signal infrastructure, and track sections forces Russia to reroute supplies, divert security assets to rail protection, and accept delays in frontline ammunition and fuel delivery; the Melitopol-Tokmak rail corridor in occupied Zaporizhzhia and the rail junctions in occupied Donetsk have been documented targets of sabotage attributed to resistance activity; rail workers remaining in occupied areas have been both perpetrators and facilitators of sabotage operations
• Fuel and logistics infrastructure attacks: resistance networks have conducted operations against Russian fuel storage and distribution infrastructure, including documented cases of fuel depot fires in occupied territories at locations consistent with arson and sabotage; fuel supply constraints can directly affect Russian tactical mobility, and systematic targeting of fuel distribution infrastructure — even through low-scale incendiary actions rather than military-grade explosives — can compound logistics challenges in ways disproportionate to the small number of people required to execute the actions
• Targeted killings: Russian occupation administrators, collaborators, and military personnel operating inside occupied territories have been targeted by assassination operations attributed to Ukrainian special services operating in coordination with resistance networks; confirmed operations include the killing of Russian-installed administration officials in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea; the targeted killing of collaborators who assist Russian occupation administration serves both direct operational purposes (removing Russian administrative capability) and deterrent purposes (signalling to potential collaborators the personal risk of service to the occupation)

Civilian Resistance

• Civilian resistance in occupied territories takes forms that fall below the threshold of organised resistance activity: passive non-compliance with Russian administrative demands (refusing to obtain Russian passports, not enrolling children in Russian-curriculum schools, continuing to observe Ukrainian holidays); economic non-cooperation (refusing to work in Russian-administered enterprises, withdrawing from Russian-controlled banking); cultural resistance (maintaining Ukrainian language use, Ukrainian national symbols in small domestic spaces not visible to Russian patrols, continuing Ukrainian Orthodox Church practices against Russian pressure toward the Moscow Patriarchate)
• Information operations: a significant component of civilian resistance is psychological — spreading accurate information about the war's progress against Russian propaganda narratives that portray Russian victory as inevitable; resistance-affiliated Telegram channels in occupied territories provide residents with Ukrainian and Western news, frontline situation updates, and identification of Russian military movements and equipment; this information diffusion counters the Russian propaganda environment and maintains hope for liberation among populations that have limited access to non-Russian information sources

Russian Counter-Insurgency

• Russia's counter-insurgency apparatus in occupied territories has expanded steadily from predominantly FSB-run surveillance and arrest operations in 2022 to a more comprehensive system integrating military counterintelligence, occupation civilian administration informant networks, Russian National Guard (Rosgvardiya) security patrols, and technical surveillance infrastructure; the FSB has conducted hundreds of known arrests for resistance activities and Ukrainian intelligence contacts, with suspects facing Russian criminal prosecution on charges including treason, terrorism, and sabotage; sentences of 10–20 years in Russian penal colonies have been imposed on convicted resistance participants
• Filtration and surveillance: Russia has implemented filtration procedures that intensively screen residents of newly occupied territories for resistance activity, intelligence connections, and Ukrainian government-related employment; filtration involves biometric data collection, phone analysis, social network mapping, and interrogation; people flagged by filtration as potential resistance participants or regime opponents are detained for further investigation, and some have been transferred to Russian detention facilities; the filtration system has been condemned by international human rights organisations and is documented as a systematic violation of Ukrainian civilian rights under international humanitarian law

Crimea as a Special Case

• Crimea presents a unique resistance environment shaped by the decade of Russian occupation since 2014 — longer than any other occupied territory — and by the presence of the Crimean Tatar indigenous population, approximately 280,000–300,000 people, whose leadership (Mejlis, the representative body) has maintained pro-Ukrainian positions from the start and whose community has the deepest organisational history of resistance to Russification from the Soviet deportation experience; Crimean Tatar networks have been particularly active in intelligence collection, particularly related to Russia's Black Sea Fleet bases, air defence installations, and ammunition depots at Fedorivka and Maryanske; Ukrainian precision strikes against Crimean targets — the Kerch Bridge attacks, the Saky airbase strike in 2022, Sebastopol harbour attacks — have been enabled in part by HUMINT from the peninsula
• Deportations and repression: Russia has conducted targeted deportations of Crimean Tatar leadership since 2014, used the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation-designated extremist group charge (specifically, the Hizb ut-Tahrir designation) to imprison Crimean Tatar men on terrorism charges with no evidence of actual violence, and has systematically dismantled Crimean Tatar media, property, and civil society institutions; the result is a community under severe pressure but one that has maintained its resistance orientation despite a decade of targeted repression

Strategic Role and Limitations

• The strategic role of partisan resistance in the Ukraine war is primarily intelligence-enabling and logistics-disrupting rather than directly combat-capable; unlike World War II partisan movements that controlled territory and engaged in direct combat, Ukrainian resistance in occupied territories operates at a scale and intensity constrained by Russian security dominance that prevents the massing of armed groups; the resistance's most durable contribution is intelligence: the maintenance of human eyes inside Russian rear areas that can confirm targeting for long-range precision strikes and provide order of battle information that no other source can match in detail
• Limitations: the resistance faces irreplaceable personnel losses from FSB infiltration and arrests that constrain its scale and risk tolerance; the most effective resistance operators — those with good operational security, reliable communication channels, and valuable intelligence access — are irreplaceable assets whose loss sets back specific intelligence networks for months; resistance activity therefore tends toward cautious sustained collection rather than high-risk sabotage operations that would be more visible but would also sacrifice operators at rates the networks cannot sustain

Frequently Asked Questions