 "Ukrainians Underground: How Zla Mavka wields art as armour and paints hope in occupied cities")
Amid the grave war that has been raging on between Russia and Ukraine for three years, one would find beautiful artworks on the streets of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. The artworks will symbolise resistance and hope to countless Ukrainians living in the region that one day the war will be over and their homes will be free from any form of occupation.
These artworks featured women standing their ground and “fighting the evil”. When the need for discretion arises, the streets of occupied territories get filled with a tiny symbol, a circle over a triangle, once again representing a woman standing on her ground. The creator of these artworks is an all-woman non-violent resistance group, Zla Mavka. The name draws inspiration from a mythological story.
In the first part of the Ukrainian Underground Series , we got to know about a resistance group called Yellow Ribbon, which has been raising its voice against Russia’s occupation by tying yellow ribbons in different occupied territories.
For the second part of the series, Firstpost’s Bhagyasree Sengupta spoke to an activist from Zla Mavka. For safety reasons, the activist requested anonymity. The conversation was insightful as she spoke about the group, and what it takes to resist the Russian occupation.
Angry Mavkas
Zla Mavka is an all-woman Ukrainian non-violent resistance movement, which was started in the occupied city of Melitopol in early 2023. When Moscow started its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, three Ukrainian women decided to stand against the Russian aggression.
When asked by Firstpost why they call themselves Zla Mavka, the activist shared the story behind the name. “The Mavka is a character from the Ukrainian mythology. It was a fairy tale about female spirits who protect the forest from bad guys, who try to come to their home,” she said.
“So, when we created our movement, we decided that it would be like a good state of this character.” The group also has a name for Russian soldiers who are deployed in the occupied territory. They often referred to the Russian troops as “orcs”, the brutish fighters from JRR Tolkien’s famous series “The Lord of the Rings”.
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More Shorts“It was fun, you know, like Mavka against orcs. And the only thing that we added was ‘Zla’ in the beginning, which means angry. So, it’s like angry Mavka,” she said.
The group started creating posters based on the mythological character, which they discreetly put on walls and lamp posts across the street in occupied territories. One of the posts of the Ukrainian group that garnered attention in India was a video that paid homage to the ‘Nitingal on India’ Sarojini Naidu, who resisted the British colonisers in India.
When asked about the inspiration behind the post, the activist from the Ukrainian group said that they initially didn’t have the skill for resistance, but later on, they took inspiration from around the world.
“We weren’t prepared for this. It’s just regular women with different kinds of professions, and we didn’t have the skills. So when our movement started, we started to learn about experiences all over the world and especially the experiences of strong women in history. It was very inspiring,” she said.
"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind." #GandhiJayanti
— Зла Мавка (@MavkaZla) October 2, 2024
100 years ago Sarojini Naidu protested, today @MavkaZla resist. #NonViolenceDay is an important reminder against what we fight. Times are changing – the women's resistance continues@kavita_krishnan pic.twitter.com/EZqpVRXEBB
“So we decided to include her character in the video to tell her story, also because it can be a good example to other women here.”
The story behind the artworks
One of the USPs of the Zla Mavka movement is the fact that the group uses beautiful artworks as a symbol of resistance. They create beautiful illustrations of Mavaka (The Ukrainian mythological character) fighting Russian soldiers. While speaking to Firstpost, the Zla Mavka activist emphasised that these artworks are extremely important for the group.
“First of all, before the war started, one of us was an artist, and she started creating these posters and designs herself. Because you can’t make a resistance here openly, for example, like going to the meeting hall or on the street. We decided that art will be very good for showing our messages on the streets, in the media, online and offline.”
“So we also make jokes, we just laugh at the occupiers and this is what piss them,” she said. However, the Ukrainian activist pointed out that it is becoming difficult, year after year, to resist by putting out artworks due to intense Russian scrutiny.
“It’s a huge problem because Russian occupiers are searching for activists. They put a huge number of cameras, patrols and so on and so on,” she said.
Despite this, the resistance does not stop for Zla Mavkas as they find other ways to express their discontent with the draconian Russian regime. “So we have to be creative and find new ideas to resist. “For example, we use pumpkins and candles, you know, some stuff that everybody can find, just not to get caught by the occupiers and still spread the message,” the Zla Mavka explained.
So, how does the group work amid the Russian scrutiny
Crackdown on dissenters and heavy surveillance have been a common theme in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. In the midst of this, adding people to a resistance movement and ensuring their safety can be a hard task. When asked about how the group recruits its members, Zla Mavka activist emphasises that they always stay on alert.
“Recruit would not be the right word because we don’t ask somebody to do something. We just do what we do, and women come to us themselves, saying they would like to join. It doesn’t mean that they will go, for example, tomorrow to burn the Russian flag or to make graffiti,” she said.
“Some of them are scared to do such things, so we ask them to sometimes write for our ‘Diaries From Occupation’. So, women are writing their stories of a regular life in occupation. Some of them make graffiti and burn Russian flags.”
“We have a chatbot, Telegram and a few other places where people can write, and we will answer them. But, of course, we never meet them, like, personally, you know, and we don’t know each other,” she said. And that is where the key component of the movement lies. Not knowing each other, their names or any kind of information about each other is an extremely important component of the Zla Mavka movement. This ensures the safety and anonymity of all the members.
The Ukrainian activist mentioned that the group has certain safety rules for all its members. When asked more about what those rules are, she said: “We learn them from ourselves, it’s like from our experiences. First of all, it’s, of course, online safety, how to clean your phone, because your phone can be checked on the street or hacked. How to make calls and messaging safe. How to share information safely.”
“We also have safety rules on the ground. How not to be caught on the cameras, for example, there are some we can’t share,” she averred, ensuring the safety of other activists.
How locals are reacting to it
Does the existence of such groups raise the morale of the Ukrainian people living in occupied territories? The Ukrainian activist emphasised that the existence of resistance groups like these is important not only to break the Russian propaganda but also to make Ukrainians feel that they are not alone.
“We are receiving a lot of messages from people, even those who are not in the group, saying ’thank you, I saw your poster, I feel so good because I know that I am not alone’,” she said.
Talking about the dire circumstances in the region, the Zla Mavka activist emphasised that these days Ukrainians in the region can’t even speak to their friends or even sometimes their families.
“So when they see these resistance signs, they see that they are not alone, you know, and this is very important for them. They see that, while resistance is continuing, it means that the Russians haven’t won yet. Because there is still resistance, and this gives them hope,” she said.
In light of this, Zla Mavka has initiated a solidarity campaign in which people all over the world can join the resistance. “People from all over the world, from India, also started to send us photos with their hands with the logo of the movement. We show them to activists. It’s inspiring for them to know that people all over the world don’t forget about them,” she furthered.
She emphasised that a lot of Ukrainians who are still living in the region because they don’t have choices. “Movements like these show that people who are here didn’t accept Russia; they are here because they just couldn’t leave their homes.”
Zla Mavka up against a mighty state
The Zla Mavka activist told Firstpost that while there are no huge bombings in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, the lives of people who live here can be extremely hard. Some of these challenges are as follows:
### **The Russian 'misinformation machine'**
In May, there were reports of a sabotage of a Russian military train in Meltiopol. When asked if Zla Mavka had anything to do with it, as some reports suggested, the Ukrainian activist made it clear that the reports were “huge disinformation”, and they just reported on the incident.
“We always say that Zla Mavaka is a non-violent resistance group. This is very important because we don’t want to cause sabotage, especially with the military. We don’t want to put women who joined us at risk,” she said.
“We just reported that some activists did this, some partisans and some media just picked this information, starting to say that this was our movement. But this is not true.” The Zla Mavaka activist emphasised that disinformation like this is often useful for Russians to accuse the group of doing something violent.
### **The wrath of Russian spies**
While the war is being played out in regions that are still under Ukraine, the locals in Russia-occupied territories have to navigate throught Russian wrath and intelligence. “The hard thing here is Russian intelligence, FSB and other military groups that try to search all activists and not even activists,” the Zla Mavaka told Firstpost.
“They are hunting pro-Ukrainian people. So, you can be arrested here for a post. In social media, if you say Putin is bad or anything pro-Ukraine, you can be arrested just for this.”
The Ukrainian activist noted that the group is to give its activists support in the form of tips and rules on how to be safe. The group is also writing down and documenting a lot of violence and sexual abuse against women in the region by the Russian occupiers.
“I think it will be very important to document all these things, to report, to collect all information about their crimes in the occupied territories. But even to do this, you have to create a lot of safety rules for all activists who even want to share information,” she said.
### **Adapting to a still evolving crisis**
With the rise of the Ukrainian resistance group in Russian-occupied territories, the Russian authorities have to change their tactics to curb the voices of the dissenters. The groups then have to adapt themselves to stay underground.
“There are more agents deployed in the region, and there are more searches and cases. So they have become angrier,” she said.
“We are a problem for their propaganda. They are saying that people here are happy with Russia and happy to have a Russian passport. Then, when you go to the internet, you see different groups making resistance, you get a different image,” the Ukrainian activist explained.
“They try to find, arrest, and deport people from these territories,” she added. The Ukrainian activist warned that if these territories continue to remain under Russian occupation, the Russian forces will become “freer” when it comes to unleashing their wrath.
‘The resistance won’t stop’
Throughout the interview, the Ukrainian activist made it clear that her group would not stop resisting until the Russians leave the Ukrainian territories. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to Rome to garner support from Kyiv’s Western allies. While the idea of a peace deal has been floating for a while, the hope for Russia’s leaving the already occupied territories looks bleak.
When Firstpost asked about the grim prospects, the Zla Mavka activist said, “Resistance will not stop here because the only option that we will accept is that we will be part of Ukraine again. We are Ukrainians, we would like to see Russians out of our homes. Because people will not stop resisting until then.”
“People here are listening to our president Zelensky a lot on the internet, for them, what he is saying is very important. They are seeing that our president is on our side, and he is doing everything he can.”
“The thing is that we need more support. The world should unite to kick out the Russians and put them in their place. Because the Russian invasion will not stop here in Ukraine. It will go to different countries,” she said.
What Zla Mavka wants to tell the world
When asked about what Zla Mavka’s message to the world is, the group’s activist first started off by thanking people around the world for their support. “I want to thank all of them, we hear them, we see how the international community supports Ukraine and supports people in occupied territories. We received all their messages. A lot of people all over the world, from America to India, write us messages with solidarity, with supportive words, asking how they can help,” she said.
“The only message I can send is that people really have power, and if we are all united, we can win against any evil. So, good guys have to win. We will continue to fight. The Ukrainian activist also had a message for US President Donald Trump, who threatened 100% sanctions against Russia earlier this week.
“We really hope that finally he understands who Putin is and that Putin is just a big liar. Maybe he just doesn’t have enough information about things that are going on here, especially the occupation with all the crimes of Russians here. We don’t have any messages, just hope,” she concluded.
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