From the start of the war in 2014 until 2019, around 3 000 Russians were known to fight on Kyiv’s side. By 2024, the number had at least tripled, with the rebirth of the original dissident battalions along with the formation of attached special-purpose units.
What drives dissenting Russians to pick up arms against the state? How do their goals and means interact? While we may never come to understand the full extent of the battalions’ activities, tactical goals, and internal dynamics, their overarching ideologies and alleged target audiences speak volumes of Russia’s internal struggles and possible futures after defeat in war.
The armed resistance groups visible to the public broadly divide into three categories – ethnic Russian, Chechen and other oppressed national minority groups – united by nothing but the pursuit of armed resistance against the ruling regime. The Ukrainian battleground doubles as a window of opportunity for each of the units to initiate processes towards their own particular goals, while the grave differences in their desired outcomes reflect unresolved grievances in Russian internal politics.
Thus, one way to direct the ongoing war of arms is to influence the war of narratives about Russia’s own future. It is evident that the war itself does not in fact stem from Ukraine and will certainly not end there. Essentially, Russian battalions fighting on Ukraine’s side constitute a convenient external space for managing internal tensions, without actually driving any bottom-up change inside Russia. For Russia, this means that internal inter-group confrontation will continue indefinitely. For the western world, a new security issue emerges in the form of bellicose anti-Russian partisan groups with actual combat experience and political visibility, which may lead the way to a larger militarisation of the entire Eurasian region.
Download and read: The Enemy Within: Russians in Ukrainian Army Ranks and the Fracturing of Post-Soviet Identity (PDF)