A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #7-26 - Always standing with deserters. Four years after the war in Ukraine - the demonstrations (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Antimilitarist demonstrations and initiatives were held in several 
cities around February 24th. On this symbolic date, four years after the 
invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, street demonstrations 
were held against all forms of imperialism, against militarism, in 
solidarity with deserters on all fronts. Responding to the call of the 
Antimilitarist Assembly, in Trieste, Livorno, Turin, Reggio Emilia, and 
Palermo, there were demonstrations in the squares and symbolic actions 
in some of the places that most represent the arms race and war, such as 
weapons factories and war-mongering monuments.

On this "anniversary," the Italian government has revived war propaganda 
to justify the arms race, approving a new decree for the sale of weapons 
to Ukraine, the thirteenth since 2022. Among the themes that have 
peppered the warmongering rhetoric of recent weeks, we've heard more 
talk of a new advance by the Ukrainian army. They continue to portray 
the war in heroic terms, while Ukraine and Russia have become a vast 
slaughterhouse for the proletariat, with hundreds of deaths a day on a 
front as long as the entire Italian peninsula. This is the future they 
envision for the young generations they would like to enlist in the 
armed forces, for the working class they want impoverished, submissive 
and disciplined, reduced to fighting for their masters or producing and 
transporting weapons that will kill other proletarians. Faced with this 
scenario, the only option for salvation is desertion. But what exactly 
does this mean? A concrete image comes to us from the war in Eastern Europe.

Data emerging between 2024 and 2025 shed light on the situation. In 
Ukraine, approximately 1.5 million people have become unavailable to 
local recruitment centers. They have not communicated their new 
residence to the administration and therefore cannot be formally reached 
for conscription. These people, if still in the country, risk being 
recognized, held on the streets, and forcibly recruited. In city 
neighborhoods, solidarity groups are keeping recruiting teams away to 
prevent them from abducting local residents for recruitment. There are 
also nearly 290,000 open criminal cases against soldiers who have 
unjustifiably abandoned their units. Of these, the majority, 
approximately 235,000, have not returned after leave or vacation, while 
54,000 are legally considered "deserters," having left their units 
without justification. The situation in Russia appears to be similar; 
Although there are no comparable data, we know that between 2022 and 
2025, approximately 800,000 Russians left their country. Regardless of 
other causes of emigration, some of which were strongly influenced by 
the war the country has been plunged into, many are seeking to escape 
military mobilization.

We took to the streets immediately, not to support a government, not to 
choose an imperialist side, not to support a nationalism, but against 
all armies and all wars.

State neutrality or bourgeois equidistance are not our concern; we are 
against all governments, all states, and all imperialisms. We choose a 
side, the side of the oppressed and exploited classes, thrown into the 
meat grinder of war wherever it is being fought, cast into poverty and 
crushed by repression everywhere in the world. This is why we stand in 
solidarity with the deserters, with those who demonstrate how one can 
escape the massacre, the military machine. But that is not enough. As 
the Kharkiv Assembly group has highlighted in several articles, the mass 
of draft dodgers and deserters in Ukraine must move beyond hiding and 
overthrow their government. The same should happen in Russia, where the 
repressive grip would require a strong mass movement to undermine the 
police state and stop the war. This reflection serves to remind us that 
desertion must be the first step and transform into revolution. The 
individual ethical choice to avoid the massacre, which must be 
supported, is not enough; the choice must become collective, to build a 
mass movement capable of stopping a war and overthrowing a government.

But in the midst of a war, under bombs, in fear and suffering, in 
flight, under martial law, setting these processes in motion is 
extremely difficult. We must act sooner. This is why we must be clear 
about what we can do now, and expand the meaning of desertion. In the 
workplace, in production and logistics, as in schools and universities, 
deserting the war means halting weapons production, blocking military 
transport, rejecting the reintroduction of military service in any form, 
rejecting war propaganda, and working to build a mass antimilitarist 
movement that can challenge war policies.

Dario Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/sempre-a-fianco-di-chi-diserta-a-quattro-anni-dalla-guerra-in-ucraina-le-manifestazioni/
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