In 2025, Ukraine’s resistance movement has moved far beyond the traditional image of partisan warfare.
What once appeared as isolated acts of sabotage in occupied territories has evolved into a coordinated, nationwide network operating not only in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, but deep inside Russia itself.
Combined with close coordination with Ukraine’s security and defense forces, the underground movement’s growing reach has made resistance activity a persistent and destabilizing – but sometimes overlooked – threat to Russia’s 2025 war effort.
In an exclusive interview, Kyiv Post spoke with “Selim,” a coordinator of the Atesh resistance movement, as well as “Yevpatoriy,” an underground agent operating in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Both described 2025 as a turning point, defined largely by the collapse of the long-standing myth of a “safe Russian rear.” According to them, Russian forces no longer feel secure, even far from the front.
“If earlier the occupier felt threatened only in Crimea or near Donetsk, today they flinch at every sound in the Moscow region or Volgograd. Atesh has become a truly all-Russian network,” one of them said.
The movement, he added, is no longer a loose group of sympathizers but a systemic force embedded across Russia’s military infrastructure.
The agents said their actions had left a significant psychological impact inside Russia. They said acts of sabotage against communications, logistics, and rail infrastructure have fueled deep paranoia within Russian units.
“They no longer trust one another. Every officer suspects his deputy of working with Atesh,” one source noted.
Below is the full interview in Q&A format. Kyiv Post has not identified which of the two interviewees provided each answer, as per Atesh’s request.
1) 2025 is often described as a turning point for the resistance movement. Looking back, what was the most important outcome of this year for you?
The most important thing is that we have completely dismantled the myth of a “safe Russian rear.” If earlier the occupier felt threatened only in Crimea or near Donetsk, now he flinches at every rustle in the Moscow region or in Volgograd.
We have become a truly all-Russian network, and this is our main achievement. We are no longer just a group of patriots, but a systemic force that has metastasized throughout the military machine of the Russian Federation. And next year, these metastases will make themselves felt.
2) Which partisan operations of 2025 do you consider the most successful, and why did they change the course of events in the occupied territories?
The coolest cases are when we managed to “switch off” entire sections of the front by destroying communications hubs and radar systems.
Without “eyes” and “ears,” their vaunted generals in the rear and field commanders turn into blind kittens. Special mention should be made of the systematic hunting of railway infrastructure in Russia’s rear regions.
For example, Atesh agents successfully sabotaged a military electric locomotive on railway tracks in Bryansk. Bryansk is a key logistics hub, and the destruction of a locomotive there created significant problems in supplying the occupiers’ Northern grouping. Every burned relay cabinet or blown-up bridge means weeks of delays for equipment that never made it to kill Ukrainians near Pokrovsk or Kupyansk.
Such facts are a real motivational driver for further operations. However, it is still too early to talk about the loudest and largest-scale operations. The time will come.
3) How has the partisan movement itself changed over this year? Is it more people, new methods, a different level of coordination, or all of it together?
We have become more professional. This is no longer just about “throwing a Molotov cocktail.” This is the highest level of coordination.
Today, ATESH is a combination of experienced saboteurs, IT intelligence specialists, and, most importantly, officers inside the Russian General Staff itself. There are many more of us now, but we have become even more concealed and more influential.
4) What does it mean to be a partisan in 2025 today? Is it no longer just sabotage, but also information, technology, and assistance to the Ukrainian military?
It means being everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Today, an underground movement agent is not necessarily a person with a rifle in the forest. It is a waiter who overhears officers’ conversations in a café; a railway worker who knows the exact schedule of military trains; a technician who can “accidentally” disable an expensive radar.
This is a technological war: a smartphone and the critical information transmitted through it today kills occupiers no worse than a rifle.
5) Who are the people who become partisans? Do you have a general profile for age, profession, or life experience?
We do not have a “typical” agent. There are 19-year-old guys with fire in their eyes, solid men aged 30+, and even pensioners who watch military equipment pass by their windows. But you know what is most interesting?
More and more of our agents are Russian servicemen themselves. They see this madness, they see the “meat grinder,” and they understand that the only way to survive is to help us end this war faster. Or to watch their commander be torn apart by an explosion, the coordinates of which they can pass to us as an act of revenge.
6) What was the hardest moment for you in 2025, and how did the partisans get through it? What helps you not to break?
The hardest thing is seeing the enemy take out its anger on civilians when it cannot catch us. Repressions in Crimea and in the Donetsk region were very harsh. But you know what helps you not to break? Rage. When you see yet another atrocity by the occupiers, you do not cry. You go and plan a new operation. This is the best cure for despair.
7) Did you feel this year that the enemy is afraid of you? How does this manifest itself in practice?
Oh, they are complete paranoiacs. You should see how they run around offices when another “sabotage” happens in one of “their” units. They do not trust each other. Every colonel in that unit suspects his deputy of being an Atesh agent. This is excellent psychological pressure. They know we are everywhere.
8) How do you cooperate with Ukrainian law enforcement and intelligence structures? How does this affect the effectiveness of the resistance movement?
This is our foundation. We work as a single organism with the Defense Forces of Ukraine. Our data are the “eyes” for Ukrainian missiles. When a strike hits exactly on an ammunition depot or a headquarters, we know our work has paid off. This makes us not just insurgents, but part of a large army of liberation.
9) Partisans operate under constant risk. What helps people stay in the fight for months and years without betraying or giving up?
It is the drive of knowing that you are doing something truly important. When you realize that one phone call or one photo of yours saved the lives of an entire company of our soldiers, it keeps you going better than any stimulant. We do not give up because we have something to fight for: home, family, justice.
10) What would you like Ukrainians in government-controlled territories to better understand about life under occupation and the partisan movement?
Remember that occupation is not just “another authority.” It is a daily hell. But there are millions of people there who are waiting for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Do not give up on them. There is powerful resistance there; it is just quiet. Every Ukrainian flag painted at night, for example, in Mariupol, is a cry that Ukraine is there.
11) How did 2025 change life for civilians in the occupied territories due to partisan actions? Do they feel that Ukraine is close?
Yes, and precisely thanks to underground movement agents. When another collaborator is blown up, or communications disappear at the occupiers’ headquarters,
I am sure that people standing in queues whisper to each other, “Ours are working.” This gives them the strength to breathe. They see that the enemy is vulnerable, and therefore, de-occupation is possible.
12) If you had to describe 2025 for the partisan movement in one sentence, what would it be?It is the year when we proved that ATESH is a fire that cannot be extinguished, and it will burn the occupation machine from within.