Agents of the Atesh partisan movement partially cut off power to a factory in Russia’s Udmurtia region that produces weapons and heavy equipment for the Russian armed forces.
According to a statement published on Telegram, the group carried out a sabotage operation in Izhevsk, the regional capital.
By setting a fire, the partisans disabled a transformer substation supplying electricity to key workshops at the BUMMASH metallurgical plant.
The enterprise is a significant element of Russia’s military-industrial complex, producing blanks and special alloys used in weapons and heavy equipment.
As a result of what Atesh described as a pinpoint strike, operations at one of the strategic factories in the industrial zone were temporarily suspended.
“While the Kremlin demands an increase in the pace of shell and equipment production, Atesh is simply turning off the switch at their factories,” the movement said.
In an exclusive interview with Kyiv Post, Atesh partisans said that in 2025, Ukraine’s resistance movement has moved far beyond the traditional image of partisan warfare.
What once looked like 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.
Closely coordinated with Ukraine’s security and defense forces, the underground has become a persistent – and often underestimated – threat to Russia’s war effort, they revealed.
Guerillas described 2025 as a turning point, marked by the collapse of the myth of a “safe Russian rear.”
“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, they stressed, is no longer a loose circle of sympathizers.
“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,” the partisans told Kyiv Post.
Asked which operations in 2025 had the greatest impact, the agents pointed to strikes on communications, radar systems, and rail infrastructure.
“The coolest cases are when we managed to ‘switch off’ entire sections of the front by destroying communications hubs and radar systems,” they said. “Without ‘eyes’ and ‘ears,’ their vaunted generals turn into blind kittens.”
They highlighted the sabotage of a military electric locomotive in Bryansk – a key logistics hub – which disrupted supplies to Russia’s Northern grouping. At the same time, the partisans said it was too early to speak publicly about their largest operations.
The movement itself has also changed, they said, becoming more professional and tightly coordinated, and now Atesh is a combination of experienced saboteurs, IT intelligence specialists, and – most importantly – officers inside the Russian General Staff.