Irina Khalip
(June 10, 2026) They manage social media accounts, but without showing their faces or revealing their names. They have no spokesperson to speak about their activities. They operate in the occupied territory, and since the start of the major conflict in recent years, also in Russian regions. They carry out bombings, arson attacks, destruction and reconnaissance missions. They are Crimean Tatar partisans, united under the name “ATESH”. This means “fire”. And not fire as a natural element, but “fire!” as a military command.
Their claims regarding their involvement in this or that act of sabotage generally cannot be independently verified. And some of their operations are not even made public. However, this phenomenon – the guerrilla movement as a form of internal resistance – does indeed exist. That is why “Novaya Evropa” began gathering information about it, piece by piece, and we finally managed to speak with their commander. We also spoke with an expert on the ethics of war about how to assess the partisans’ activities from the perspective of international law and morality.
Simferopol-2014. The beginning
It took six months to arrange an interview with one of the founders and commanders of the Crimean Tatar partisans. His name is Enver, but this is, of course, a pseudonym. Even his closest comrades-in-arms do not know his real name. In May 1944, Enver’s grandfather was deported from Crimea along with two hundred thousand other Crimean Tatars. The relatives of many members of the movement also suffered deportation and repression. Thus, for them, the occupation of Crimea, 70 years later, has become the terrible continuation of their people’s tragedy: it turns out that after Stalin’s death, nothing came to an end, but was merely ‘put on hold’.
According to Enver, the resistance movement can be said to have begun in February 2014, when Crimean Tatar activists gathered outside the parliament to prevent the occupation, and ‘titushki (1)’ were brought in from Sevastopol to counter them. The Crimean Tatars took to the streets out of a sense of duty, to defend the land of their ancestors, recalls Enver. But it all ended badly: it was precisely the Crimean Tatars who were accused of organising riots, and they were charged in criminal cases. The activists then realised that it was impossible to defeat the occupation through peaceful demonstrations: everyone would simply end up in prison and the protests would be stifled.
Many remember that rally, which took place on 26 February 2014. The Crimean Parliament was due to consider the issue of the peninsula’s status. Crimean Tatars and other residents opposed to annexation by Russia gathered outside the Supreme Council building in Simferopol. They chanted “Crimea is not Russia!” and “Out with the gang!”. The “titushki”, for their part, chanted “Russia!” and tried to hoist the Russian flag, which kept slipping from its pole or was torn down by supporters of a united Ukraine. Then the clashes began. The “titushki” threw flares at the demonstrators. The demonstrators fought back with the flagpoles. Two participants in the demonstration — Igor Postny and Valentina Korneva — never made it home: they were trampled to death during the clashes.
We already knew where all this was heading. And the chairman of the Medjlis (the representative body of the Crimean Tatars, established in 1991 and banned in Russia in 2016), Refat Chubarov, called for people to form self-defence groups: “ When you get home, go and see your neighbours—Russians, Ukrainians, people of other nationalities… Together, protect the churches and mosques; together, look after the cemeteries; together, set up schools. ” And during the night, the Parliament building was stormed by unknown assailants (“criminals”, as they were described by Oleksandr Turchynov, then acting President of Ukraine and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada), and by morning, it was the Russian flag flying above that of Ukraine.
It was undoubtedly from this gathering that the occupation began. The Russian authorities then opened criminal proceedings for disturbing public order. The vice-president of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, Akhtem Chiygoz, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, and his colleague Ilmi Oumerov to two years in a penal colony. This gathering led to searches, threats and acts of intimidation against the Crimean Tatars. Chiygoz’s sentence almost seemed like an act of humanity compared to what happened to the Crimean Tatar activist Reshat Akhmetov. On 3 March 2014, Reshat went alone to the centre of Simferopol to protest against the occupation of Crimea and was abducted by unknown men in camouflage. His body, bearing signs of torture, was found in a forest on 15 March.
‘One of my mates got onto the power line with grenades’
Some of the Crimean Tatars then left the region for Ukraine. But many stayed. They were waiting for the blockade: they understood that, without it, Crimea would not be returned. But the Ukrainian government signed an agreement with Russia and began selling electricity to Crimea. It was then that the Crimean Tatars launched a civil blockade: they hoped this would force the occupiers to leave. But their efforts proved fruitless, and they had to resort to more radical measures: blowing up the power lines so that, whatever agreements were signed, the supply of electricity to Crimea would become impossible. According to Enver, the explosives intended for the power lines were brought in by a friend of the Crimean Tatar activists from Kharkiv, known by the code name ‘Samurai’. It was truly a large-scale campaign, which began with the civil blockade of the peninsula, declared by the Crimean Tatars, and ended in a blackout: over two days — 20 and 21 November 2015 — four power lines supplying Crimea were taken out of service.
— A year after the sabotage of the power lines, I received the honorary award ‘Civil Blockade of Crimea’, recalls Erfan Kudusov, a Crimean Tatar activist who knew Enver personally and confirmed his identity to us. — It was Lenur Islyamov, one of the organisers of the blockade, who presented me with this award (Lenur Islyamov — a Crimean Tatar politician and businessman, sentenced in absentia in Russia to 19 years’ imprisonment for the Crimean blockade and acts of sabotage. — Editor’s note.) . Incidentally, Lenur is very fond of using the word ‘atesh’ — I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that he influenced the choice of the movement’s name. He presented the awards right next to the site of the explosion — in Novo-Alekseevka. After the power lines were taken out of service, the Ukrainian authorities attempted to repair them.
But the destroyed pylons were protected from any repairs by the Crimean Tatars. Ukrainian special forces were sent to the scene. And there, on one side of the road, stood a Crimean Tatar unit — the battalion of Noman Chelebidjihan (the first president of the government of the Crimean People’s Republic, assassinated in 1918 by revolutionary sailors. — Editor’s note), and on the other — the ‘ATO (2) fighters’: ‘Azov’, ‘Donbass’ and, if I recall correctly, ‘Aidar’. Blood could have been shed. One of my friends actually broke through the power line barriers with grenades. The situation was very complicated. It was then that we — the editor-in-chief of ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ Sevgil Musaeva, [the Ukrainian journalist] Aider Muzhdabaev and myself — called on the Crimean Tatars of Kyiv to gather in Bankova Square. People came out. [President] Poroshenko summoned [former Medjlis leader] Mustafa Dzhemilev and [current leader] Refat Chubarov to resolve the issue.
On 21 November 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, following a meeting with the leader of the Crimean Tatar people, Mustafa Dzhemilev, instructed the government to take all necessary measures to halt all trade with Crimea. Three weeks later, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a decision banning the supply of goods and services to the occupied peninsula. The campaign proved successful. Admittedly, at the time, this was not yet a structured resistance movement, but simply a group of Crimean Tatar activists. Initially, no one envisaged setting up an organisation. But when the Crimean Tatars and Crimean Ukrainians began to be persecuted, it became clear that a long struggle lay ahead. Moreover, the Crimean Tatars are no strangers to struggle and exile.
Before the full-scale invasion, Crimean Tatar activists were mainly focused on monitoring the deployment of Russian troops on Crimean territory and, from time to time, carrying out acts of sabotage — for example, disabling gas pipelines. But after 24 February, the issue could already be framed differently: it was no longer simply a matter of reclaiming Crimea, but of preserving Ukraine. In September 2022, the ‘ATESH’ movement was formally established. Its core, explains Enver, remains predominantly Crimean Tatar, but many Ukrainians and Russians have joined ‘ATESH’.
The structure of “ATESH” is kept secret, but, according to Enver, who promises to reveal the details after the war, the model was the OUN-B (a faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, which emerged in 1940 and was led by Stepan Bandera, hence the letter B in the name). In early 2023, a Telegram channel was created, whose first message was the ‘ATESH’ warrior’s oath, and the second, a short video manifesto. A hooded man declared:
“We are the underground movement ATESH, composed of Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and Russians. We have enlisted in the Russian army and we are going to destroy it from within. We will leak information on positions, depots, soldiers and equipment. We will organise sabotage operations in depots and headquarters. Our numbers are growing every day!”
The 200th and 300th
Once the guerrilla movement had been formed and had made its public debut, sabotage operations began in the occupied territories. According to Enver, they realised from the outset that, under these conditions, only a forceful approach was possible, rather than persuasion and negotiation. But the forceful approach is not limited to sabotage operations on power lines and railway tracks. It is also about eliminating the enemy. It was they, the Crimean Tatar partisans, who claimed responsibility for two highly publicised actions: the assassination of the deputy head of the Kherson occupation administration, Kirill Stremousov, and the attack on Zakhar Prilepin (the two messages posted on the ‘ATESH’ Telegram channel, to which the Ukrainian media refer, have since been deleted).
Kirill Stremousov was regarded as the main media figure of the Russian occupation. However, prior to the full-scale invasion, he was seen more as a local madman and a provocateur, who would occasionally find himself involved in criminal cases, and who, in his spare time, would file complaints against anyone who came to hand. However, with the start of the occupation, this sort of character became highly sought after. By March 2022, Stremousov had established a council of collaborators in Kherson — the ‘Rescue Committee for Peace and Order’. And it was there that a position became available, one with unlimited power.
In late October and early November 2022, Stremousov urged people “not to listen to the harmful Ukrainian-Nazi media” and swore that Russian troops would not leave Kherson. And on 9 November, he died unexpectedly in a road accident. Almost at the very moment the occupiers were fleeing Kherson. Whether by chance or design — no one knew: neither the occupying forces nor the advancing Ukrainian army had time to investigate. According to Enver, Stremousov was arrogant and overconfident — he drove his 4x4 like a madman, ignoring the highway code and paying no attention to anyone or anything around him.
And when one of the partisans happened to be in the vicinity quite by chance (the action was not planned), then, as Enver puts it, “the rest was just a matter of technique”.
With Zakhar Prilepin, the story unfolded differently. On May 3, 2023, his car exploded in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The explosive device was detonated remotely. It was located under the passenger seat, but on that day, Prilepin was driving himself. In the passenger seat was his bodyguard and driver, Alexander Shubin — he was killed instantly. Seriously injured, Prilepin was taken to hospital and placed in an induced coma. The Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal investigation into a ‘terrorist act’. In connection with this case, Alexander Permyakov was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. According to the prosecution, it was he who allegedly planted two radio-controlled anti-tank mines on a road in the Nizhny Novgorod region. During our conversation, the commander of ATESH neither confirmed nor denied that Permyakov was linked in any way to the partisan movement.
When asked why they had chosen Prilepin, Enver replied that, as he had come to Kherson and was spreading propaganda for the “Russian world”, he had become, like any occupier, a legitimate target in wartime.
Propagandists are by no means harmless and cause just as much harm as attackers armed with machine guns, for it is largely ‘thanks’ to them that volunteers continue to enlist in the Russian army, according to the partisan commander.
“We tend to view partisans as a kind of spontaneous, self-organised movement,” explains philosopher Arseni Kouman’kov, a specialist in the ethics of war and author of the books War in the 21st Century and War, or Prisoners of Violence. “But historically — both in the Napoleonic era and in the 20th century, including during the Second World War — partisan movements were generally linked to and supported by regular armies. Put simply, they were soldiers acting in an unconventional manner. Remember, Napoleon complained that the Russians were not waging war properly: their way of waging war was not the right one, it was not noble. In our case, the situation is different: ATESH is, in my view, a self-organised movement. And the question of whether partisans are subject to certain ethical standards and international law is, in this case, more complex.
“The situation is not very good as far as international law is concerned, as it turns out that, in principle, it should prohibit any partisan movement: indeed, the military pose as civilians and can thus create an additional danger for the latter. Another question is therefore important here: do people who lack the resources and means necessary to oppose regular armed forces have the right to carry out military operations against those they regard as occupiers or traitors? This right is none other than the right to liberation from occupation, the right to national self-determination.”
’Let’s stop the war together!’
“Even before ATESH had formed as a movement, there were people in Crimea who, out of a sense of duty, patriotism and initiative, began to offer their help through information, organisation and other means,” recalls Erfan Kudusov. “Then, such people appeared in the occupied towns of Genichesk, Melitopol and Novo-Alekseevka. Not just Crimean Tatars, but Ukrainians too. They, I would say, offered their help of their own accord. Of course, there were also those whom our special services had deliberately left behind to carry out infiltration missions. Unfortunately, there were also many instances of betrayal during the occupation. Many militia and SBU officers defected to the occupiers’ side. And this made the resistance’s actions all the more valuable. In Crimea, you can be imprisoned for speaking Crimean Tatar or Ukrainian — vigilant citizens call the FSB. And if a person has actually done something — drawn graffiti, stuck up a leaflet, set fire to an electrical cabinet — they face very heavy sentences. My friends are in prison — some have been sentenced to 17 years, others to 20 years. That is why, of course, there is fear. But at the same time, we understand the chaos reigning in Russia. They cannot censor social media; they are fighting against instant messaging apps, but to no avail.
New instant messaging apps are appearing, new technologies. A huge number of people spend their time playing video games, and within this gaming space, there is an excellent exchange of information. It is very difficult to monitor.”
Whereas previously the occupied territories were the main theatre of operations for ‘ATESH’, following the large-scale invasion, their activities began to spread to different regions. This means that Russians are joining the movement — in any case, one cannot “cover” such a large number of regions with Crimean Tatars alone. Consequently, overnight, thousands of leaflets appear in Russian cities: in Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Tambov, Tver, Saransk, Kursk, but also in Omsk, Novosibirsk and Kazan. Then, an ATESH agent infiltrated the radio factory of the Almaz-Antey air defence group in Balakhna, in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Subsequently, members of the movement who had enlisted in the Russian army carried out filming from a firing range in the same region during exercises.
The story of Gennadi Artemenko, reported by Novaya Gazeta Europe, also unfolded in the Nizhny Novgorod region, in Dzerzhinsk. He was accused of treason, notably for the ATESH leaflets that appeared in the town almost every night. Admittedly, after Gennady’s arrest, the leaflets continued to appear, but the charge, based on footage from a distant CCTV camera (the video shows only a silhouette in a jacket, and the investigation failed to establish his identity), was upheld. Moreover, these leaflets contained no calls to kill Putin or blow up a barracks — they read: “Let’s stop the war together! ”
In the Nizhny Novgorod region, moreover, the hunt for spies was in full swing. One example is the case of the pensioner Lev Lerman, who was accused of espionage, but for whom nothing was found at all: neither on his phone, nor on his computer, nor on the CCTV footage among the figures distributing the ATESH leaflets, a new search was carried out and 10 cartridges were discovered (only police officers were present during this “discovery”). Lerman was sent to a penal colony. It is possible that this activity by the special services, specifically in the Nizhny Novgorod region, is linked to the attack on Prilepin. Or perhaps also to the fact that, there, after all these arrests, the ATESH leaflets continue to appear regularly. And now, they no longer contain only calls to end the war together, but also calls to join the guerrilla movement, which seems even more radical in the eyes of the authorities.
But for the time being, none of the movement’s participants have been arrested by the Russian secret services or imprisoned, according to the leaders of the Crimean Tatar partisans.
Two years ago, the movement established a cyber-partisan branch: Cyber ATESH. Last year, the cyber-partisans took the Russian electronic summons registry offline; they attacked “Alfa-Bank” and Rosselkhozbank; they hacked the phones of employees at a drone manufacturing company and extracted logistics and transfer plans for the drones to the troops; they obtained secret documents on the combat watches of Black Sea Fleet vessels. And, of course, the personnel lists are always useful to them: this, say the supporters, will be used to bring them to justice in the future. Moreover, according to Enver, most of the cyber-pirates are Russian.
“As for the ethnic makeup — how many Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians and Russians there are at present — I won’t tell you, and no one will tell you,” says Erfan Kudusov. But I can assure you that if there are one or two Crimean Tatars in a unit, one can already, without hesitation, describe that unit as Crimean Tatar. When ATESH formed as a partisan movement, most Crimean Tatars welcomed it with joy. But many were frightened. The situation in Crimea has changed dramatically. Broadly speaking, one in three residents now wears a uniform. And the secret services are instilling a climate of fear. Intelligence, infiltration and sabotage activities continue, just as they always have. But all attempts to approach senior officials have failed: the place is so thoroughly infiltrated by the secret services that words fail to describe it.
According to Koudousov, many Crimean Tatars have been forced to leave: some to Europe, others to Ukraine, and they are now fighting in various units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“They keep a very low profile, aren’t active on social media and don’t speak out publicly,” he continues. “Because we have large families, and everyone has left loved ones behind in Crimea.”
“And if there is even the slightest suspicion that one of your relatives is fighting, first the local police officer is sent to you — as a sort of ‘black mark’ — then the public prosecutor’s office, the Investigative Committee, and the FSB. People live in a state of constant fear.
“Husbands ‘shut themselves off’ from their wives so as not to say a word too many. I don’t want to make an appeal along the lines of: ‘Come on, Crimean Tatars, join‘ATESH, but we really do need more people and a powerful resistance. Over the past year, I have attended seven funerals. And I fully understand that to resist is to expose oneself to mortal danger. But not resisting means there won’t be seven, but seven thousand funerals.
’If we don’t resist, we’ll simply disappear’
People join ATESH of their own free will. But sometimes the partisans have to recruit a Russian soldier to obtain information or use him blindly to carry out an act of sabotage. There is no need to invent complex stratagems or multi-stage schemes. Enver claims that the best argument for recruiting soldiers is money. And also alcohol, which the partisans promise to get to them at their camp: vehicles carrying soldiers are stopped at checkpoints and searched for vodka, whilst the families of Crimean civilians can pass through all these checkpoints unhindered and without being searched, a privilege they take full advantage of.
The Ateshevtsy are supported by Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian businessmen, so they have the funds to operate, including for recruitment. According to Enver, in all this time, they have not met a single ideological occupier who would have refused to betray his homeland: they immediately start negotiating.
From 2022, Crimean Tatar partisans devised a project for those who do not want to fight against Ukraine but lack the courage to desert and go to prison. The ATESH School is an online educational project through which instructors from the movement have trained Russian soldiers in sabotage: damaging military equipment, ammunition and fuel.
The partisans claim that during the project’s year-long run (which ended in August 2023), four thousand people completed the school’s online training.
But it was a short-lived venture. It was conceived, set up, and then shut down. It is impossible to determine the school’s effectiveness: everything done online remains there, and if any of the course participants actually carried out acts of sabotage, it is unlikely they would tell anyone. They would prefer it to remain a secret forever. Or, at least, until the end of the war. The supporters themselves make no comment and give no details — they simply say that feedback does indeed exist and that, in several fairly well-known cases, the lessons of the ATESH School have borne fruit.
On the other hand, they speak openly about their other actions. For example, on November 12, 2022, a statement was published on the ATESH Telegram channel: “In the military hospitals of Simferopol, ATESH operatives have successfully eliminated 30 Russian soldiers, 30 stragglers whom we have helped to reach God’s judgement’ (this post has since been deleted, but screenshots have been preserved in Ukrainian media reports).
The list of victims was published on the same Telegram channel (again, only screenshots have been preserved). The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has neither confirmed nor denied this information. According to Enver, several partisans infiltrated a military hospital posing as volunteers and pulled out IV drips, leading to the deaths of dozens of patients. He claims that this was not difficult to do, as the people who turned up at the hospital to volunteer did not even have their papers checked. The partisan commander claims that they all managed to flee to Turkey — it was the quickest and easiest route.
In December 2022, the Ateshevtsy recruited, or rather bribed, a rank-and-file soldier from a military unit in the village of Sovetsky. The soldier, Enver recounts, ”turned out to be very greedy and haggled at length”. But he eventually agreed and smuggled a bag into the mess hall of his barracks. During the night, the bag caught fire and set the barracks ablaze. The fact is that the Crimeans know this military unit very well: before the occupation, it was the Ukrainian unit A-4519.
And in Nova Kakhovka, in February 2023, partisans spotted Russian soldiers on a mission. The Ateshevtsy noticed that these soldiers took the same route every morning and evening, and frequented the same shops and cafés. It was therefore not difficult to plant explosives in their car. The explosion went off on the morning of February 10 on Dniprovskyi Avenue, near the police station. Two people were killed instantly, and two others were hospitalised in a serious condition. From the partisans’ point of view, this was a message to all Ukrainians living under occupation: they must see that the resistance continues.
“From a legal point of view, these are of course illegal acts,” explains Arseni Kouman’kov. “The wounded are non-combatants, meaning they are not currently taking part in the fighting. That is why, from a legal perspective, it is of course forbidden to attack them. It is a crime. But whilst we have briefly covered the legal aspect, the question of morality remains. And if we examine the situation through the prism of moral categories, this is what emerges: the wounded will recover, return to the front and kill. On the other hand, according to this logic, one could target anyone, as that person could potentially sign up and go to the front.”
“Neutralising the opponent by non-lethal means, rendering them harmless but not killing them — this is, of course, the ideal approach. Generally speaking, I may be expressing an unpopular view, but in my opinion, we must be strict when it comes to morality and simply accept that our actions are not always moral — even if they are sometimes effective, unavoidable and, in fact, the only possible option. We must then tell ourselves: ‘Yes, we are doing something that isn’t quite right from a moral standpoint, but it is currently the only possible way.’ And secondly, we must ask ourselves: why are these people forced to do what they do? Why have they found themselves in such a situation? And that is no longer their responsibility.
Some say that certain actions by ATESH seem barbaric. Others feel that ‘they aren’t doing enough to destroy the occupiers’. Still others are convinced that the actions of the Crimean Tatar partisans in the occupied territories are pure and simple heroism, which will be the subject of books and films. “You understand,” said Erfan Kudusov as he took his leave, “if we do not resist, we simply risk disappearing. The Ukrainians, as a nation, will not disappear; they will not dissolve, even without the Donbas and Crimea. Even if, God forbid, half the country were torn from them, the Ukrainians would not disappear. But a serious threat of extinction hangs over us. That is why the work of ATESH is so important to us. Even the word itself — atesh — warms the soul, for it is ours, that of the Crimean Tatars.”
Notes (by RESU-Belgium)
(1) “Titushki”. This term refers to “thugs”, provocateurs or rioters used by the authorities to disperse demonstrators or intimidate opponents. The word derives from Vadim Titushko, a Ukrainian martial arts practitioner who was used in 2013 to intimidate opposition demonstrations.
(2) ATO. Between 2014 and 2022, the low-intensity war waged against the Russian occupation of the Donbas was officially designated in Ukraine as an “anti-terrorist operation”, abbreviated to ATO.