A train line carrying Russian weapons and supplies crossed the Bryansk region in western Russia, close to the Ukrainian border, over the weekend due to a power outage.
This wasn’t just a blackout, though. Atesh, a member of the Ukrainian resistance movement, set a fire at a nearby substation as the cause of the incident.
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The group’s 52, 000 followers on its Telegram channel were informed that “Atesh precisely targets the enemy’s weak points, paralyzing their rear.”
Russia’s forces are facing resistance from the front lines as well as the back as it strengthens its hold on occupied territory in Ukraine. Atesh, one of the so-called “partisan groups,” has become the most active, claiming responsibility for more than half of the sabotage attacks on Russian-controlled territory last year. Its name means “fire” in Crimean Tatar.
The coordinator of the organization, Al Jazeera, stated over Telegram that “we are currently in a war of attrition, and the role of internal resistance is becoming decisive.”
“The occupiers cannot guard every truck or rail meter in their rear,” they claim.
Seven months after the Russian military launched a full-scale invasion of its western neighbor, Atesh was established in September 2022. The representative claims that the organization’s core consists of Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority with long-held grievances against Moscow’s rule, but that there are also Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians.
The representative, who declined to be identified for safety reasons, said, “We realised that Crimea and other captured territories must become a thorn in the occupier’s side from within.”
“We are attempting to bring the Russian military apparatus into its own system.” Every Russian soldier on our soil experiences unrest and their headquarters, logistics, and headquarters are reduced to ashes, according to us.
Sabotage operations
Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began with a number of arson attacks on army draft offices, acts of sabotage have been carried out on Russian soil.
Since then, saboteurs have turned to Russian supply trains and railroad infrastructure as their main targets for stifling the Kremlin’s war machine. Russians and Belarusians are among them, as are saboteurs-for-hire that Ukrainian agents have recruited online and saboteurs-for-hire organizations as well as underground organizations like BOAK (the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists).
According to Olha Polishchuk, research manager for the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) conflict monitor, “Sabotage operations are frequently coordinated by the Ukrainian intelligence and the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] and are carried out by people supporting Ukraine or other individuals recruited under the guise of financial reward, threats, or deceit.”
“Decoupling partisan-led operations from those conducted in Ukraine may be challenging. The two often coexist in harmony. Although it’s difficult to establish a direct relationship with the Ukrainian government, we are aware that unidentified actors have been hired online to recruit sabotagers.
Similar tactics have been employed by Russian intelligence, which allegedly pay local criminals to smuggle goods both into Europe and the Ukraine.
More than 50% of the sabotage in Russian-occupied Ukraine in 2025 were caused by Atesh, according to an ACLED report.
Several of its alleged operations took place in Russia, including igniting a locomotive in Rostov and destroying the communications tower of a Russian air defense factory in Tula.
Polishchuk remarked, “The impact is difficult to calculate.
“Many sabotage activities have a limited effect, which may result in inconveniences and resupply delays. However, this can get worse and make Russia spend more money on improvements, security measures, and policing the area’s population.
Although Atesh’s claims of responsibility cannot be independently verified, the organization regularly broadcasts their alleged video and coordinates over Telegram.
The representative for Atesh said, “We strike at the enemy’s most vulnerable points.”
“We choose locations like headquarters, bridges, and ammunition depots that are crucial for logistics or troop command.” Our agents’ knowledge is used to make plans, which are based on reality. We put all of our efforts into action when we learn about an important echelon or ammunition column while always putting safety first.
The organization claims to use only encrypted apps for communication to reduce infiltration from Russian security services.
According to the source, “cells operate independently because individual agents don’t know each other.”
We teach everyone digital hygiene and employ advanced encryption techniques. Our data verification and cross-checking system helps us quickly reduce the threat, even when the FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service] tries to infiltrate its provocateurs.
The organization claims that Russian sympathisers also support Atesh’s operations.
The representative claimed that the Russian armed forces, the national guard, and even intelligence organizations all have active agents.
“Some do it for ideological reasons, having recognized the peril of war, while others do it for the sake of their families’ futures, realizing the regime’s impending fallout. Their inside information enables us to be informed in advance of combat vehicle movements and what is going on in closed command bunkers.
Atesh claimed to have taught 4, 000 Russian soldiers how to “survive” the war by causing damage to their own equipment by 2023.
Atesh’s activities range from what it calls “propaganda” (placing stickers with its messages over Russian- and Russian-occupied cities) to base, depot, and supply trains reconnaissance, which it shares with Ukrainian intelligence. According to Asesh, its information allegedly sparked a successful wave of Ukrainian strikes in 2023 that forced Russia to relocate its Black Sea Fleet.
Polischuk cited the successful Ukrainian operation coordinated with partisan groups as an example of last year’s massive drone strike on Russian airfields by Ukraine’s Spiderweb operation.
Atesh agents use lethal force if necessary. For instance, the organization claimed that in the southeast of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, it set fire to several Russian servicemen in July.
The partisans’ coordinator stated that “our targets are those who came to our country to kill and traitors who actively participate in repressions against the civilian population.”
Priorities are given to officers who order strikes on cities and neighbors who betray their neighbors.
The partisans are in great danger of losing.
Because of the country’s lenient policies, sabotage activity was born in these circumstances and had to be adjusted to them right away, according to Polishchuk.
She continued, “It is dangerous to express any support for Ukraine in occupied Ukraine and Russia.” Without the proper investigation, those suspected of cooperating with the Ukrainian military may be detained or vanished, even if no evidence is found against them.
She said that despite resistance and sabotage, there is still persistence.
The task of removing Russian occupation from their land is a common theme for many Atesh members.
According to Al Jazeera’s source, “for our people, it’s one endless tragedy, broken only occasionally by brief periods of peace.”
The Crimean Tatars are who?
The Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group that was once oppressed by the Russian Empire after it was overthrown in 18th century, have endured oppression. The most agonizing moment came in 1944 when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of all Tatars to Central Asia after they were suspected of disloyalty during World War II despite the fact that thousands of Tatars had faithfully served in the Red Army and helped to defeat the Nazis.
As many as a third of the trains were herded onto, and one-third of them did not make it.
The Tatars’ removal is regarded as a genocide in contemporary Ukraine. Only decades later, the deportees and their descendants were permitted to return, which sparked conflict with the native Russians and Ukrainians who had settled the region.
Civil rights activists have vanished since the Russians took control of Crimea in 2014, while their Mejlis, the traditional Tatar parliament, has been declared a “terrorist” organization, is still in use. Some were later discovered dead. After Russia gained control, thousands of Crimean Tatars abandoned their homes and headed for the Ukrainian mainland.
