Its army of women activists distribute their own newspapers, use Russian banknotes to spread subversive messages, and risk their freedom to make the occupiers feel insecure.
While they may not have the headline-grabbing cachet of saboteurs and assassins, they are a thorn in the side of the occupation and face long jail time and worse if they are caught.
The non-violent women’s movement, named after Mavka, a female spirit from Ukrainian mythology, started in Melitopol in 2023 and has expanded to all territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk.
“We were sitting talking in the kitchen about what was going on, and the idea came up for a statement to the occupiers from women,” said Mavka, one of the coordinators, who asked CEPA to replace her name with that of the movement to protect her identity. “We want them to know what Ukrainian women think.”
One of their first actions was to design a poster of a woman hitting a Russian soldier over the head with flowers, with the slogan “I don’t want flowers, I want my Ukraine.” Women printed them at home and left them all over their cities. At first, in Berdiansk and the smaller towns around Melitopol, then women in Crimea joined in.
Alongside posters, leaflets, and stickers, the group distributes newsletters to homes, mailboxes and public spaces. The miniature newspapers correct lies in Russia’s propaganda and cover subjects its official media ignores.
Small enough to be reproduced on domestic printers, the newsletters echo the samizdat guerrilla publishing of the Soviet era, and home printing technology means they are even harder for the authorities to trace and stop.
Currency is also an effective way to spread the group’s messages, and members write inscriptions in Ukrainian on Russian ruble banknotes, including “I will never, ever give up my homeland” and “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the Heroes!”
Butternut squashes — in place of pumpkins, a traditional symbol of rejection in Ukraine — are left where the occupiers will find them, with notes saying they should leave. Trash bags tagged with “gift for the orcs” are also placed in public places to disrupt the narrative that Russian forces are welcome.
“It’s important for them to show life here is great, to say Melitopol is peaceful, life is perfect, and everyone’s happy, singing Russian songs at concerts,” Mavka said. “But then their own press publishes photos showing the resistance — these leaflets, graffiti — and it’s something they can’t stand.”
Women also share diaries, which they publish on their Telegram channel, documenting everyday life under occupation and sharing support and advice.
“I worked at the university, and the [Russian forces] immediately offered me a job,” a woman wrote from Mariupol. “They’re bringing in professors from Russia in large numbers, offering apartments and quite a good salary. They immediately offered me 100,000 rubles (approx. $1,012).”
In the comments people advise her what to do and whether it’s safe to accept the offer, warning her she will have to report on “disloyal students” to Russian forces.
Another woman shared what she had to do to get out of Crimea, providing advice for others so they could avoid arrest.
“I cleaned up all my chats, search history, and subscriptions in Telegram to the point where when I searched for Ukraine, it showed the address of the Ukraine Hotel in Simferopol,” she wrote. “I did all of this in advance because the border guards have a program that restores recent subscriptions and deletions. I also subscribed to Russia 24 and TASS on Telegram, and to [Russian TV propagandist] Kiselyov on YouTube.”
At first, the group was driven by excitement and didn’t fully understand the risks. But it quickly became clear the Russians were actively searching for the women involved, Mavka said.
Agents impersonate supporters and attempt to meet with coordinators, while fake accounts are created on platforms like Telegram with similar names and images to tempt women to message them instead of the real Mavka and expose themselves to arrest.
While the Russians monitor and set traps for online activity, they are also putting up unprecedented numbers of surveillance cameras as they seek to crush the physical resistance.
“I’ve never seen so many of them in our city before,” Mavka said. “They’re installing them everywhere, and now there are rumors they plan to bring more here — like the ones in Moscow that recognize faces.”
The hope of freedom keeps people in the resistance in spite of the dangers, she said, citing the liberation of Kherson as a major boost to the movement. Some are motivated by revenge or anger.
One woman joined after her husband was arrested. “She hadn’t heard anything for many months, and wasn’t even sure if he was alive,” Mavka recalled. “I asked her if that was enough for her, after so much had already happened, she replied that it was the opposite, ‘tell me what needs to be done,’ she said.”
The resistance isn’t made up of the kind of spies or special agents seen in fiction, she added, but a range of regular women who oppose the occupation.
“When all of this ends, when the occupation is over, and we see these Mavkas, we’ll be really surprised,” she said. “They are very different, some of them are of quite respectable age. Our image of ‘Bond girls’ will change dramatically — these are ordinary women doing something extraordinary.”
Even though Ukrainians continue to flee the occupied territories, and the Russians have brought many specialists from Russia, not everyone can leave, and for some staying is an act of resistance in itself.
“One of the women here said a powerful thing, if everyone leaves, and no Ukrainians are left will it still be a Ukrainian city?” Mavka said. “That is why we’re here.”
Elina Beketova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, focusing on the occupied territories of Ukraine. She worked as a journalist, editor, and TV anchor for various news stations in Kharkiv and Kyiv.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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