An important part of waging war is telling stories. This helps us remember why we are fighting and why we support a particular side. Today, I want to tell you about three left-wing men from three different corners of the world whose lives intertwined during Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine. Unfortunately, not for long.
A specific journalistic genre that emerged during the war in Ukraine is reviews of the most exotic fighters who decided to fight on one side or the other. “Harusan, a former member of the Japanese Yakuza, decided to change his life and join the International Legion of Defence of Ukraine”; “Gangster from Pruszków at war with Russia” or “Former French chef 'Bones' became a soldier defending Ukraine’” This is the first war in Europe in a long time, a war reported on social media, a war that can be called just on the Ukrainian side—obviously, it will attract adrenaline seekers, money seekers, or men from all over the world who have been broken by life. But amid stories of thrill seekers, Colombian mercenaries (for whom Ukrainian pay may be life-changing capital) and former criminals, one of the most important aspects of international volunteer service is disappearing from view.
International solidarity
The war with Russia has mobilised thousands of people from around the world who have decided that this is also their cause. Motivated to oppose everything that the Kremlin regime symbolises—oppression, imperialism, the law of force—people, often with pacifist, left-wing views, have joined the ranks of the Ukrainian army.
In Poland, where the dominant narrative is one of panic about Ukrainian nationalists, “Banderites” and Azov, we rarely have the opportunity to read about them.
Many of them are people who decided to take up the fight against the invader as part of the so-called Anti-Authoritarian Platoon. From the first days of the full-scale war, this unit (also known as the Resistance Committee or Black Staff) brought together anarchists and anti-imperialists. They defended Ukraine—obviously imperfect—against a much more oppressive system. Often coming from richer and safer countries, they decided to risk their own lives in the name of international solidarity, becoming an example of rare consistency between belief and action.
‘Leshy’, or the good Russian
Dmitry Petrov was born a year before me, but he will always be younger than me.
Also known by the pseudonyms Ilya Leshiy, Seva and Lev, he was a Russian anarchist, anti-fascist activist and journalist. He was born in Russia in 1989. I spoke to people who knew him personally: they describe him as a sensitive intellectual and opponent of authoritarianism, who was more suited to a library than the front line. He defended his doctoral thesis on “Sacred geography of the eastern regions of the Arkhangelsk Oblast” and worked as a researcher at the Centre for Civilisation and Regional Studies of the Institute of African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. After the social revolution in Rojava, he spent six months in Syrian Kurdistan. There, he learned the Kurmanji language, studied local experiences of self-government and social change, and supported the Kurds' fight against the so-called Islamic State. Up to this point, the accounts are consistent. Some say that he underwent military training there, others that his support was more in the area of culture and propaganda. Petrov published a series of texts on Kurdish culture and the revolutionary society of Rojava. He also wrote subtle intellectual treatises on ethnography, self-government and cultural studies.
He was not afraid of direct action. He took part in street fights with nationalists and the police in Russia and was a co-founder of the anarchist organisation Black Blog (a play on words with ‘black block’).
He also participated in the Russian “snow revolution” (2011-2013), the “revolution of dignity” in Ukraine (2013-2014) and the ”flip-flop revolution” in Belarus (2020). During the protests, he allegedly threw stun grenades and stones at police officers. In 2019, fearing repression from the FSB [Russian security service], he left Russia and settled in Kyiv, where he continued his political and social activities. In order to take part in the protests in Belarus, he illegally crossed the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, fearing extradition to Russia.
Petrov was also a co-founder of the Combat Organisation of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK), a guerrilla group carrying out armed actions against the Kremlin regime. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, BOAK admitted to sabotage activities aimed at disrupting the logistics of the Russian army in Russia and Belarus. These included arson attacks on military recruitment offices and the so-called railway war. At least several people associated with BOAK were arrested and ended up in Russian torture chambers.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Petrov joined the Kyiv self-defence forces. He was a co-founder of the Anti-Authoritarian Territorial Defence Platoon of the Kyiv Oblast and the father of the Resistance Committee initiative. He also became the organisation's spokesperson. He wrote about his involvement in the fight, emphasising the importance of solidarity between nations and opposing the demonisation of Russians as a nation.
From a conversation about Petrov with someone who had known him well for years in anarchist circles, I learned that he was not the warrior type. "Dima was an intellectual through and through. A scientist, a man of books from a good Moscow family. Very warm, believing in the cause. He just wasn't associated with fighting—unlike our other colleagues who went to the gym, practised martial arts, took part in violent direct actions or street clashes." After several months of operation, the members of the Anti-Authoritarian Territorial Defence Platoon were transferred to other units as part of structural changes, but they continued to cooperate within the Resistance Committee. Petrov transferred to the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade, where he fought on the Svatove-Kreminna front line in the autumn and winter of 2022. In the spring of 2023, he moved to another unit, taking part in the battle of Bakhmut.
‘Harris’-- another American
Cooper “Harris” Andrews, born in 1996, was an American anarchist, Marine Corps veteran, and left-wing activist. He was also one of the few Black people serving in the Ukrainian army. It was his ethnicity that originally led him to become involved in the left.
"From a very young age, he was involved in many forms of struggle as a Black autonomist—from mobilising against the police killings of Tamir Rice and Tanisha Anderson, to co-founding a cooperative publishing house, print shop and zine store, supporting protests and anti-fascist organisations, mutual aid activities, and self-defence training. Cooper spent many hours working with Suncere Ali Shakur of the Common Ground Collective to run programmes and support initiatives in Cleveland's housing estates," his American comrades recall of his early years of activism.
Andrews served in the United States Marine Corps from January 2017 to January 2022, reaching the rank of sergeant. Some sources indicate that he opposed racist practices in the army, getting into fights with far-right colleagues on several occasions and publicising misconduct and discrimination in the army.
After leaving the military, he became actively involved in anarchist and left-wing activities, including organising community support programmes in Cleveland and working with the Common Ground Collective, which provided humanitarian aid after Hurricane Katrina.
In November 2022, Andrews travelled to Ukraine to fight in the International Territorial Defence Legion. After completing his six-month contract in March 2023, he decided to remain in the country and joined the Resistance Committee. He volunteered to fight in the Bakhmut area alongside other internationalists.
‘Chia’, professional anarchist
The oldest of the Bachmut Trio was Finbar Cafferkey. Born in 1977 on Achill Island, Ireland, he had been involved in political activism since his youth. He was a supporter of Irish republicanism, environmentalism and socialism, and an active participant in the “Shell to Sea” campaign against the construction of a gas pipeline in north-western Ireland. In his youth, he underwent military training in the Irish army.
Cafferkey declared himself both a patriot and an internationalist, believing in international solidarity. In 2015, he travelled to the Greek island of Kos, where he helped refugees during the migration crisis. He then continued his aid work on the border between Greece and North Macedonia. In 2017, he travelled to Syria, to Rojava (which was then visited by many anarchists and anti-imperialists from around the world), where he initially provided medical assistance and later joined the People's Defence Units (YPG) as a soldier, fighting against the Islamic State. He probably met Petrov there. He took on the combat nickname “Chia” — meaning “mountain” in Kurdish — which he used for the rest of his life.
After the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine, Cafferkey decided to re-engage in the fight against authoritarianism and imperialism. Initially, he delivered humanitarian aid from Poland to Ukraine. Eventually, he joined the Ukrainian International Territorial Defence Legion. In the spring of 2023, he was sent to Bakhmut.
Warriors. A community of fate
Petrov, Cafferkey and Andrews knew each other from the Resistance Committee and applied to serve together in Bakhmut, where units often merged due to heavy losses. They succeeded.
As the fighting for Bakhmut continued, especially after the fall of Soledar in January 2023, the situation in the city became increasingly dire. The Russians cut off more roads, encircling the city and trying to trap it in a cauldron. The three anarchists served together, in one team, taking part in successive operations to prevent the enemy from capturing the city.
The three opponents of imperialism, united by their shared experience of fighting oppression with words, deeds or weapons, had the opportunity to spend several weeks together. Did they talk about Petrov and Caffey's shared experiences in Rojava? Did Andrews and Petrov notice the similarity between their experiences of clashes with uniformed forces during protests in Russia and the US? Or perhaps the older Irishman and the young American were united by the fact that both had considerable experience with the military long before Ukraine - which is rather unusual for an anarchist? We will never know.
In a statement to the Mediazona portal, Petrov's friend Alexei Makarov described the last moments of the Bachmut Trio: ‘They took part in the assault (...) It was the road between Bachmut and Khromove, where the heaviest fighting took place in April as the Russians tried to cut off the road.’
In April 2023, the Russians surrounded Bakhmut, cutting off supply routes and escape routes one by one. The one Makarov writes about is the so-called Road of Life, connecting Bakhmut with Chasiv Yar. It was an important corridor through which civilians were evacuated, reinforcements were sent, and supplies were transported. Its loss was to close the cauldron that the Russians were preparing for the defenders. Failure to defend this route meant losing not only themselves, but also thousands of civilians and military personnel remaining in the city.
“They stormed the enemy positions to push them away from the road. They did a great job and fulfilled their combat mission by storming the positions,” Makarov continues. However, after the volunteers captured and occupied the positions, the Russians decided to immediately hit them with heavy mortar fire. Petrov, Andrews and Cafferkey died together in this steel storm on April 18, 2023. The others, retreating, were unable to take their bodies with them.
After the shelling, the Russians launched a counterattack, cutting off this section. Therefore, in the following weeks, the remains of the fighters could not be recovered - until the Ukrainian counteroffensive in May, when some of the bodies were collected. The remains of the Bachmut Trio were not identified. The families and comrades of the fallen buried symbolic empty coffins with photographs.
In 2024, an Irish documentary film, Lost in Ukraine, was released about the Cafferkay family's struggle to find his body. A Russian anarchist, a friend of Petrov's, says: "The last time I saw Dima, he was, to my surprise, full of optimism. He said that soon there might be a chance for change and we had to be ready to seize it. His conviction and enthusiasm made me think about that meeting often. I think he may have seen this opportunity in the war in Ukraine."
Today in Odesa — probably the most left-wing of Ukraine's major cities, with a strong anarchist tradition—there is a mural not far from the city centre. Three white ovals, like halos, show the faces of foreign volunteers who gave their lives to stop the enemy on Ukrainian soil. Under the portraits of Cafferkay, Andrews and Petrov is the inscription: ‘Bachmut, April 19, 2023’. Above them is a simple word: “warriors”.
Paweł Jędral is a reporter, columnist and analyst. Graduate of Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Warsaw. He has collaborated with the third sector, the scientific sector and the consulting sector. He deals with issues related to international conflicts, health care, international law and environmental protection.