‘Although it is difficult to evaluate it precisely, the nonviolent civil resistance has contributed to stopping the invasion in the north’ of Ukraine.
That’s one of the conclusions of Ukrainian Nonviolent Civil Resistance in the Face of War, published in October by the International Catalan Institute for Peace and Novact – International Institute for Nonviolent Action.
The author, Felip Daza, studied 235 nonviolent actions between 24 February – 30 June.
According to Daza, ‘One of the most important impacts of nonviolent civil resistance has been to curb the long-term goals of the Russian authorities in the occupied territories.’
Non-co-operation actions ‘have been key to stopping the institutionalisation of the military occupation’ in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions.
Actions included: social non-co-operation by teachers to disrupt cultural assimilation; and economic non-cooperation to prevent the Russian military ‘collecting taxes or building public infrastructure to strengthen its defensive positions’.