From: https://libcom.org/news/humanitarian-catastrophe-ukraine-food-riot-melitopol-04032022
English translation of the new frontline report from March, 3. For donation to Ukrainian anarchist magazine please visit this page.
The town in the south of the Zaporozhye region captured by Russian white guards is stormy not childishly, despite the fact that it is generally provided with water, heat and electricity. On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 2, a large pro-Ukrainian rally was held, one of the participants of which was shot in the leg by the invaders. Today, they issued an order to ban mass events, but at least since February 27, many citizens have been doing other things. Because in Melitopol there are problems with the supply of food and medicine.
Social media and news sites are full of footage of locals breaking into closed stores in broad daylight and taking everything from groceries to home appliances. Especially a lot of trophies are published by the Telegram channel “Marauders of Melitopol”, where you can see the Lanos salon stuffed with consumer electronics, and women carrying in their hands more than their weight, and how pensioner with a young guy are dragging a refrigerator down the street, and the defeat of Silpo with the removal of food in boxes and wheelbarrows… ATB supermarkets were looted in a number of places, about which there are vivid shots here or here, the Foxtrot and Palladium shopping centers suffered the same fate. Other residents arrange lynchings over some who are caught, tying them with tape to poles and beating them. In one yard, were punished 10 attackers at once, one thief of clothes from a sports store was just stripped to his underpants. The same blog writes:
“Protection of order, organized by the mayor Ivan Fedorov, continues to fight looters. Yesterday, in the courtyard of high-rise buildings on 30th Anniversary of Victory boulevard, were detained looters of Roma nationality and tied with adhesive tape to a tree. Over the past day, dozens of merchants objects, houses and apartments were saved from looting. Squads work around the clock and come on call. Tonight, at the request of local residents, a looter was detained at 124 Prof. Tanatar street. He tried to get into the house.”
Among the detainees was a local star Ayder Abduraimov. The 2021 world champion among juniors and the European champion among juniors in boxing personally came to the vigilantes, repented of stealing a computer system unit from Comfy and has already joined the night patrol of the Vityaz security agency.
After the beginning of the robberies, as the mayor said on March 1, entrepreneurs began distributing fruits to people in need for free. Companies have also started issuing food packages (in particular, bread). The city council created an aid headquarter the day before yesterday in the Shevchenko Palace of Culture. Looters just can share the excess booty – of course, if they think not only about themselves!
This is the only city in Ukraine where such expropriations are now taking place en masse. For comparison, in half-destroyed Kharkiv, cases of looting are rare, thanks to the large-scale humanitarian mobilization of authorities, business and population. Look at the colorful material of local comrades about this.
From other hand, some acts of vandalism and break-in shops took place on Kharkov streets during the winter holidays.
Several years earlier also there was a wave of night ATM robberies, and you are welcome to see its anarchist analysis too.
We work further! Revolutionary greetings to all!
