The authors examine Ukrainian civilians' contributions to support Ukraine's defense against Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Civilian-based resistance is integral to Ukraine's territorial defense efforts and has potential value in helping ensure victory by regaining territorial integrity and maintaining political sovereignty. The war in Ukraine also offers insight into potential trends in civilian actions in future wars.

Resisting Russia

Insights into Ukraine's Civilian-Based Actions During the First Four Months of the War in 2022

Marta Kepe, Alyssa Demus

ResearchPublished Aug 15, 2023

The Russia-Ukraine war (2022–) has highlighted the ways in which civilians can support a nation's effort to defend itself against an external occupying power. Although civilian-based resistance began during the first hours of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, most analysis to date has focused on Russian-Ukrainian armed military confrontations. Ukrainian civilian resistance efforts merit attention because of their potential value in helping Ukraine's strategic aims to ensure victory by regaining territorial integrity and maintaining political sovereignty.

The authors of this report offer a broad characterization of Ukrainian approaches to civilian-based resistance during the first four months of the conflict. First, the authors offer a short overview of pertinent historic examples of civilian-based resistance and opposition movements that have paved the way for stronger social mobilization and activism across all segments of Ukrainian society. Second, the authors offer an overview of Ukrainian civilian-based activities through an analytical framework developed by RAND Corporation researchers in 2021 to analyze civilian-based resistance against external occupation. Third, the authors identify indicative future trends in civilian-based resistance against external aggressors.

Key Findings

  • Civilian-based activities in Ukraine in February–June 2022 were varied and included numerous actors, from civilian government actors and political leadership to independent enterprises and self-organized volunteer groups.
  • Many civilian-based activities were spontaneous and need-based and relied on existing informal networks, while higher-level coordination was more present in civil protection, humanitarian aid, hacker activism, and communication activities.
  • The Russia-Ukraine war (2022–) provides a glimpse into what future civilian contributions to wars could look like. Interstate conflict could involve large-scale cyber operations waged by a loose confederation of amateurs and professionals from the occupied country and abroad.
  • Civilians might offer meaningful contributions by imposing direct military costs on occupying powers and supporting the defending armed forces or civil society. It is necessary to prepare guidelines for such eventualities to avoid instances in which a sudden surge of civilian volunteers creates chaos, causes friendly fire, or interferes with the strategic objectives of the country.
  • The ability to deny an occupier's economic consolidation of the occupied country will increasingly mean protecting not only key economic centers of gravity during the war but also peacetime resilience preparations, including the diversification of energy resources, other product supply chains, and (potentially) export lines.
  • Ukraine's history of social and political movements helped build a stronger and more active society, demonstrating the value of understanding civil society movements in different countries.
  • In future wars, large companies could increasingly shape the operational aspects of a conflict, as well as its geopolitical and strategic outcomes.

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Kepe, Marta and Alyssa Demus, Resisting Russia: Insights into Ukraine's Civilian-Based Actions During the First Four Months of the War in 2022. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2034-1.html.
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