Dima is Immortal

The dark day for the entire anarchist movement and for our organization in particular.

April 19 2023, near Bakhmut in Ukraine, our friend, one of the founders and active participant of the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists (BOAK), Dmitry Petrov, martyred fighting for freedom.

Dima is long-time and consistent anarchist. In the movement he was known as “Ecolog” but his activity was not limited to the defense of environment.

He participated in the defense of the Bitsa Park in Moskow, in “Food not bombs”, fought against infill development and against building of incinerators, for the rights of workers in the ranks of the Anarchist union MPST and against police brutality.

He participated in the antifascist movement and fought Nazis on the streets of Moscow and other places. Participated in the protests on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow 2011, on Maidan in Kyiv 2014, in Belarus 2020.

He published and translated activist literature.

He participated in ethnographic expeditions and got a PhD degree in History.

This would be enough for ten activists, but Dima did not limit himself here.

Dima stood at the foundation of the Anarchist partisan movement in the end of 2000s. And continued to be partisan every day since then. “People’s revenge”, group “ForNurgaliev”, “AntiNashi action”[1] – all these groups operated not without his participation. And yes, of course, Dima was one of the founders of the famous Black Blocg[2] and an active participant of all its actions. Including the explosion of the traffic police post on 22 km of the Moscow Automobile Ring Road in 2011.

At the same time, Dima did not just devote himself to the revolutionary practice. He also developed the Anarchist theory. A significant part of programme and theoretical texts of the Black Blocg and BOAK were written by him or with his participation.

As the revolutionary, Dima was internationalist. He fought against the atrocity of oppression everywhere he saw it, borders did not stop him. Besides activities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus he went to Rojava and trained there, took part in the liberation struggle of the Kurdish people.

In response to the Putin’s invasion in Ukraine, he joined the Resistance Committee to fight against the aggression with weapons in his hands. Later he participated in the Battle of the Svatove –Kreminna line.

In everything he undertook, he acted with complete dedication. He didn’t live but burned.

His feat is immortal. His case is eternal.

We still don’t completely comprehend this loss. Can not find the right words so you can realize what a person he was. Everyone should strive to be that kind of person. But we will try to find and bring these words. In the meantime, we publish Dima’s message that he left when he went to the front.

[1] Nashi (“Ours”) was a pro-Putin youth movement in Russia founded 2005.

[2] Black Blocg was a media-platform and network which connected anarchist militants in the post-Soviet space.