Inside Ukraine’s first nationwide protests since Russia’s invasion

This article Inside Ukraine’s first nationwide protests since Russia’s invasion was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

July 22 in Kyiv seemed like a regular Tuesday — or at least what amounts to regular in a time of war. Much of the city was left sleepless by Russian drone attacks the night before, an increasingly common occurrence this summer. In the morning, as the streets came back to life, a news alert dropped with the weight of another bomb: Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, planned to dissolve the state’s two anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, otherwise known as NABU and SAPO, respectively. 

Friends told friends, expressing alarm that the government took advantage of martial law to suspend mechanisms critical of the establishment. As the day wore on, evening plans were cancelled to instead join a protest that had been organized within hours of the legislation being signed. 

I was at a cafe with a friend when she received a message encouraging her to skip pilates class and show up at the centrally-located Ivan Franko Theater square, which is near Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the site of many important uprisings in Ukraine’s history. When we arrived, attendees were overwhelmingly Gen Z, with some army veterans, activists and university professors also partaking in the action. 

Although I had come to Ukraine to report on different issues, over the next week, I  bore witness to the first nationwide protests since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion — ultimately culminating in parliament reversing the decision to dissolve NABU and SAPO.  

As the repeal bill was being signed on July 31, protesters in Kyiv — fresh off another deadly large-scale Russian attack — gathered for a final time in Mariinsky Park, where parliament is located. Elsewhere, during the lead-up to that moment, protests took place in Odesa, Dnipro, Lviv and other smaller cities. In the frontline city of Kharkiv, despite the looming fear of potential airstrikes, people gathered close to the metro station, where they could seek shelter. 

All around me Ukrainians were overjoyed, sensing an energy not felt since the Maidan uprising of 2014, when pro-democracy protesters ousted Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych. One friend said she was seeing people she hadn’t seen since Maidan and that many of them, who were students then, were now joining a new generation of students, showing them the same support they once received. Meanwhile, many of the chants we heard dated back not only to Maidan, but also the Orange Revolution of 2004-2005, cementing the connection between a three-decade legacy of protest and uprising. 

Quick and organic response 

None of the anti-corruption rallies were organized by a centralized force. They were an overwhelmingly grassroots effort. Army veteran Dmytro Koziatynskyi posted on Facebook a call to “stand up for what we have been building for the past decade” and take to the streets to protest. The message spread like wildfire, and the square of the Ivan Franko Theater was filled with protesters every evening of the next week. 

For many participants, showing up on short notice seemed to not be an issue in the slightest. “We’re used to it in Ukraine,” said a 26-year-old protester who I will call Olena. “Whenever we are needed to protest, we will be there. We were here yesterday, we are here today, we will be here tomorrow. We will be here as long as we need to be.” 

For 23-year-old Zinaida Averina, it was a regular day at work when she saw the news and immediately thought that something needed to be done. Averina created a Telegram chat for her friends on the same day they saw the Facebook post from Dmytro Koziatynskyi. “Even though we did not know him personally, we all felt an urge to support him,” she said. 

Given that now they had a place and a time, this spontaneous message became the building block for organizing action. The chat Averina created to help with coordination drew 700 members on the first day and soon reached more than 3,000 members. 

Despite the spontaneity, the need for organizing was crucial. “We are the only ones who covered the judicial aspect of the protest,” Averina said. “We sent letters to the city administration, communicating with authorities, police and on-site paramedics. We managed to cover health and safety issues and provide stewardship so everything could be done according to law and safely for those attending.” 

When asked about the structure of the movement and the group she was coordinating, Averina explained that this is a completely horizontal effort built upon years of mutual aid culture — from Maidan to the occupations of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk to the now full-scale invasion.

“Volunteers just came up to us with suggestions on how they can help,” Averina said. “For example, someone came forward to help us create a website, and some volunteers approached us offering to distribute water bottles, or bring along microphones and a sound system. Everything is horizontal and grassroots.”

Social media and creativity 

As with Maidan, which was kick-started with a Facebook post in 2014, social media played a pivotal role in shaping the anti-corruption protests. 

In the square, we were met by a sea of placards swiftly made from cardboard cutouts, which soon became the emblem of the protests. Some protesters used pop culture and memes to get the point across. Gen Z has an aptitude for blending everyday internet humor with expressions of frustration; one could spot “Zelenbubu” placards, a reference to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the popular toy Labubu, as well as ones that simply read “this is cringe.” 

According to Olena — who was holding a sign with a popular meme on it when we spoke — a lot of people not currently in Kyiv or Ukraine were using social media to support the protests and express their dissent. “Ukraine is a very digital-oriented country and we are very much on board with internet culture,” she said. “Being avid internet users has helped us get through the full-scale invasion and many hardships, and it’s now helping us to protest and communicate our disagreement with the bill.”

Two other student protesters holding a sign with a meme further explained the point, saying, “It’s our language to express our opinion through how we communicate in real life, and not by some pre-prepared template phrases that are used at politically-backed rallies. This is our genuine way to communicate how we feel and express it as individuals.”  

While the protests have garnered a lot of online support, there has also been conflicting discourse, along with the spreading of Russian disinformation. Alice, another protester, said she saw a lot of Russian propaganda on Twitter implying that Ukrainians were marching against the “Kyiv regime” and against “Zelensky’s war.”

As a result, she stressed the importance of countering such disinformation and demonstrating that people are “for Ukraine but without corruption.” This was a point shared by the other student protesters, who wanted to ensure that those watching the protests from the outside knew that Ukrainians are unified and exercising their rights to defend democratic mechanisms.

A unified message 

According to Olena, the legislation dissolving NABU and SAPO brought the country 11 years back in a time, at moment when Ukraine really needs to make progress to stay on par with other fully-fledged democracies, and not backtrack on the improvements people have achieved since 2014.

“It is not the time to divide our society,” she explained. “We need to proceed carefully and not pass laws that people are against. We are not divided. We are all in this together. Our government is trying to search for a quick solution to a big problem. It is clearly not the right one, but I believe that they will make the right decision, and we are here to insist on it.”

Averina also noted that the legislation would have jeopardized international support at a time when Ukraine needs it the most. “We see the decision our government took as a threat to that, and we are here to prevent the negative consequences,” she explained. “Ukraine is a democracy, and our authorities are in dialogue with us because protesting is working.” This is why Averina said she believed that everyone expected the law to be voted down at the scheduled parliament session on July 31. 

“As you can see, our democracy works and our authorities hear us when it’s needed,” Averina added. “Even though elections can’t take place during war due to martial law, we are still focusing on anti-corruption reforms because it is also going to affect our efforts to defend ourselves against Russia and the resources that get to our soldiers on the frontlines.” 

Averina also stressed the need for the international community to stop treating Ukraine and Zelensky as a single entity. “We are united in fighting the war, but we keep an eye on our authorities, knowing how many sacrifices were made for us to remain a democratic country. We need to work on this together.”

A generational legacy

Another important result of the protests was the training up of a new generation of civically-minded Ukrainians. All the young protesters I spoke to felt a strong sense of responsibility for honoring this legacy, pledging to return to the square. 

Averina said that this is to be expected because, in Ukraine, “revolutions happen almost every decade.” What’s more, since Maidan, Ukraine hasn’t been able to enjoy a peaceful respite, given that the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas war happened right after. 

“All these 11 years since Maidan, we have been fighting for our independence, so our civil society has never had a minute to rest,” she said. “We had volunteers and activists who never stopped, and I suppose that’s why older generations are often surprised that a new generation of people is already joining activist circles. They jokingly call us children, but students have started every revolution in Ukraine. We have a great connection among generations and, during this week, we met a lot of people who were protesting during Maidan, who are here supporting us and helping us by sharing their experience with us.” 

The way forward

While protesters managed to achieve their main goal impressively fast, some remain skeptical, recognizing that more needs to be done.

Away from the capital, Dnipro-based anti-corruption journalist and trade unionist Serhii Huz shared that the protests did not turn into the anti-corruption Maidan many expected. “Due to the war, the protests were quite limited in nature, as many were afraid that they would play into the hands of the Russian aggressors,” he said. “Also, we should not forget that the two previous Maidans [referring to the one in 2014 and the 2003-04 Orange Revolution before that] weren’t spontaneously organized and had strong political and financial support.”

When asked what the perspective was outside of the capital, Huz said that “If in Kyiv, the actions were relatively massive, then in other regions these were rather small pickets.” Contrary to what other protesters in the capital said, Huz explained that the anti-corruption protests did not receive widespread support outside main cities, because demands to renew the curtailed powers of NABU or SAPO don’t affect the interests of the general public. Protesters initially targeted central authorities with demands to lift these restrictions, not for a radical fight against corruption. 

This means that local-level corruption would not be addressed in these demands. According to Huz, “The authorities were able to satisfy the students’ demands quite quickly, simply by making a few changes, and this is where the protests ended; no one is taking to the streets with demands to really fight corruption. This says a lot.”

Some of the protesters I spoke to, including Olena, echoed this sentiment, recognizing that NABU and SAPO are not perfect and need reforming. At the same time, they stressed the fact that it was not the right move to completely disband them, especially while the country is at war and martial law means that elections have been indefinitely delayed.

Given that the reputation of the Ukrainian government took a severe blow internationally, the authorities’ response was swift to do damage control. By most accounts, police presence in the area was limited, and no clashes took place, which could have instigated things to spiral. 

When asked about the prospect of an anti-corruption Maidan happening in the future, Huz said it would require something that’s not yet present: political forces that are ready to lead such a protest and lead the people. “The problem is that corruption has penetrated deeply into the country’s political elites, and they are unlikely to be ready to act against themselves. In fact, this is what makes corruption so tenacious in our country.”

However, as students have pledged to return to the squares, one can sense that any abrupt move from the government to take away power from democratic mechanisms and independent anti-corruption bodies is unlikely to be met with silence.

This article Inside Ukraine’s first nationwide protests since Russia’s invasion was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

People-powered news and analysis

Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/09/inside-ukraines-first-nationwide-protests-since-russias-invasion/