'I want my Ukraine' Women's resistance movement aims to infuriate occupiers

Women's resistance movement aims to infuriate occupiers

- Charlotte Higgins

On 8 March 2023, International Women's Day, Russian soldiers were handing out tulips and boughs of mimosa to women and girls in the city of Melitopol, southern Ukraine - a move designed to promote friendly relations between the occupiers and the inhabitants. But the night before, someone had been discreetly sticking posters to walls and lamp-posts. They bore the image of a young Ukrainian woman, dressed in a traditional embroidered shirt, smashing a bouquet over a Russian soldier's head. "I don't want flowers," read the slogan. "I want my Ukraine."

This was one of the earliest acts of a women's resistance movement in Russian-occupied Ukraine that claims to have hundreds of members, from Crimea in the south to the Luhansk region in the east. The movement is called Zla Mavka, which, roughly translated, means "wicked forest spirit." The mavky of Ukrainian mythology are female supernatural beings who tempt men to their doom.

Using the figure of the mavka is a reference to a popular drama by the 20th-century Ukrainian feminist Lesya Ukrainka, and a play on the fact that Ukrainians often refer to the Russian military as "orcs," the brutish fighters in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. "Orc is no match for mavka," reads one poster.