Russian artist and activist Daria Serenko, 30, co-founder of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement, has established herself as a leader of women’s opposition to the war in Ukraine and to Vladimir Putin’s regime, which she believes is a symptom of patriarchy. for AFP.

“Dictatorship and war are extreme manifestations of violence in the family,” said Daria Serenko, who visited Toulouse, in an interview with AFP.

Daria Serenko, who was exiled to Georgia and threatened for her feminist and LGBTQ commitment, became an activist at a young age. Laughing, she recalls how she wrote “Putin is an idiot” on the sidewalk at the age of six, and really got into it in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.

After being released from prison in 2022, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she immediately became a co-founder of the feminist movement of resistance to war (FAS).

The organization, which operates in Russia and about 20 other countries, carries out various actions – from posting portraits of murdered Ukrainians to collecting funds to help Ukraine or campaigns to deport Ukrainians to Russia.

“The face of the opposition is now female”

Q: What role do women play in the opposition to the regime?

Daria Serenko: The last demonstrations were women. Of course, there are leading oppositionists in Russia, for example (Aleksii) Navalny, but they are in prison. So, on the ground, women are often the ones who mobilize.

The face of the opposition is now female. This is also due to the fact that if a person is arrested during a demonstration, they can immediately be mobilized and sent to the front.

In FAS, most of us are women under the age of 35, who are present in at least 120 Russian cities or villages (…) There are other groups of women who are against the war, who are older or do not identify as feminists, such as groups of wives and mothers of mobilized women who advocate the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine.

It will be important to include this female component in the post-conflict period, as peace agreements that include women have been proven to last longer. If we do not change anything, we may witness the emergence of a new Putin.

P: In your opinion, this resistance should be feminist, why?

Daria Serenko: Our organization has a slogan: “war begins at home”: there is a connection between domestic violence and war, between domestic violence and aggression from another country. What happens at home is exported elsewhere.

The pressures of war also affect women’s reproductive rights.

The government views its population as a dwindling resource. Therefore, he limited access to abortions and wants to force women to give birth to more children in order to raise future defenders of the Motherland, and our state does not have the resources for this.