Solidarity Conference | Panel 3 Summary: Solidarity under Occupation
The third panel of the 2026 TCUP Conference turned to one of the most difficult and urgent dimensions of the war: life under occupation. Moderated by Oleksandra Tarkhanova (University of St. Gallen), the discussion featured Alim Aliev (Ukrainian Institute, PEN Ukraine), Neringa Klumbyte (Miami University, Ohio), Oksana Mikheieva (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin / Kyiv School of Economics), and Alisa Sopova (Princeton University).
Tarkhanova framed occupation not as a static condition but as a process — one that began in Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 and expanded dramatically in 2022. Occupation, she emphasized, is temporal. How long people live under it matters. The longer it persists, the more everyday life is reshaped — through surveillance, repression, propaganda, and attempts to normalize permanence.
Donbas Across Two Occupations
Alisa Sopova opened with a striking admission: since 2022, she has found it difficult to speak publicly about Donbas — her own home.
Before 2022, she had been a vocal advocate for civilians living across the demarcation line, arguing that they were both terrorized by Russia and alienated by Ukraine. After the full-scale invasion, however, she described experiencing an “epistemic blockage.” Everything that can be said about Donbas, she noted, has been appropriated or weaponized by Russian propaganda to such an extent that speaking openly becomes fraught.
A key analytical distinction, she argued, must be maintained between territories occupied in 2014 and those seized in 2022. The latter involved sudden, violent invasion — clearly recognizable as foreign occupation. In contrast, the 2014 occupation unfolded gradually, through institutional takeover and ambiguity. Ukrainians’ expectations of Russia were different then, as were the political realities.
That ambiguity hardened in 2022, when men from territories occupied since 2014 were forcibly mobilized into Russian units and later encountered by Ukrainians as members of the invading army. In some cases, captured individuals were prosecuted on the grounds that having lived for years under occupation constituted proof of guilt. Sopova warned that this logic risks marking entire populations as morally suspect.
Drawing on anthropologist Mary Douglas, she cautioned against binary thinking — betrayal versus loyalty, resistance versus submission. Occupied citizens take an ambiguous category, and ambiguity often provokes suspicion. The challenge, she suggested, is to distinguish coercive compliance from genuine collaboration — and to imagine reintegration beyond punishment.
We must fight against black and white categorizations of people in occupied territories. Instead we must ask, what does prolonged occupation do to people? How does coercion breed public compliance, as opposed to genuine consent for occupation?
Alisa Sopova
Occupation as a Social Order: The “Algorithm of Slow Dependence”
Oksana Mikheieva described occupation not primarily as a military event but as a gradual transformation of social order. She identified what she calls an “algorithm of slow dependence,” involving the severing of logistical ties to Ukraine, the introduction of humanitarian aid from the occupying power, and the requirement of Russian passports to access services. Ukrainian symbols are removed, toponyms and memorial spaces are renamed, consumer goods are replaced, and schools are used for ideological indoctrination.
This process is uneven across territories — levels of repression vary by locality — but its cumulative effect is the atomization of society. Surveillance technologies, including the seizure and inspection of phones, generate fear and mistrust. Solidarity among residents becomes dangerous.
Children are particularly vulnerable. In some cases, they are forced to participate in producing propaganda. The longer occupation persists, the narrower the corridor for everyday resistance becomes.
Identity Under Pressure: Lessons from Lithuania
Neringa Klumbyte offered a comparative perspective grounded in Lithuania’s experience of Nazi and Soviet occupations.
Drawing on her interviews in deoccupied Ukrainian territories, Klumbyte described occupation as a force that destroys not only infrastructure but also everyday life — relationships, routines, homes, and futures. Many interviewees likened their experience to living in a nightmare from which one cannot wake.
Yet Klumbyte emphasized that identities are not easily unmade. Lithuanian national identity survived fifty years of repression and re-emerged when political conditions shifted. In Ukraine, too, expressions of identity persist — sometimes through small acts: refusing Russian goods, speaking Ukrainian, quietly signaling opposition.
Just because we cannot always see pro-Ukrainian positions in some occupied territories does not mean they are not there.
She argued that storytelling itself constitutes a form of justice and solidarity. People want their experiences documented and heard. Even when formal justice cannot restore what has been lost, narrative recognition matters.
Crimea: Recolonization and the Defense of Identity
Alim Aliev focused on Crimea and the Crimean Tatar experience, framing occupation as recolonization.
Occupation entails not only the militarization of territory, but also the militarization of consciousness. It involves the replacement of population, with tens of thousands of Crimeans leaving and hundreds of thousands relocating from Russia and other occupied regions; the suppression of institutions such as the Crimean Tatar Mejlis; the exile of independent media; and sustained attempts to construct a “Crimean pro-Russian” identity.
In response, Aliev and others have prioritized cultural resistance. Initiatives supporting Crimean Tatar language, literature, education, and intellectual life aim to preserve identity beyond the peninsula. He stressed that language is foundational — and endangered.
He also highlighted the need for Ukrainian state institutions to articulate a long-term vision for occupied territories — not only humanitarian support, but also strategic planning.
Solidarity Across and Beyond Occupation
When asked what forms of solidarity are most effective, panelists distinguished between symbolic gestures and structural support.
Sopova identified two pathways to solidarity: administrative solidarity, focused on closing gaps in pensions, housing compensation, and social protections for displaced people, and narrative solidarity, centered on communicating that coerced compliance does not equate to guilt and that pathways to belonging remain open.
She warned against the temptation to dismiss civilian suffering in occupied territories as secondary to frontline concerns.
Mikheieva emphasized the importance of maintaining contact, even symbolically, with people under occupation. In some communities divided by frontlines, residents continue minimal communication — not to exchange information, but to affirm connection.
Klumbyte described solidarity in everyday resistance: maintaining dignity, helping neighbors, preserving language, and refusing dehumanization.
Aliev called for academic solidarity — expanding Crimean Tatar studies, translating literature, and ensuring voices from occupied territories are heard globally.
What Gives Hope?
Despite the entrenched structures of repression under occupation, panelists pointed to enduring forms of resilience: underground schools and informal “shadow” education networks; digital initiatives that allow students to access Ukrainian education from occupied territories; young people learning to navigate between official narratives and private truths; cultural institutions, media platforms, and academic initiatives operating in exile; and networks of families, volunteers, and advocacy groups supporting political prisoners and sustaining connections across occupied and non-occupied Ukraine.
The panel closed on a sober note: occupation reshapes societies deeply and over time. But solidarity — if grounded in knowledge, nuance, and commitment — can resist the erasure occupation seeks to impose.