Who are the London Makhnovists?

London Makhnovists were briefly famous for their momentaneous liberation of Putin’s right arm Deripaska’s mansion (before being kicked out by a government who spent 81 000 pounds protecting an empty building instead of helping Ukraine and refugees).

They are DIY radical squatters using solidarity and autonomy as their main weapons. #fucktorygarchs, and let’s help one another.

London Makhnovists were a direct response to Putin’s war in Ukraine. Born out of the feeling that we needed to do something about the news, to get off our arses and stop being passive spectators.

Answering calls for occupations of sanctioned oligarchs’ mansions, LM activists decided to strike in Londongrad, underlining the role played by elites in the UK and elsewhere in the West in Putin’s war machine. Torygarchs are all the same, everywhere. Fuck them.

We are anarchists. The only thing we do is liberate properties and help as many people as possible. Watch the state try to crush us, repress our actions and call us terrorists while rich people are allowed to run around and fuck everyone over. The police will always come after the ones who threaten the interests of the rich. Prove us wrong.

London Makhnovists seek justice for all refugees no matter where they are from. As anarchists, we reject borders and nations. So far we are focusing on Ukraine, but hopefully we can become strong enough to help out elsewhere too.

We are regular people who decided to get together and organise. Our means are property liberation (another way of saying squatting), art, solidarity and autonomy. We want to raise funds for groups who help refugees at the Ukrainian border. For that, we are going to occupy rich people’s properties and open them up.

We are not a firm, a charity, or a union. There is no leader. Anyone can be a Makhnovist as long as they act like one. It’s not about who you are, it’s about what you do. Think about how you can make a difference, today, with your resources and your abilities, by connecting with like-minded people around you. It doesn’t take much to carry out great things, all you need is ambition, and the realisation that, together, we can be incredibly powerful, even without contacts, privilege or capital.