IFS Insights: The Contemporary Ukrainian Partisan

This insight reassesses Carl Schmitt’s Theory of the Partisan in light of the empirical evolution of Ukrainian resistance within the temporarily occupied territories (TOTs) since 2022.

Schmitt’s four defining characteristics of the classical partisan – irregularity, heightened mobility, political engagement, and telluric rootedness– provide a conceptual starting point, yet the contemporary Ukrainian case reveals patterns that both extend and complicate his framework. 

Based on a synthesis of open-source reporting, Ukrainian and international research, and field-level intelligence summaries, the article argues that Ukrainian resistance combines sustained territorial attachment with technologically mediated forms of action that allow influence beyond immediate localities.

Simultaneously, occupation authorities have constructed a system of legal, bureaucratic, informational, and demographic control that recasts the meaning of telluric identity under duress. 

Through a detailed examination of resistance typologies, organizational structures (including the shift from classical cells to “puzzle” networks), regional variations in occupation governance, and patterns of repression, the article demonstrates how modern partisanship in Ukraine remains anchored in local belonging while operating within an expanded spatial and technological environment.

The result is neither a return to Schmitt’s classical partisan nor a full transition to his “world partisan,” but to a hybrid form shaped by occupation governance, digital surveillance, and overlapping civilian–state interactions.