New Brand of Activist Takes Aim at Ukraine War and Climate Crisis, Together

BRUSSELS — Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, had just finished a speech at a major conference on Europe.

He was absorbed in the adulation of his audience and took pictures with them. But he didn’t realize that two young women were looking at him closely.

“There are no metal barriers,” Dominika Lasota whispered. “Now’s our chance.”

She and Wiktoria Jedroszkowiak her activist comrade stood up fast. They clicked on a camera. They marched up to Mr. Macron and were greeted with a charming smile.

But then they blasted him with questionsThe war in Ukraine and a controversial new Ugandan pipeline (which Total, the French oil company, is helping to build)

“My point is …” Mr. Macron tried to say.

“I know what your point is,” Ms. Lasota, 20, said, cutting him off. “But we are living in a climate crisis, and you must stop it.”

Ms. Jedroszkowiak, also 20, then jumped in, saying, “You can stop the war in Ukraine by stopping buying fossil fuels from Russia.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Macron mumbled, before being broadsided by a bunch of other questions.

Even weeks later — this unfolded in May in Strasbourg, France — the two activists are still giddy about that confrontation. Ms. Lasota & Ms. Jedroszkowiak have emerged leaders in a dynamic new antiwar movement wing. Their video lecturing Mr. Macron went viral in France and Poland, where they are both from.

This is a different brand of activist — young, mostly female and mostly from Eastern Europe — who believes that the Ukraine war is a brutal manifestation of the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. They have joined two causes — antiwar activism and climate change — to take full advantage of this moment when the world’s attention is focused on Ukraine. And to make their case, they confront Europe’s leaders face to face.

They circulate around the continent, riding trains, staying in cheap hotels, powering themselves on cornflakes and almond milk, trying to corner Europe’s top politicians and business people. They are not as well-known and respected as Greta Thurnberg, but they are the same tough guys who work closely with her Fridays for Future group.

Their message, which Ms. Thunberg and Ms. Lasota emphasized in a recent video, is that humankind’s addiction to fossil fuels is driving misery and bloodshed. They not only point to Russia, but also to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and other petrostates that have a long history of conflict and repression.

“These things are connected,” Ms. Thunberg said. “More and more fossil fuel expansion means more power to autocrats. This enables them to start wars like the one in Ukraine.”

None of these activists were satisfied with the European Union’s recent moves to embargo Russian coal and most Russian oil by the end of the year — they want a total embargo on all Russian energy right now, which they say would starve Russia of billions of dollars and shut down its war machine in eight weeks.

It is a massive demand with far-reaching consequences, which few European politicians dare even publicly raise. Many people believe that it is impossible for us to simply switch off fossil fuels. They still account for eighty percent of the world’s energy. Russia is particularly closely tied to Europe, and especially natural gas.

However, more environmental groups are calling to impose the same broad embargo. They are disturbed by Europe’s claiming that it stands with Ukraine while it continues to buy billions of dollars of Russian fuel, helping the Russians reap record profits at the same time that their military slaughters civilians and commits other atrocities in Ukraine. Energy experts agree that something needs to be done.

“The activists are right that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should be a reminder of the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels,” said Jason Bordoff, a dean of the Columbia Climate School. “But the hard reality is that if Europe wants to eliminate dependence on Russia, it is going to need some alternative sources of oil and gas for a period of time while it transitions.”

Ms. Lasota, Ms. Jedroszkowiak, and others believe that the only way to solve the problem is to accelerate the transition towards renewable energy. Without this, more Ukrainians will die. They organized protests throughout Europe and confronted Mateusz Morawiecki the Polish prime Minister; Roberta Metsola the president de l’European Parliament; top business leaders, including Total shareholders; as well as Ursula von der Leyen the president de l’European Commission who seemed impressed.

“They are very bright young women, very knowledgeable,” said Ms. von der Leyen, who met Ms. Lasota and other young activists in March.

Since then, the European Union (EU) has been holding endless meetings regarding sanctions against Russia. European leaders set a summit in Brussels for the end May. Ms. Lasota and Ms. Jedroszkowiak saw it as the perfect opportunity to “hijack attention.”

‘Wars Don’t Just “Break Out”’

Born one month apart, from middle-class Polish families. Ms. Lasota Ms. JedroszkowiakThey met two years back at an activist summer camp, where they learned how peacefully to be arrested and how to form human blocksades.

The two recently put those skills to use, joining a blockade outside Total’s headquarters in Paris. Now they were arriving in Brussels to organize a series of “actions” timed to the E.U.’s summit.

They checked into a transit hotel near Brussels’s Midi train station. While Ms. Jedroszkowiak, with headphones on, hosted a radio show in their small room for a new Polish outlet. Ms. Lasota, on the other hand, sat at a desk and wrote an email to Charles Michel the president of European Council.

“She’s the cool one and I’m the serious one,” Ms. Lasota laughed as she typed away.

“No,” Ms. Jedroszkowiak corrected her. “We’re both cool and serious.”

The next morning, at Greenpeace’s office in Brussels, more than a dozen other activists showed up, most in their early 20s, some in their teens. They gathered around a table filled with glowing laptops, coffee cups, and cereal bowls.

Their mission: hold a boisterous antiwar event at Schuman Square, in front of the European Commission’s headquarters, on the eve of the big meeting.

“What do we need for the strike tomorrow?” Ms. Jedroszkowiak asked.

“Sunflowers,” someone said. (Sunflowers have become a symbol for the Ukraine War.

“Cardboard,” another piped up.

“Paint,” someone else said.

Many of the activists hail from Moldova, Poland, the Czech Republic, Poland and even Ukraine. Eastern Europeans tend to have a deeper, more intuitive connection to Ukraine’s suffering than Western Europeans, Ms. Lasota said.

“Honey, we come from such different contexts,” she explained. “I come from a country that has been nonexisting for 200 years. Our neighbors have taken our land, resources and nation and divided our nation. For us, the war in Ukraine is easily understandable and easily felt.”

Ms. Jedroszkowiak agrees. She said that some German environmental activists, for example, were more concerned about the embargo’s economic effects than she would have expected.

“I was like, wait, are you serious?” she said. “You’re talking about the economy? What about money? That’s the language of lobbyists, not activists.”

Officials in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, have said they could lose a half-million jobs if they suddenly banned Russian gas, which powers many German industries.

Ms. Jedroszkowiak’s response: “We can create green jobs. That’s the whole point. We have to change the entire system.”

Ms. Jedroszkowiak stated that most of the young people at the table were women.

“‘What’s this pretty young girl doing in the Polish Parliament?’ I’ve been hearing that my whole life. I heard it when I was 14, and I’m still hearing it when I’m nearly 21,” she said. “And when you face that injustice, a rage grows inside you. And you start to see that all these injustices come from the same place: rich men who don’t want to admit they’re wrong.”

“And what more collapse do we need?” she asked. “As a Polish survivor from Auschwitz once said,” she added, referring to the well-known historian Marian Turski, “Auschwitz didn’t fall from the sky. Well, wars don’t fall from the sky, either.”

“People like to say wars ‘break out,’” she continued. “Wars don’t just ‘break out.’ Wars are the result of a political system designed for war.”

‘Chaos on the Table’

The next morning, the day of the big event at Schuman Square, Greenpeace’s front door kept banging open. Young activists were seen passing each other with signs, sunflowers, and megaphones.

“I’m really excited about all the chaos on the table,” said Pavel Rysula, 17, from Prague. He was one the few young male activists who attended the meetings.

They have created a fluid community using their iPhones, train tickets, and trains tickets. Many have stopped formal education, but they still read essays on social justice and research the latest climate science. They also write letters and papers for world leaders, not teachers, and continue to write. They also have a lot of fun.

“We scream. We sing. We dance,” Ms. Lasota said. “There’s nothing more energizing than this work. It’s the closest to love I’ve gotten in life.”

However, as with all things, there is a price.

Ms. Lasota, Ms. Jedroszkowiak both recently dropped out of university programmes in Warsaw, putting stress on their families.

“My mom said she was terrified for me,” Ms. Jedroszkowiak said. “I was like, mom, I’m not a drug addict or going to war. Don’t be terrified.”

Ms. Lasota said that many childhood friendships simply “disappeared.” One of her friends was so hurt over a missed birthday party that they have not spoken since.

“It will be fine, eventually,” Ms. Lasota said with a sigh.

The skies opened up a few hours before the action at the European Commission. People huddled in Brussels’s parks under the eaves of rain-lashed gazebos. Protesters were soaked while walking through the streets.

They found Schuman Square almost empty when they arrived at it. They continued to line up shoulder-to-shoulder, raising their sunflowers and holding signs.

“Even if it rains, even if it would snow today, even if there would be a storm today, we would come here,” Ms. Lasota belted out, in the rhythms of a veteran orator. “Because we will do everything we can to get this bloody embargo done and stop the horror that is happening in Ukraine and all over the world.”

“Em-bar-go! Em-bar-go!” they chanted.

The E.U. reaffirmed its support for Russian gas the next day. Although leaders didn’t touch the Russian gas issue, they agreed to embargo approximately 80 percent Russian oil. It was a mixed success for activists.

“Catastrophe was avoided,” Ms. Lasota said. “But to celebrate this as a major achievement, that’s ridiculous.”