Ukrainian Insurgent Army

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Template:Langx, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and both the Polish Underground State and Polish Communists.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The UPA carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia,<ref name=":5">Template:Cite book</ref> which are recognized by Poland as a genocide.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The goal of the OUN was to establish an independent Ukrainian state. This goal, according to the OUN founding declaration, "was to be achieved by a national revolution led by a dictatorship" that would drive out occupying powers and then establish a "government representing all regions and social groups"; OUN accepted violence as a political tool against enemies of their cause.<ref name="IEU">Myroslav Yurkevich, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv) This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In order to achieve this goal, a number of partisan units were formed, merged into a single structure in the form of the UPA, which was created on 14 October 1942. From February 1943, the organization fought against the Germans in Volhynia and Polesia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> At the same time, its forces fought against the Polish resistance,<ref name=":2">Timothy Snyder. The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999. Yale University Press. 2003. pp. 175–178.</ref> during which the UPA carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia,<ref name="Le Monde">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> resulting in the deaths of an estimated 60,000 to 120,000 Polish civilians.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=":0a">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Aleksander V. Prusin. Ethnic Cleansing: Poles from Western Ukraine. In: Matthew J. Gibney, Randall Hansen. Immigration and asylum: from 1900 to the present. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. 2005. pp. 204–205.</ref><ref>Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe. "The Ukrainian National Revolution" of 1941. Discourse and Practice of a Fascist Movement. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. Vol. 12/No. 1 (Winter 2011). p. 83.</ref> In 1944, as the German army was retreating, the UPA started to attack its rear and seize the equipment. At the end of July 1944, the UPA aligned itself with Nazi Germany, ceasing its attacks on Wehrmacht positions and attacking the Soviets in exchange for military aid.<ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref> Soviet NKVD units fought against the UPA, which led armed resistance against Soviets until 1949. On the territory of Communist Poland, the UPA tried to prevent the forced deportation of Ukrainians from western Galicia to the Soviet Union until 1947.<ref name=":2" />

The UPA was a decentralized movement widespread throughout Ukraine, divided into three operational regions; each region followed a somewhat different agenda, given the circumstances of a constantly moving front line and a double threat from Soviet and Nazi opponents.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Not all UPA soldiers were members of the OUN or shared OUN's ideology.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref>

The UPA was formally disbanded in early September 1949, but some of its units continued operations until late 1956. Officially, the UPA's last military engagement occurred in October 1956, when remnants of the group fought on the Hungarian border region in support of that country's revolution.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In March 2019, surviving UPA members were officially granted the status of veterans by the government of Ukraine.<ref name="veteransUK38171U" />

Organization

File:Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiya (poster).jpg

A UPA propaganda poster. The OUN/UPA's formal greeting is written in Ukrainian on two of horizontal lines Glory to Ukraine – Glory to (her) Heroes. The soldier is standing on the banners of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

The UPA's command structure overlapped with that of the OUN-B (the more radical faction of the OUN after it split in 1940); local OUN and UPA leaders were frequently the same person.Template:Sfn The OUN's military referents were the superiors of UPA unit commanders.Template:Sfn The UPA was established in Volhynia and initially limited its activities to this region. Its first commander was the OUN military referent for Volhynia and Polesia, Vasyl Ivakhiv. In July, the UPA Supreme Command was organized with Dmytro Klyachkivsky at its head.Template:Sfn

Organizationally, the UPA was divided into regions. the Western Operational Group operated in western Ukraine;<ref name="auto">Петро Мірчук, Українська Повстанська Армія. 1942–1952. Мюнхен, 1953. – 233–234 ст.</ref> the Southern Operational Group in the central-southern regions of Podolia and parts of Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Odesa oblasts;<ref name="auto" /> the Northern Operational Group in the northern regions of Volhynia, Rivne Oblast, and parts of Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts;<ref name="auto" /> in eastern Ukraine, the UPA fled north, as the Soviet Union had executed a number of the UPA's participants. The members of the Eastern Operational Group joined other UPA units in Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv oblasts.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In November 1943, the UPA adopted a new structure, creating a Main Military Headquarters and the General Staff. Roman Shukhevych headed the HQ, while Dmytro Hrytsai became chief of staff.Template:Sfn The General Staff consisted of operations, intelligence, logistics, personnel, training, political education, and military inspectors departments.Template:Sfn In addition to the three regions named above, there was also an attempt to create an Eastern Operational Group, including Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts, but the project never came to fruition. Similarly, the UPA-South region ceased to exist in the summer of 1944, but continued to appear in documents.Template:Sfn Three military schools for low-level command staff were also established.Template:Citation needed

The UPA's largest unit type, the kurin, consisting of 500–700 soldiers,<ref name="UPA12_p169">Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 12, p. 169</ref> was equivalent to a battalion, and its smallest unit, the rii (literally bee swarm), with eight to ten soldiers,<ref name="UPA12_p169" /> equivalent to a squad.Template:Sfn Occasionally, and particularly in Volyn, during some operations three or more kurins would unite and form a zahin or brigade.<ref name="UPA12_p169" /> Organizational methods were borrowed and adapted from the German, Polish and Soviet military, while UPA units based their training on a modified Red Army field unit manual.Template:Sfn

In terms of UPA soldiers' social background, 60 percent were peasants of low to moderate means, 20 to 25 percent were from the working class (primarily from the rural lumber and food industries), and 15 percent were members of the intelligentsia (students, urban professionals). The latter group provided a large portion of the UPA's military trainers and officer corps.Template:Sfn The number of UPA fighters varied: a German Abwehr report from November 1943 estimated that the UPA had 20,000 soldiers; other estimates at that time placed the number at 40,000.<ref name="Magosci">Template:Cite book</ref> By the summer of 1944, estimates of UPA membership varied from 25,000 to 30,000 fighters,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> up to 100,000,<ref name="Magosci" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Stiftung 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> or even 200,000 soldiers.Template:Sfn

Structure

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was structured into three units:<ref name="auto"/> Template:Columns-list The fourth region, UPA-East, was planned, but never created.Template:Sfn

Greeting

File:Pomnik UPA w Bazaltowe d.Janowa Dolina.jpg

World War II-era monument gloryfying the memory of UPA fighters with inscription "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!", placed at the site of the Janowa Dolina massacre (now Bazaltove, Ukraine), which was carried out by UPA

The greeting "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) was used among members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).<ref name="m663">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Anthem

The anthem of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was called the March of Ukrainian Nationalists, also known as We were born in a great hour (Template:Langx). The song, written by Oles Babiy, was officially adopted by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1932.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The organization was a successor of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, whose anthem was "Chervona Kalyna". Leaders of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, Yevhen Konovalets and Andriy Melnyk, were founding members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. For this reason, "Chervona Kalyna" was also used by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Better source needed

Flag

The flag of the UPA was a red-and-black banner,<ref name=":1" /> which continues to be a symbol of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. The colors of the flag symbolize "red Ukrainian blood spilled on the black Ukrainian earth.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Use of the flag is also a "sign of the stubborn endurance of the Ukrainian national idea even under the grimmest conditions."<ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref>

Awards

• Cross of Merit
• Cross of Combat Merit

Military ranks

The UPA made use of a dual rank system that included functional command position designations and traditional military ranks. The functional system was developed due to an acute shortage of qualified and politically reliable officers during the early stages of organization.<ref>Major Petro R. Sodol, USA (ret.). UPA: They Fought Hitler and Stalin. New York 1987. p. 34</ref>

Holovnyi Komandyr UIA	Krayevyi Komandyr	Komandyr Okrugu	Komandyr zagonu	Kurinnyi	Sotennyi	Chotovyi	Royovyi
Supreme commander	Regional commander	Division (military district) commander	Brigade (tactical sector) commander	Battalion commander	Company commander	Platoon leader	Squad leader

UPA rank structure consisted of at least seven commissioned officer ranks, four non-commissioned officer ranks, and two soldier ranks. The hierarchical order of known ranks and their approximate U.S. Army equivalent is as follows:<ref>Major Petro R. Sodol, USA (ret.). UPA: They Fought Hitler and Stalin. New York 1987. p. 36</ref>

UPA RANKS	US ARMY EQUIVALENTS
Heneral-Khorunzhyj	Brigadier General
Polkovnyk	Colonel
Pidpolkovnyk	Lieutenant Colonel
Major	Major
Sotnyk	Captain
Poruchnyk	First Lieutenant
Khorunzhyj	Second Lieutenant
Starshyj Bulavnyj	Master Sergeant
Bulavnyj	Sergeant First Class
Starshyj Vistun	Staff Sergeant
Vistun	Sergeant
Starshyj Strilets	Private First Class
Strilets	Private

The rank scheme provided for three more higher general officer ranks: Heneral-Poruchnyk (Major General), Heneral-Polkovnyk (Lieutenant General), and Heneral-Pikhoty (General with Four Stars).Template:Citation needed

Armaments

Initially, the UPA used weapons collected from the battlefields of 1939 and 1941.Template:Citation needed Later, they bought weapons from peasants and individual soldiers or captured them in combat. Some light weapons were also brought by deserting Ukrainian auxiliary policemen. For the most part, the UPA used light infantry weapons of Soviet and, to a lesser extent, German origin (for which ammunition was less readily obtainable). In 1944, German units armed the UPA directly with captured Soviet arms. Many kurins were equipped with light 51 mm and 82 mm mortars. During large-scale operations in 1943–1944, insurgent forces also used artillery (45 mm and 76.2 mm).<ref name=motyka148>Motyka, p. 148</ref> In 1943 a light Hungarian tank was used in Volhynia.<ref name=motyka148 /><ref>However it is not true that UPA had a Soviet T-35 tank.</ref>

In 1944, the Soviets captured a Polikarpov Po-2 aircraft and one armored car and one personnel carrier from the UPA; however, it was not stated that they were in operable condition, while no OUN/UPA documents noted the usage of such equipment.<ref>Ivan Bilas. Repressive-punishment system in Ukraine. 1917–1953 Vol.2 Kyiv Lybid-Viysko Ukrainy, 1994 Template:ISBN p. 585</ref> By the end of World War II in Europe, the NKVD had captured 45 artillery pieces (45 and 76.2 mm calibres) and 423 mortars from the UPA. In attacks against Polish civilians, axes and pikes were used.<ref name=motyka148 /> However, the light infantry weapon was the basic weapon used by the UPA.<ref>Template:In lang Українська Повстанська Армія – Історія нескорених – Львів, 2007 p. 203</ref>

Formation

1941

File:Upacommanders1941-1942.jpg

UPA Commanders left to right: Oleksander Stepchuk, Ivan Klimchak, Nikon Semeniuk 1941–1942

In a memorandum from 14 August 1941, the OUN-B petitioned the Germans to create a Ukrainian Army "which [would] unite with the German Army... until [our] final victory", in exchange for German recognition of an allied, independent Ukrainian state.<ref>Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Chapter 1 p. 69</ref> At the beginning of October 1941, during the first OUN Conference, the OUN formulated its future strategy. This called for transferring part of its organizational structure underground, in order to avoid conflict with the Germans. It also refrained from open anti-German propaganda activities.<ref>Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Chapter 2, p. 92</ref> A captured German document of 25 November 1941 (Nuremberg Trial O14-USSR) ordered:

"It has been ascertained that the Bandera Movement [OUN-B] is preparing a revolt in the Reichskommissariat which has as its ultimate aim the establishment of an independent Ukraine. All functionaries of the Bandera Movement must be arrested at once and, after thorough interrogation, are to be liquidated..."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

1942

At the Second Conference of the OUN-B, held in April 1942, the policies for the "creation, build-up and development of Ukrainian political and future military forces" and "action against partisan activity supported by Moscow" were adopted. Although German policies were criticized, the Soviet partisans were identified as the primary enemy of the OUN (B) and its future armed wing.<ref>Institute of Ukrainian History, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Chapter 2, pp. 95–97.</ref> The Military Conference of the OUN (B) met in December 1942 near Lviv. The conference resulted in the adoption of a policy of building up the OUN-B's military forces. The conference emphasized that "the entire combat capable population must support, under the OUN banner, the struggle against the Bolshevik enemy". On 30 May 1947, the Main Ukrainian Liberation Council (Головна Визвольна Рада) adopted the date of 14 October 1942—the feast of the Intercession of the Theotokos, and Ukrainian Cossacks' Day—as the official anniversary of the UPA.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Better source needed

Germany

{{#invoke:Infobox military conflict|main}}

File:«За що борються українські повстанці?» Листівка УПА.jpg

A UPA leaflet, which reads "No to Yoska (Joseph Stalin), no to Fritz (Hitler)"

The relationship between Ukrainian Insurgent Army and Nazi Germany varied on account of the intertwined interests of the two actors, as well as the decentralized nature of the UPA. Despite the stated opinions of Dmytro Klyachkivsky and Roman Shukhevych that the Germans were a secondary threat compared to their main enemies (the Communist forces of the Soviet Union and Poland), the Third Conference of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, held near Lviv from 17 to 21 February 1943, decided to begin open warfare against the Germans<ref name="TwoFront43-44">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> (OUN fighters had already attacked a German garrison earlier that year on 7 February).<ref name="AntiGermanFront">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Accordingly, on 20 March 1943, the OUN-B leadership issued secret instructions ordering their members who had joined the collaborationist Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in 1941–1942 to desert with their weapons and join with UPA units in Volhynia. This process often involved armed conflict with German forces trying to prevent this. The number of trained and armed personnel who joined the ranks of the UPA was estimated to be between 4 and 5 thousand.<ref name="TwoFront43-44" />

File:115th Battalion of Ukrainian Shuma 1943 (2).jpg

115th Schutzmannschaft Ukrainian Auxiliary Police battalion, 1943

Anti-German actions were limited to situations where the Germans attacked the Ukrainian population or UPA units.<ref name="2FrontStrategy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> According to German general Ernst August Köstring, UPA fighters "fought almost exclusively against German administrative agencies, the German police and the SS in their quest to establish an independent Ukraine controlled by neither Moscow nor Germany."<ref>Debriefing of General Kostring Department of the Army, 3 November 1948, MSC – 035, cited in Sodol, Petro R., 1987, UPA: They Fought Hitler and Stalin, New York: Committee for the World Convention and Reunion of Soldiers in the UIA, p. 58.</ref>Template:Unreliable source? During the German occupation, the UPA conducted hundreds of raids on police stations and military convoys. In the region of Zhytomyr insurgents were estimated by the German General-Kommissar Leyser to be in control of 80% of the forests and 60% of the farmland.<ref name="Toynbee">Template:Cite bookTemplate:Page needed</ref> According to the OUN/UPA, on 12 May 1943, Germans attacked the town of Kolki using several SS-Divisions (SS units operated alongside the Wehrmacht who were responsible for intelligence, central security, policing action, and mass extermination), where both sides suffered heavy losses.<ref>Yuriy Tys-Krokhmaluk, UPA Warfare in Ukraine. New York, Society of Veterans of Ukrainian Insurgent Army Template:LCCN pp. 58–59</ref>Template:Better source needed Soviet partisans reported the reinforcement of German auxiliary forces at Kolki from the end of April until the middle of May 1943.<ref>Ivan Bilas. Repressive-punishment system in Ukraine. 1917–1953 Vol. 2 Kyiv Lybid-Viysko Ukrainy, 1994 Template:ISBN pp, 384, 391</ref>

In June 1943, German SS and police forces under the command of Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, the head of Himmler-directed Bandenbekämpfung ("bandit warfare"), attempted to destroy UPA-North in Volhynia during Operation BB (Bandenbekämpfung).<ref name=Anderson>James K. Anderson, Unknown Soldiers of an Unknown Army, Army Magazine, May 1968, p. 63</ref> According to Ukrainian claims, the initial stage of the operation produced no results whatsoever. This development was the subject of several discussions by Himmler's staff that resulted in General von dem Bach-Zelewski being sent to Ukraine.<ref>Yuriy Tys-Krokhmaluk, UPA Warfare in Ukraine. New York. Society of Veterans of Ukrainian Insurgent Army Template:LCCN pp. 238–239</ref>Template:Better source needed He failed to eliminate the UPA, which grew steadily, and the Germans, apart from terrorizing the civilian population, were virtually limited to defensive actions.<ref>Yuriy Tys-Krokhmaluk, UPA Warfare in Ukraine. New York, N.Y. Society of Veterans of Ukrainian Insurgent Army Template:LCCN pp. 242–243</ref>Template:Better source needed

From July through September 1943, in an estimated 74 clashes between German forces and the UPA, the Germans lost more than 3,000 men killed or wounded, while the UPA lost 1,237 killed or wounded. According to post-war estimates, the UPA had the following number of clashes with the Germans in mid-to-late 1943 in Volhynia: 35 in July, 24 in August, 15 in September and 47 during October–November.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp<ref name="MukovskyLysenko2002">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the fall of 1943, clashes between the UPA and the Germans declined, so that Erich Koch in his November 1943 report and New Year 1944 speech could claim that "nationalistic bands in forests do not pose any major threat" for the Germans.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp

In the autumn of 1943, some detachments of the UPA attempted to find rapprochement with the Germans, despite a 25 November OUN/UPA order to the contrary.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp In early 1944, UPA forces in several Western regions cooperated with the German Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, SiPo and SD.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp<ref>Yaroslav Hrytsak, "History of Ukraine 1772–1999"</ref> Nevertheless, the winter and spring of 1944 did not see a complete cessation of armed conflict between UPA and German forces, as the UPA continued to defend Ukrainian villages against the repressive actions of the German administration.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp For example, on 20 January, 200 German soldiers on their way to the Ukrainian village of Pyrohivka were forced to retreat after a several-hour long firefight with 80 UPA soldiers after having lost 30 killed and wounded.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp In March–July 1944, a senior leader of OUN-B in Galicia conducted negotiations with SD and SS officials, resulting in a German decision to supply the UPA with arms and ammunition. In May of that year, the OUN issued instructions to "switch the struggle, which had been conducted against the Germans, completely into a struggle against the Soviets."<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />

In a top-secret memorandum, General-Major Brigadeführer Brenner wrote in mid-1944 to SS-Obergruppenführer General Hans-Adolf Prützmann, the highest ranking German SS officer in Ukraine, that "The UPA has halted all attacks on units of the German army. The UPA systematically sends agents, mainly young women, into the enemy-occupied territory, and the results of the intelligence are communicated to Department 1c of the [German] Army Group" on the southern front.<ref name="BurdsGender">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> By the autumn of 1944, the German press was full of praise for the UPA for their anti-Bolshevik successes, referring to the UPA fighters as "Ukrainian fighters for freedom"<ref>Martovych O. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Munchen, 1950 p. 20</ref> In the latter half of 1944, Germans were supplying the OUN/UPA with arms and equipment in exchange for the end of attacks on German positions, along with further UPA attacks on the Soviets.<ref name=":6" /> In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, there even existed a small landing strip for German transport planes. Some German personnel trained in terrorist and intelligence activities behind Soviet lines, as well as some OUN-B leaders, were also transported through this channel.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Adopting a strategy analogous to that of the Chetnik leader General Draža Mihailović,<ref name=upa13>Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, pp. 174–180</ref> the UPA limited its actions against the Germans in order to better prepare itself for and engage in the struggle against the Communists. Because of this, although the UPA managed to limit German activities to a certain extent, it failed to prevent the Germans from deporting approximately 500,000 people from Western Ukraine and from economically exploiting Western Ukraine.<ref name=upa13/> Due to its focus on the Soviets as the principal threat, the UPA's anti-German struggle did not contribute significantly to the recapture of Ukrainian territories by Soviet forces.<ref name="AntiGermanFront" />Template:Rp

Poland

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Template:See also

File:Lipikach.jpg

Polish victims of a massacre committed by UPA in the village of Lipniki, 1943

In 1943, the UPA adopted a policy of massacring and expelling the Polish population east of the Bug River.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Snyder2">Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of Nations. Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999. Yale University Press. 2003. pp. 168–170, 176</ref> In March 1943, the OUN-B (specifically Mykola Lebed<ref>Viktor Polishchuk "Gorkaya Pravda. Prestuplenya OUN-UPA." (in Russian). Sevdig.sevastopol.ws. Retrieved on 11 July 2011.</ref>Template:Bsn) imposed a collective death sentence on all Poles living in the former south-eastern Kresy region of the Second Polish Republic, and a few months later, local units of the UPA were instructed to complete the operation. <ref>Karel Cornelis Berkhoff, "Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule", Harvard University Press, 2004, Template:ISBN p. 291</ref> The UPA commanders behind the decision, were Dmytro Klyachkivsky, Vasyl Ivakhov, Ivan Lytvynchuk and Petro Oliynyk.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The ethnic cleansing against Poles began on a large scale in Volhynia in late February (or early Spring<ref name=Snyder2 />) of that year and lasted until the end of 1944.<ref name="HistoryOrgPDF16">Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Taras Bulba-Borovets, the founder of the UPA, criticized the attacks as soon as they began:

The axe and the flail have gone into motion. Whole families are butchered and hanged, and Polish settlements are set on fire. The “hatchet men,” to their shame, butcher and hang defenceless women and children.... By such work Ukrainians not only do a favor for the SD [German security service], but also present themselves in the eyes of the world as barbarians. We must take into account that England will surely win this war, and it will treat these “hatchet men” and lynchers and incendiaries as agents in the service of Hitlerite cannibalism, not as honest fighters for their freedom, not as state-builders.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}

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File:Kysylyn Lokachynskyi Volynska-Church of the Immaculate Conception-north view.jpg

Ruins of the Roman Catholic church in Kisielin. The Kisielin massacre was a slaughter of Polish worshippers on 11 July 1943 during Sunday Mass service.

11 July 1943, the Volhynian Bloody Sunday, was one of the deadliest days of the massacres, with UPA units marching from village to village, killing Polish civilians. On that day, UPA units surrounded and attacked 99 Polish villages and settlements in three counties – Kovel, Horokhiv, and Volodymyr. On the following day, 50 additional villages were attacked.<ref>Grzegorz Motyka, Ukraińska Partyzantka 1942–1960, Warszawa 2006, p. 329</ref> In January 1944, the UPA campaign of ethnic cleansing spread to the neighboring province of Galicia. Unlike in Volhynia, where Polish villages were destroyed and their inhabitants murdered without warning, Poles in eastern Galicia were in some instances given the choice of fleeing or being killed.<ref name=Snyder2 /> Ukrainian peasants sometimes joined the UPA in the violence,<ref name=Snyder2 /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and large bands of armed marauders, unaffiliated with the UPA, brutalized civilians.<ref name="Burds1996">Template:Cite journal</ref> In other cases however, Ukrainian civilians took steps to protect their Polish neighbors, either by hiding them during the UPA raids or vouching that the Poles were actually Ukrainians.

The methods used by the UPA to carry out the massacres were particularly brutal and were committed indiscriminately without any restraint. Historian Norman Davies describes the killings:

"Villages were torched. Roman Catholic priests were axed or crucified. Churches were burned with all their parishioners. Isolated farms were attacked by gangs carrying pitchforks and kitchen knives. Throats were cut. Pregnant women were bayoneted. Children were cut in two. Men were ambushed in the field and led away."<ref name="no simple victory">Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory Publisher: Pan Books, 2007, 544 pages, Template:ISBN</ref>

In total, the estimated numbers of Polish civilians killed in Volhynia and Galicia is between 60,000 and 120,000.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Refn<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":0a" /> Victims of the UPA included Ukrainians who did not adhere to its form of nationalism and so were considered traitors.<ref name="Snyder B">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> After the initiation of the massacres, Polish self-defense units responded by attacking the UPA and their accomplices, however specific order were given not to target the general Ukrainian population.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Estimates of Ukrainians killed in acts of reprisal range from 2,000 to 30,000.<ref name="Rudling2">A. Rudling. Theory and Practice. Historical representation of the wartime accounts of the activities of OUN-UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists–Ukrainian Insurgent Army). East European Jewish Affairs. Vol. 36. No. 2. December 2006. pp. 163–179.</ref><ref name="Liebe2">G. Rossolinski-Liebe. Celebrating Fascism and War Criminality in Edmonton. The Political Myth and Cult of Stepan Bandera in Multicultural Canada. Kakanien Revisited. 29 December 2010.</ref><ref>Kataryna Wolczuk, "The Difficulties of Polish-Ukrainian Historical Reconciliation," Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 2002.</ref> On 22 July 2016, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed a resolution declaring the massacres committed by the UPA a genocide.<ref>Radio Poland "Polish MPs adopt resolution calling 1940s massacre genocide" http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/263005,Polish-MPs-adopt-resolution-calling-1940s-massacre-genocide Template:Webarchive</ref>

Post-war

File:Curzon line en.svg

Westward shift of Poland after World War II. The respective German, Polish and Ukrainian populations were expelled.

File:1946buko2.jpg

The village of Bukowsko was attacked and burned several times by UPA between January and November, 1946.

After Galicia had been taken over by the Red Army, many units of the UPA abandoned the anti-Polish course of action and some even began cooperating with local Polish anti-Communist resistance against the Soviets and the NKVD. Many Ukrainians, who had not participated in the anti-Polish massacres, joined the UPA after the war on both the Soviet and Polish sides of the border.<ref>A fascist hero in democratic Kiev. Timothy Snyder. New York Review of Books. 24 February 2010.</ref> Local agreements between the UPA and the Polish post-Home Army units began to appear as early as April/May 1945 and in some places lasted until 1947, such as in the Lublin Voivodeship. One such joint action of the UPA and the post-Home Army Freedom and Independence Association (WiN) took place in May 1946, when the two partisan formations coordinated their attack and took over of the city of Hrubieszów.<ref name=Mot1>Grzegorz Motyka, "W Kregu Lun w Bieszczadach, Rytm, Warsaw, 2009, pp. 12–14, 43</ref> Despite such agreements, other UPA units continued their attacks against the Polish civilian population. In one such action, UPA insurgents and German deserters led by a SS Colonel, burned several villages in the Sanok region.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The tactical cooperation between the UPA and the post-Home Army underground came about partly as a response to increasing Communist terror and the forced population exchange between Poland and Ukraine. According to official statistics, between 1944 and 1956 around 488,000 Ukrainians and 789,000 Poles were transferred.<ref name=Mot1 /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On the territories of present-day Poland, 8,000–12,000 Ukrainians were killed and 6,000–8,000 Poles, between 1943 and 1947. However, unlike in Volhynia, most of the casualties occurred after 1944 and involved UPA soldiers and Ukrainian civilians on one side, and members of the Polish Communist Security Office (UB) and Border Protection Troops (WOP).<ref name=Mot1 /> Out of the 2,200 Poles who died in the fighting between 1945 and 1948, only a few hundred were civilians, with the remainder being functionaries or soldiers of the Communist regime in Poland.<ref name=Mot1 />

Soviet Union

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

German occupation

Template:Eastern Bloc sidebar The total number of local Soviet partisans acting in Western Ukraine was never high, due to the region enduring only two years of German rule (in some places even less).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Better source needed In 1943, the Soviet partisan leader Sydir Kovpak was sent to the Carpathian Mountains, with help from Nikita Khrushchev. He described his mission to western Ukraine in his book Vid Putivlia do Karpat (From Putyvl to the Carpathian Mountains). Well armed by supplies delivered to secret airfields, he formed a group consisting of several thousand men which moved deep into the Carpathians.<ref name="Subtelny476">Subtelny, p. 476</ref> Attacks by the German Luftwaffe and military forced Kovpak to break up his force into smaller units in 1944; these groups were attacked by UPA units on their way back. Soviet NKVD agent Nikolai Kuznetsov was captured and executed by UPA members after unwittingly entering their camp while wearing a Wehrmacht officer uniform.<ref>Ihor Sundiukov, "The Other Side of the Legend: Nikolai Kuznetsov Revisited", 24 January 2006. Retrieved on 18 December 2007.</ref>

Fighting

As the Red Army approached Galicia, the UPA avoided clashes with the regular units of the Soviet military.<ref name="Perekrest">Template:Cite news</ref> Instead, the UPA focused its energy on NKVD units and Soviet officials of all levels, from NKVD and military officers to the school teachers and postal workers attempting to establish Soviet administration.<ref name="Krohmaliuk">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Self-published inline

In March 1944, UPA insurgents mortally wounded front commander Army General Nikolai Vatutin, who captured Kiev when he led Soviet forces in the Second battle of Kiev.<ref name="Grenkevich,">Template:Cite book</ref> Several weeks later an NKVD battalion was annihilated by the UPA near Rivne. This resulted in a full-scale operation in the spring of 1944, initially involving 30,000 Soviet troops against the UPA in Volhynia. Estimates of casualties vary depending on the source. In a letter to the State Defense Committee of the USSR, Lavrentiy Beria stated that in spring 1944 clashes between Soviet forces and the UPA resulted in 2,018 killed and 1,570 captured UPA fighters and only 11 Soviets killed and 46 wounded. A captured UPA member, quoted in Soviet archives, stated that he received reports about UPA losses of 200 fighters against 2,000 Soviet losses.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Rp The first significant sabotage operations against communications of the Soviet Army before their offensive against the Germans was conducted by the UPA in April–May 1944. Such actions were promptly stopped by the Soviet Army and NKVD troops, after which the OUN/UPA submitted an order to temporarily cease anti-Soviet activities and prepare for the further struggle against the Soviets.<ref name="Bilas1994">Template:Cite book</ref>

Despite heavy casualties on both sides during the initial clashes, the struggle was inconclusive. New large-scale actions of the UPA, especially in Ternopil Oblast, were launched in July–August 1944, when the Red Army advanced West.<ref name="Bilas1994" /> By the autumn of 1944, UPA forces enjoyed virtual freedom of movement over an area of 160,000 square kilometers in size and home to over 10 million people, and had established a shadow government.Template:Sfn

File:UPA christmascard.jpg

Christmas card made and distributed by the UPA, 1945

In November 1944, Khrushchev launched the first of several large-scale Soviet assaults on the UPA throughout Western Ukraine, involving—according to OUN/UPA estimates—at least 20 NKVD combat divisions supported by artillery and armoured units. Soviet forces blockaded villages and roads, and set forests on fire.<ref name="Krohmaliuk" />Template:Self-published inline Soviet archival data states that on 9 October 1944, one NKVD Division, eight NKVD brigades, and an NKVD cavalry regiment with a total of 26,304 NKVD soldiers were stationed in Western Ukraine. In addition, two regiments with 1,500 and 1,200 persons, one battalion (517 persons) and three armoured trains with 100 additional soldiers each, as well as one border guard regiment and one unit were starting to relocate there in order to reinforce them.<ref>According to Soviet archives, the NKVD units located in Western Ukraine were: the 9th Rifle division; 16, 20, 21, 25, 17, 18, 19, 23rd brigades; 1 cavalry regiment. Sent to reinforce them: 256, 192nd regiments; 1 battalion three armoured trains (45, 26, 42). The 42nd border guard regiment and another unit (27th) were sent to reinforce them. From Ivan Bilas. Repressive-punishment system in Ukraine. 1917–1953 Vol. 2 Kyiv Lybid-Viysko Ukrainy, 1994 Template:ISBN pp. 478–482</ref>

During late 1944 and the first half of 1945, according to Soviet data, the UPA suffered approximately 89,000 killed, approximately 91,000 captured, and approximately 39,000 surrendered while the Soviet forces lost approximately 12,000 killed, approximately 6,000 wounded and 2,600 MIA. In addition, during this time, according to Soviet data UPA actions resulted in the killing of 3,919 civilians and the disappearance of 427 others.<ref name="UPA 1944">Exact statistics of UPA casualties by the Soviets and Soviet casualties by UPA, in specific time periods, according to data compiled by the NKVD of the Ukrainian SRR: during February – December 1944 the UPA suffered the following casualties: 57,405 killed; 50,387 captured; 15,990 surrendered. During the period from 1 January 1945 until 1 May 1945 the following casualties were reported: 31,157 killed; 40,760 captured; 23,156 surrendered. The UPA's actions numbered 2,903 in 1944, and from 1 January 1945 until 1 May 1945 – 1,289. During February until December 1944 Soviet losses were: 9,521 "killed and hanged"; 3,494 wounded; 2,131 MIA; amongst them NKVD-NKGB suffered 401 killed and hanged, 227 wounded, 98 MIA and captured. From January 1, 1945 until May 1, 1945 the NKVD and Soviet Army troops suffered 2,513 killed, 2,489 wounded, 524 MIA and captured. Soviet Authorities personnel suffered 1,225 killed or hanged, 239 wounded, 427 MIA or captured. In addition, 3,919 civilians were killed or hanged, 320 wounded, and 814 MIA or captured. From Ivan Bilas. Repressive-punishment system in Ukraine. 1917–1953 Vol.2 Kyiv Lybid-Viysko Ukrainy, 1994 Template:ISBN pp. 604–605</ref> Despite the heavy losses, as late as summer 1945, many battalion-size UPA units still continued to control and administer large areas of territory in Western Ukraine.<ref name="Subtelny2000">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp In February 1945 the UPA issued an order to liquidate kurins (battalions) and sotnyas (companies) and to operate predominantly in chotys (platoons).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Spring 1945–late 1946

Template:Further After Germany surrendered in May 1945, the Soviet authorities turned their attention to the guerrilla wars taking place in Ukraine and the Baltics. Combat units were reorganized and special forces were sent in. One of the major complications that arose was the local support the UPA had from the population.Template:Citation needed Areas of UPA activity were depopulated. The estimates on numbers deported vary; officially Soviet archives state that between 1944 and 1952 a total of 182,543 people<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Theses include deported (1944–47): families of OUN/UPA members – 15,040 families (37,145) persons; OUN/UPA underground families – 26,332 (77,791 persons) taken from: Ivan Bilas. Repressive-punishment system in Ukraine. 1917–1953 Vol. 2 Kyiv Lybid-Viysko Ukrainy, 1994 Template:ISBN pp. 545–546</ref> were deported while other sources indicate the number may have been as high as to 500,000.<ref name="Subtelny489">Subtelny, p. 489</ref>

Mass arrests of suspected UPA informants or family members were conducted; between February 1944 and May 1946 over 250,000 people were arrested in Western Ukraine.<ref name=Burds97>Burds, p.97</ref> Those arrested typically experienced beatings or other violence. Those suspected of being UPA members underwent torture; reportsTemplate:Specify exist of some prisoners being burned alive. The many arrested women believed to be affiliating with the UPA were subjected to torture, deprivation, and rape at the hands of Soviet security in order to "break" them and get them to reveal UPA members' identities and locations or to turn them into Soviet double-agents.<ref name="BurdsGender" /> Mutilated corpses of captured rebels were put on public display.<ref name="Burds1996" /> Ultimately, between 1944 and 1952 alone as many as 600,000 people may have been arrested in Western Ukraine, with about one-third executed and the rest imprisoned or exiled.Template:Sfn

File:1307438718 arxivcdvr sh00050.jpg

Roman Shukhevych, the leader of the UPA

The UPA responded to the Soviet methods by unleashing their own terror against Soviet activists, suspected collaborators and their families. This work was particularly attributed to the Sluzhba Bezpeky (SB), the anti-espionage wing of the UPA. In a typical incident in the Lviv region, in front of horrified villagers, UPA troops gouged out the eyes of two entire families suspected of reporting on insurgent movements to Soviet authorities, before hacking their bodies to pieces. Due to public outrage concerning these violent punitive acts, the UPA stopped the practice of killing the families of collaborators by mid-1945. Other victims of the UPA included Soviet activists sent to Galicia from other parts of the Soviet Union; heads of village Soviets, those sheltering or feeding Red Army personnel, and even people turning food into collective farms. The effect of such terrorist acts was such that people refused to take posts as village heads, and until the late 1940s villages chose single men with no dependents as their leaders.<ref name="Burds1996" />Template:Rp

The UPA also proved to be especially adept at assassinating key Soviet administrative officials. According to NKVD data, between February 1944 and December 1946 11,725 Soviet officers, agents and collaborators were assassinated and 2,401 were "missing", presumed kidnapped, in Western Ukraine.<ref name="Burds1996" />Template:Rp In one county in Lviv region alone, from August 1944 until January 1945 Ukrainian rebels killed 10 members of the Soviet active and a secretary of the county Communist party, and also kidnapped four other officials. The UPA travelled at will throughout the area. In this county, there were no courts, no prosecutor's office, and the local NKVD only had three staff members.<ref name="Burds1996" />Template:Rp

According to a 1946 report by Khrushchev's deputy for West Ukrainian affairs A. A. Stoiantsev, out of 42,175 operations and ambushes against the UPA by destruction battalions in Western Ukraine, only 10 percent had positive results – in the vast majority there was either no contact or the individual unit was disarmed and pro-Soviet leaders murdered or kidnapped.<ref name="Burds1996" />Template:Rp Morale amongst the NKVD in Western Ukraine was particularly low. Even within the dangerous context of Soviet state service in the late-Stalin era, West Ukraine was considered to be a "hardship post", and personnel files reveal higher rates of transfer requests, alcoholism, nervous breakdowns, and refusal to serve among NKVD field agents there at that time.<ref name="Burds1996" />Template:Rp

The first success of the Soviet authorities came in early 1946 in the Carpathians, which were blockaded from 11 January until 10 April. The UPA operating there ceased to exist as a combat unit.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The continuous heavy casualties elsewhere forced the UPA to split into small units consisting of 100 soldiers. Many of the troops demobilized and returned home, when the Soviet Union offered three amnesties during 1947–1948.<ref name="Perekrest" /> By 1946, the UPA was reduced to a core group of 5,000–10,000 fighters, and large-scale UPA activity shifted to the Soviet-Polish border. Here, in 1947, they killed the Polish Communist deputy defence minister General Karol Świerczewski. In spring 1946, the OUN/UPA established contacts with the Intelligence services of France, Great Britain and US.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

End of UPA resistance

The turning point in the struggle against the UPA came in 1947 when the Soviets established an intelligence gathering network within the UPA and shifted the focus of their actions from mass terror to infiltration and espionage. After 1947 the UPA's activity began to subside. On May 30, 1947, Shukhevych issued instructions for joining the OUN and UPA in underground warfare.<ref name="Mykola Vladzimirsky">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1947–1948 UPA resistance was weakened enough to allow the Soviets to begin implementation of large-scale collectivization throughout Western Ukraine.Template:Sfn

In 1948, the Soviet central authorities purged local officials who had mistreated peasants and engaged in "vicious methods". At the same time, Soviet agents planted within the UPA had taken their toll on morale and on the UPA's effectiveness. According to the writing of one slain Ukrainian rebel, "the Bolsheviks tried to take us from within...you can never know exactly in whose hands you will find yourself. From such a network of spies, the work of whole teams is often penetrated...". In November 1948, the work of Soviet agents led to two important victories against the UPA: the defeat and deaths of the heads of the most active UPA network in Western Ukraine, and the removal of "Myron", the head of the UPA's counter-intelligence SB unit.<ref name="Burds1996" />Template:Rp

The Soviet authorities tried to win over the local population by making significant economic investments in Western Ukraine,Template:Citation needed and by setting up rapid reaction groups in many regions to combat the UPA. According to one retired MVD major, "By 1948 ideologically we had the support of most of the population."<ref name="Perekrest" /> The UPA's leader, Roman Shukhevych, was killed during an ambush near Lviv on 5 March 1950. Although sporadic UPA activity continued until the mid-1950s, after Shukhevich's death the UPA rapidly lost its fighting capability. An assessment of UPA manpower by Soviet authorities on 17 April 1952 claimed that UPA/OUN had only 84 fighting units consisting of 252 persons. The UPA's last commander, Vasyl Kuk, was captured on 24 May 1954. Despite the existence of some insurgent groups, according to a report by the MGB of the Ukrainian SSR, the "liquidation of armed units and OUN underground was accomplished by the beginning of 1956".<ref name="Mykola Vladzimirsky" />

NKVD units dressed as UPA fighters<ref name="Wilson">Template:Cite book</ref> are known to have committed atrocities against the civilian population in order to discredit the UPA.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Among these NKVD units were those composed of former UPA fighters working for the NKVD.<ref>Ivan Bilas. Repressive-punishment system in Ukraine. 1917–1953 Vol.2 Kyiv Lybid-Viysko Ukrainy, 1994 Template:ISBN pp. 460–464, 470–477</ref> The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) recently published information that about 150 such special groups consisting of 1,800 people operated until 1954.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Prominent people killed by UPA insurgents during the anti-Soviet struggle included Metropolitan Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church, killed while traveling in a German convoy,<ref name="Armstrong">John Armstrong (1963). Ukrainian Nationalism. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 205–206</ref> and pro-Soviet writer Yaroslav Halan.<ref name="Perekrest" />

In 1951, CIA covert operations chief Frank Wisner estimated that some 35,000 Soviet police troops and Communist party cadres had been eliminated by guerrillas affiliated with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the period after the end of World War II. Official Soviet figures for the losses inflicted by all types of Ukrainian nationalists during the period 1944–1953 referred to 30,676 persons; amongst them were 687 NKGB-MGB personnel, 1,864 NKVD-MVD personnel, 3,199 Soviet Army, Border Guards, and NKVD-MVD troops, 241 Communist party leaders, 205 Komsomol leaders and 2,590 members of self-defense units. According to Soviet data, the remaining losses were among civilians, including 15,355 peasants and kolkhozniks.<ref name="auto1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Soviet archives state that between February 1944 and January 1946 the Soviet forces conducted 39,778 operations against the UPA, during which they killed a total of 103,313, captured a total of 8,370 OUN members and captured a total of 15,959 active insurgents.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Many UPA members were imprisoned in the Gulag. They actively participated in Gulag uprisings of Norilsk, Vorkuta, and Kengir.Template:Citation needed

Soviet infiltration

In 1944–1945 the NKVD carried out 26,693 operations against the Ukrainian underground. These resulted in the deaths of 22,474 Ukrainian soldiers and the capture of 62,142 prisoners. During this time the NKVD formed special groups known as spetshrupy made up of former Soviet partisans. The goal of these groups was to discredit and disorganize the OUN and UPA. In August 1944, Sydir Kovpak was placed under NKVD authority. Posing as Ukrainian insurgents, these special formations used violence against the civilian population of Western Ukraine. In June 1945 there were 156 such special groups with 1,783 members.<ref name="UIAunconquered2007">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Better source needed

From December 1945 to 1946, 15,562 operations were carried out in which 4,200 were killed and more than 9,400 were arrested. From 1944 to 1953, the Soviets killed 153,000 and arrested 134,000 members of the UPA. 66,000 families (204,000 people) were forcibly deported to Siberia and half a million people were subject to repression. In the same period, Polish Communist authorities deported 450,000 people.<ref name="UIAunconquered2007" /> Soviet infiltration of British intelligence also meant that MI6 assisted in training some of the guerrillas in parachuting and unmarked planes used to drop them into Ukraine from bases in Cyprus and Malta, were counter-acted by the fact that one MI6 agent with knowledge of the operation was Kim Philby. Working with Anthony Blunt, he alerted Soviet security forces about planned drops. Ukrainian guerrillas were intercepted and most were executed.<ref>Ben McIntyre, A Spy Amongst Friends pp. 134–136</ref>

Holocaust

File:JewUPA1944.jpg

Ukrainian Insurgent Army, September 1944 Instruction abstract. Text in Ukrainian: "Jewish question" – "No actions against Jews to be taken. Jewish issue is no longer a problem (only few of them remain). This does not apply to those who stand out against us actively."

The OUN-B pursued a policy of infiltrating the German police to obtain weapons and training for fighters. In that role, it helped the Germans to carry out the Holocaust.<ref name="Himka1997" /> The Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, working for the Germans, played a crucial supporting role in the murder of 200,000 Jews in Volhynia in the second half of 1942. Most of the police deserted in the following spring and joined the UPA.<ref name="Nations. pg. 162">Timothy D. Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: p. 162</ref> Historian Shmuel Spector estimated in 1990 that the UPA and OUN together hunted down and killed several thousand Jews.<ref>Template:Cite journal, citing Template:Cite book</ref> With the first antisemitic ideology and acts traced back to the Russian Civil War, by 1940–1941 the publications of Ukrainian political organizations became explicitly antisemitic.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> German documents of the period give the impression that Ukrainian ultranationalists were indifferent to the plight of the Jews and would either kill them or help them, whichever was more appropriate for their political goals.<ref name=Himka1997>Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Timothy D. Snyder, the Soviet partisans were known for their brutality by retaliating against entire villages suspected of working with the Germans, killing individuals deemed to be collaborators, and provoking the Germans to attack villages. The UPA would later attempt to match that brutality.<ref name="Snydershoah">Timothy Snyder. (2008). "The life and death of Volhynian Jewry, 1921–1945." In Brandon, Lowler (Eds.) The Shoah in Ukraine: history, testimony, memorialization. Indiana: Indiana University Press, p. 101</ref> John-Paul Himka notes that "it is reasonable to assume that the [UPA]--like its Polish counterpart, the Home Army (AK)--liquidated Jewish partisan bands because they were pro-Communist".<ref name=Himka1997/>

By early 1943, the OUN had entered into open armed conflict with Nazi Germany. According to Ukrainian historian and former UPA soldier Lew Shankowsky, immediately upon assuming the position of commander of the UPA in August 1943, Roman Shukhevych issued an order banning participation in anti-Jewish activities. No written record of this order, however, has been found.<ref name=Friedman1>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1944, the OUN formally "rejected racial and ethnic exclusivity".<ref name="Subtelny2000" />Template:Rp Nevertheless, Jews hiding from the Germans with Poles in Polish villages were often killed by the UPA along with their Polish saviors, although in at least one case, they were spared as the Poles were murdered.<ref name="Snydershoah" /> Some Jews who fled the ghettos for the forests were killed by members of the UPA.<ref>The World Reacts to the Holocaust edited by David S. Wyman, Charles H. Rosenzveig с. 320</ref>

According to Herbert Romerstein, Soviet propaganda complained about Zionist membership in the UPA,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and during the persecution of Jews in the early 1950s, they described the alleged connection between Jewish and Ukrainian nationalists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> One well-known claimed example of Jewish participation in the UPA was most likely a hoax, according to sources such as Friedman.<ref>John Paul Himka. Falsifying World War II history in Ukraine. Himka notes that Bohdan Kordiuk, an OUN member who had been incarcerated in Auschwitz, described Krenzbach's memoirs as false in the newspaper Suchasna Ukraina (no. 15/194, 20 July 1958), and he wrote, "None of the UPA men known to the author of these lines knows the legendary Stella Krenzbach or have heard of her. The Jews do not know her either. It is unlikely that anyone of the tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees after the war met Stella Krenzbach". Himka also noted that Friedman failed to find evidence of her existence.</ref><ref name="Friedman5">Template:Cite journal</ref> According to the report, Stella Krenzbach, the daughter of a rabbi and a Zionist, joined the UPA as a nurse and intelligence agent. She is alleged to have written, "I attribute the fact that I am alive today and devoting all the strength of my thirty-eight years to a free Israel only to God and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. I became a member of the heroic UPA on 7 November 1943. In our group I counted twelve Jews, eight of whom were doctors".<ref>Moses Fishbein, transcript of a delivered at the 26th Conference on Ukrainian Subjects at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 24–27 June 2009 posted on the website of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine</ref> Later, Friedman concluded that Krenzbach was a fictional character, as the only evidence for her existence was in an OUN paper. No one knew of such an employee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she supposedly worked after the war. A Jew, Leiba Dubrovskii, pretended to be Ukrainian.<ref name="mcbride">Template:Cite news</ref>

Attempts at reconciliation

During the following years, the UPA was officially taboo in the Soviet Union, mentioned only as a terrorist organization.<ref name=washpost>Template:Cite news</ref> Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, there have been heated debates about the possible award of official recognition to former UPA members as legitimate combatants, with the accompanying pensions and benefits due to war veterans.<ref name=washpost /> UPA veterans have also striven to hold parades and commemorations of their own, especially in Western Ukraine. This, in turn, led to opposition from Soviet Army veterans and some Ukrainian politicians, particularly from the south and east of the country.<ref name=washpost />

File:Ekshumacja w Gaju.JPG

Exhumation of Polish victims, many of whom were identified as children (pictured), at the site of the Gaj massacre committed by UPA, 2013

Attempts to reconcile former Polish Home Army and UPA soldiers have been made by both the Ukrainian and Polish sides. Individual former UPA members have expressed their readiness for a mutual apology. Some of the past soldiers of both organizations have met and asked for forgiveness for their past misdeeds.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, the subject of exhumations remains a contentious issue between the Polish and Ukrainian governments, and in the past, the Ukrainian authorites were accused of trying to cover up the scale of the massacres perpertrated by UPA on the Polish civilian population.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Restorations of graves and cemeteries in Poland where fallen UPA soldiers were buried have been agreed to by the Polish side.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

2019 official veteran status

In late March 2019 former members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (and other living former members of Ukrainian irregular nationalist armed groups that were active during World War II and the first decade after the war) were officially granted the status of veterans.<ref name="veteransUK38171U"/> This meant that for the first time they could receive veteran benefits, including free public transport, subsidized medical services, annual monetary aid, and public utility discounts (and will enjoy the same social benefits as former Ukrainian soldiers who served in the Soviet Union's Red Army).<ref name="veteransUK38171U">Template:Cite news</ref>

There had been several previous attempts to provide former Ukrainian nationalist fighters with official veteran status, especially during the 2005–2009 administration of President Viktor Yushchenko, but all failed.<ref name="veteransUK38171U"/> Prior to December 2018, legally only former UPA members who "participated in hostilities against Nazi invaders in occupied Ukraine in 1941–1944, who did not commit crimes against humanity and were rehabilitated" were recognized as war veterans.<ref name="7200429UPAv">Template:In lang The Council recognized all the soldiers of the OUN-UPA as combatants, Ukrayinska Pravda (6 December 2018)</ref>

Monuments for combatants

Without waiting for official notice from Kyiv, many regional authorities have already decided to approach the UPA's history on their own. In many western cities and villages monuments, memorials and plaques to the leaders and troops of the UPA have been erected. In eastern Ukraine's city of Kharkiv, a memorial to the soldiers of the UPA was erected in 1992.<ref name=DATA>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In response, some southern and eastern provinces, although the UPA had not operated in those regions, opened memorials of their own dedicated to the UPA's victims. The first one, "The Shot in the Back", was unveiled by the Communist Party of Ukraine in Simferopol, Crimea in September 2007.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Unreliable source? In 2008, one was erected in Svatove, Luhansk oblast, and another in Luhansk on 8 May 2010 by the city deputy, Arsen Klinchaev, and the Party of Regions.<ref name="Luhansk" /> The unveiling ceremony was attended by Vice Prime Minister Viktor Tikhonov, the leader of the parliamentary faction of the Pro-Russian Party of Regions Oleksandr Yefremov, Russian State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin, Luhansk Regional Governor Valerii Holenko, and Luhansk Mayor Serhii Kravchenko.<ref name="Luhansk">Template:Cite news</ref>

• UPA Monument 2.jpg

  Monument to UPA veterans at St. Volodymyr Cemetery, Oakville, Ontario

• Ukraine-Skole-Minipark.JPG

  Monument to soldiers of UPA, Skole, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine

• Повстанський цвинтар.jpg

  Cemetery of UPA soldiers, Antonivci, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine

• Berezhany- (93).jpg

  Monument to the soldiers of UPA, Berezhany, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine

• Пам'ятний хрест Климу Савуру.jpg

  Monument to senior UPA commander Dmytro Klyachkivsky near Orzhiv, Ukraine

• Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and other UPA graves in the Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, New Jersey..JPG

  Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and other UPA graves in the Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, New Jersey

• The Monument to the soldiers of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) Kharkiv, Ukraine.jpg

  Memorial for UPA soldiers, Kharkiv, Ukraine

Commemoration in Ukraine

File:Спільний банер КЛ-ДК - Душа та Серце України.jpg

Ultras of FC Karpaty Lviv and FC Dynamo Kyiv wave the UPA flag in May 2011.

According to John Armstrong,

"If one takes into account the duration, geographical extent, and intensity of activity, the UPA very probably is the most important example of forceful resistance to an established Communist regime prior to the decade of fierce Afghan resistance beginning in 1979... the Hungarian revolution of 1956 was, of course, far more important, involving to some degree a population of nine million... however it lasted only a few weeks. In contrast, the more-or-less effective anti-Communist activity of the Ukrainian resistance forces lasted from mid-1944 until 1950."<ref>John Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 3rd edition. Englewood, Colorado: Ukrainian Academic Press, 1990. Template:ISBN (2nd ed.: New York: Columbia University Press, 1963) pp. 223–224</ref>

File:Shukhevych stamp 2007.jpg

Ukrainian postage stamp honoring Roman Shukhevych on 100th anniversary (2007) of his birth

File:Golden Cross 25-UPA.png

Golden Cross "25th anniversary of UPA" of Template:Interlanguage link (1967)

Since 2006, the SBU has been actively involved in declassifying documents relating to the operations of Soviet security services and the history of the liberation movement in Ukraine. The SBU Information Centre provides an opportunity for scholars to get acquainted with electronic copies of archive documents. The documents are arranged by topics (1932–1933 Holodomor, OUN/UPA Activities, Repression in Ukraine, Movement of Dissident).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2007, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) set up a special working group to study archive documents of the activity of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to make public original sources.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On 10 January 2008, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko submitted a draft law "on the official Status of Fighters for Ukraine's Independence from the 1920s to the 1990s". Under the draft, persons who took part in political, guerrilla, underground and combat activities for the freedom and independence of Ukraine from 1920 to 1990 as part of or assisting the Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO), Karpatska Sich, OUN, UPA, and Ukrainian Main Liberation Army would be recognised as war veterans.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Since September 2009, Ukrainian schoolchildren take a more extensive course of the history of the Holodomor and the fighters of the OUN and the UPA fighters.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Yushchenko took part in the celebration of the 67th anniversary of the UPA and the 65th anniversary of Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council on 14 October 2009.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 16 January 2012, the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine upheld the presidential decree of 28 January 2010 "About recognition of OUN members and soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army as participants in the struggle for independence of Ukraine" after it was challenged by the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Nataliya Vitrenko, recognising the UPA as war combatants.<ref>Historic Pravda. 2013-2-5</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On 10 October 2014, the date of 14 October as Defenders of Ukraine Day was confirmed by Presidential decree, officially granting state sanction to the date of the anniversary of the raising of the Insurgent Army, which has been celebrated in the past by Ukrainian Cossacks as the Feast of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary.Template:Citation needed The date would be moved to 1 October in 2023 with the move of all Orthodox fixed solemnities to the Revised Julian Calendar, but minor commemorations on the 14th continue as usual it was the date in 1942 wherein the UIA was founded.

On 15 May 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a bill into law "On the legal status and commemoration of the fighters for the independence of Ukraine in the 20th century", including Ukrainian Insurgent Army combatants.<ref name="decommuUPA">Poroshenko signed the laws about decomunization. Ukrayinska Pravda. 15 May 2015</ref> In June 2017, the Kyiv City Council renamed the city's General Vatutin Avenue into Roman Shukhevych Avenue.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> According to Russia's RIA Novosti in 2018, in Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Zhytomyr, the UPA flag may be displayed on government buildings "on certain holidays".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In December 2018, Poroshenko confirmed the status of veterans and combatants for independence of Ukraine for UPA fighters.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 5 March 2021, the Ternopil City Council named the largest stadium in the city of Ternopil after Roman Shukhevych as the Roman Shukhevych Ternopil city stadium.<ref name="ukrweekly"/> On 16 March 2021, the Lviv Oblast Council approved the renaming of their largest stadium after Roman Shukhevych.<ref name="ukrweekly">Template:Cite news</ref>

Popular culture

The Ukrainian black metal band Drudkh recorded a song entitled Ukrainian Insurgent Army on its 2006 release, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (Blood in our wells), dedicated to Stepan Bandera. Ukrainian Neo-Nazi black metal band Nokturnal Mortum have a song titled "Hailed Be the Heroes" ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) on the Weltanschauung/Мировоззрение album which contains lyrics pertaining to World War II and Western Ukraine (Galicia), and its title, Slava Heroyam, is a traditional UPA salute.Template:Citation needed

File:Золотий Хрест Бойової Заслуги УПА.svg

Cross of Combat Merit

Two Czech films by František Vláčil, Shadows of the Hot Summer (Stíny horkého léta, 1977) and The Little Shepherd Boy from the Valley (Pasáček z doliny, 1983) are set in 1947, and feature UPA guerrillas in significant supporting roles. The first film resembles Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971), in that it is about a farmer whose family is taken hostage by five UPA guerrillas, and he has to resort to his own ingenuity, plus reserves of violence that he never knew he possessed, to defeat them. In the second, the shepherd boy (actually a cowherd) imagines that a group of UPA guerrillas is made up of fairytale characters of his grandfather's stories, and that their leader is the Goblin King.Template:Citation needed

Also films such as Neskorenyi ("The Undefeated"), Zalizna Sotnia ("The Company of Heroes") and Atentat ("Assassination. An Autumn Murder in Munich") feature more description about the role of the UPA on their terrain. The Undefeated is about the life of Roman Shukhevych and the hunt for him by both German and Soviet forces, The Company of Heroes shows how UPA soldiers had everyday life as they fight against Armia Krajowa, Assassination is about the life of Stepan Bandera and how KGB agents murdered him.Template:Citation needed

File:The rally on European Square in Kiev on Sunday, November 24, 2013 (cropped).jpg

The rally on European Square in Kyiv, 24 November 2013

File:Headquarters of the Euromaidan revolution.jpg

Headquarters of the Euromaidan. At the front entrance there is a portrait of Stepan Bandera, a 20th-century Ukrainian nationalist.

The red-and-black battle flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a popular symbol among Euromaidan protesters, and the wartime insurgents have acted as a large inspiration for them.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Serhy Yekelchyk of the University of Victoria says the use of UPA imagery and slogans was more of a potent symbol of protest against the current government and Russia rather than adulation for the insurgents themselves, explaining "The reason for the sudden prominence of [UPA symbolism] in Kiev is that it is the strongest possible expression of protest against the pro-Russian orientation of the current government."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Films

• 1951 – Akce B (Czechoslovakia)
• 1961 – The Artillery Sergeant Kalen (Polish People's Republic)
• 1962 – Zerwany most (Polish People's Republic)
• 1968 – Annychka (USSR)
• 1970 – The White Bird Marked with Black (USSR)
• 1976 – The Troubled Month of Veresen (USSR)
• 1977 – Shadows of the Hot Summer (Czechoslovakia)
• 1983 – The Little Shepherd Boy from the Valley (Czechoslovakia)
• 1991 – The Last Bunker (Ukraine)
• 1991 – Carpathian Gold (Ukraine)
• 1992 – Cherry Nights (Ukraine)
• 1993 – Memories about UPA (Ukraine)
• 1994 – Goodbye, Girl (Ukraine)
• 1995 – Assassination. An Autumn Murder in Munich (Ukraine)
• 1995 – Executed Dawns<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> (Ukraine)

• 2000 – The Undefeated (Ukraine)
• 2004 – One – the soldier in the field (Ukraine)
• 2004 – The Company of Heroes (Ukraine)
• 2004 – Between Hitler and Stalin (Canada)
• 2006 – Sobor on the Blood (Ukraine)
• 2006 – OUN – UPA war on two fronts (Ukraine)
• 2006 – Freedom or death! (Ukraine)
• 2007 – UPA. Third Force (Ukraine)
• 2010 – We are from the Future 2 (Russia)
• 2010 – Banderovci (Czech Republic)
• 2012 – Security Service of OUN. "Closed Doors" (Ukraine)
• 2016 – Wołyń (Poland)

Fiction

• Fire Poles ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) by Roman Ivanchuk, 2006.

Songs

The most obvious characteristic of the insurgent songs genre is the theme of rising up against occupying powers, enslavement and tyranny. Insurgent songs express an open call to battle and to revenge against the enemies of Ukraine, as well as love for the country and devotion to her revolutionary leaders (Bandera, Chuprynka and others). UPA actions, heroic deeds of individual soldiers, the hard underground life, longing for one's girl, family or boy are also important subject of this genre.<ref>Zenon Lavryshyn. Songs of the UPA. Toronto: Litopys UPA, 1996, p. 19</ref>

• Taras Zhytynsky "To sons of UPA"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>

• Tartak "Not saying to anybody"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Folk song "To the source of Dniester"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>

• Drudkh – "Ukrainian Insurgent Army"<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}Template:Cbignore</ref>

See also

• Banderite
• Defenders Day (Ukraine)
• Galicia (Eastern Europe)
• List of Nazi monuments in Canada
• Zakerzonia

References

Books

English Template:Refbegin

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• Jeffrey Burds (1997). "Agentura: Soviet Informants' Networks & the Ukrainian Underground in Galicia, 1944–48", East European Politics and Societies v. 11
• Volodymyr Viatrovych, Roman Hrytskiv, Ihor Derevianyj, Ruslan Zabilyj, Andrij Sova, Petro Sodol'. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army: A History of Ukraine's Unvanquished Freedom Fighters (exhibition brochure). Lviv 2009.

• Template:Cite journal

Ukrainian Template:Refbegin

• Антонюк Ярослав Діяльність СБ ОУН на Волині. – Луцьк : "Волинська книга", 2007. – 176 с.
• Антонюк Ярослав Діяльність СБ ОУН(б) на Волині та Західному Поліссі (1946–1951 рр.) : Монографія. – Луцьк:"Надстир'я-Ключі", 2013. – 228 с.
• УПА розпочинає активні протинімецькі дії (UIA Start the Active anti-German actions) (За матеріалами звіту робочої групи істориків Інституту історії НАН України під керівництвом проф. Станіслава Кульчицького)
• Володимир В'ятрович, Ігор Дерев'яний, Руслан Забілий, Петро Солодь. Українська Повстанська Армія. Історія Нескорених. Третє видання. Львів (2011). Template:ISBN.
• Петро Мірчук. Українська Повстанська Армія 1942–1952. Львів 1991. Template:ISBN.
• Юрій Киричук. Історія УПА. Тернопіль 1991.
• С.Ф. Хмель. Українська партизанка. Львів 1993.
• Іван Йовик. Нескорена армія. Київ 1995. Template:ISBN.
• Анатоль Бедрій. ОУН і УПА. New York – London – Munich – Toronto. 1983.
• Litopys Online. The website of the chronicles of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Various works.
• В´ятрович В. М. Друга польсько-українська війна. 1942–1947. – Вид. 2-е, доп. – К.: Вид. дім "Києво-Могилянська академія", 2012. – 368 с.

Polish Template:Refbegin

• Wołodymyr Wiatrowycz, Druga wojna polsko-ukraińska 1942–1947, Warszawa 2013, Template:ISBN
• Za to że jesteś Ukraińcem ... : wspomnienia z lat 1944–1947 / wybór, oprac., wstęp i posłowie Bogdan Huk. Koszalin [etc.] : Stowarzyszenie Ukraińców Więźniów Politycznych i Represjonowanych w Polsce, 2012. 400 s. : il.; 23 cm. Template:ISBN
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• Kresowa księga sprawiedliwych 1939–1945 Template:Webarchive

External links

• Electronic archive of ukrainian liberation movement
• UPA – Ukrainian Insurgent Army Template:Webarchive
• Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• Chronicle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
• ОУН-УПА. Легенда Спротиву. Template:Webarchive Template:In lang
• Postcards of Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Kyiv-Toronto, 2008.