Ukrainian Insurgent Army

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UPA appeal poster. Written in Ukrainian on two horizontal lines Glory to Ukraine. Glory to (her) Heroes

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army ([Українська Повстанська Армія, Ukrayins’ka Povstans’ka Armiya, UPA] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) was a Ukrainian guerrilla army formed on October 14, 1942, in Volhynia. The UPA was the military branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The main goal of the UPA was an independent Ukraine. Its leaders were Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera.

The UPA fought a broad spectrum of military forces in the area: the German Wehrmacht, the Polish Armia Krajowa and the Soviet Red Army. After World War II, UPA partisan units continued fighting the Soviet Union and communist Poland until the early 1950s, especially in Carpathian Mountains regions. It was unique among practically all resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe in that it had no significant foreign support, making its growth and strength an indication of its popularity among the Ukrainian people.

UPA's struggle against Germany

UPA was formed in late 1942 for three reasons: in order to serve as a foundation for a Ukrainian army; in response to the needs of defenceless Ukrainian villagers who demanded protection against German repression; and in order to prevent communist Soviet partisans who had begun penetrating into northwestern Ukraine from assuming the role of the people's protector. During this struggle it grew in size and its activities increased in scope to cover much of western Ukraine, and were able to send small groups of raiders deep into eastern Ukraine. German estimates stated that UPA had up to 100,000 soldiers (other estimates are as low as 35,000 and as high as 200,000), and they conducted hundreds of raids on German police stations and military convoys. By late 1943 and early 1944, UPA controlled much of the territory in Volyn outside of the major cities, and was able to organize basic services for the villagers such as schools, hospitals, and the printing of newspapers. In the region of Zhitomir, for example, Ukrainian UIA fighters were estimated by the German General-Kommissar Leyser to be in control of 80% of the forests and 60% of the farmland.

In June 1943 German forces under the command of General von dem Bach-Zaleski attempted to destroy UPA-North in Volyn during Operation "BB" (Bandenbekampfung). He was chosen specifically by Himmler to destroy UPA in this operation. During Operation "BB" Bach-zaleski had under his command 10 battalions of motorized SS troops, 10,000 German and Polish police, 2 regiments of the Hungarian army, and three battalions of Cossacks organized from among Soviet POWs. By August, this operation proved to be a military failure. During this struggle, on July 29-30 UPA captured the military center of Kamin Koshyrsky, defeating several German battalions and capturing large quantities of arms and ammunition. The German forces failed to destroy UPA or to establish control over the Volyn countryside, and was forced to disengage with the approach of the Soviet army.

The Carpathian mountains saw some of the heaviest fighting between UPA and German forces in late 1943 and early 1944, as the UPA struggled to maintain control over several of the mountain passes. In November 1943, UPA battle groups Black Forest and Makivka defeated 12 German battalions supported by the German air force, in a battle over control of UPA-held territory. In May and July 1944, two more attempts by the Germans to capture Carpathian mountain passes were repulsed. The latter victory involved the defeat of two German divisions supported by artillery. On July 26, 1944, near the village of Nedilna, the UPA defeated another German division, and captured its entire supply column, including many officers and soldiers.

In a debriefing before U.S. authorities in 1948, a Committee of former German commanders on the Eastern front claimed that "the Ukrainian Nationalist movement formed the strongest partisan movement in the East, with the exception of the Russian Communists."

UPA's struggle against Soviet forces

UPA's struggle against Soviet forces began when they encountered Soviet partisans in late 1942 and early 1943. In early 1943, the famous Communist partisan leader Sydir Kovpak established himself in Ukraine and in the summer of 1943, well-armed with supplies delivered to secret airfields and with several thousand soldiers (only one third of whom were ethnic Ukrainians), launched a raid deep into the Carpathians. Attacks by the German air force and military forced Kovpak to break up his force into smaller units, which were mostly destroyed by UPA in the Carpathian mountains. During this time, famous Soviet intelligence agent Nikolai Kuznetsov was captured and executed by UPA.

UPA began fighting Soviet military units when they appeared on its territory as the Soviet Army advanced into western Ukraine. UPA tried to avoid clashes with the regular units of the Soviet military because many of them were ethnic Ukrainians and were seen as a source of recruits into UPA. Instead, UPA focused its energy on NKVD units and Soviet officials of all levels, from high rank NKVD and military officers to the school teachers and postal workers attempting to establish Soviet control over Ukraine after the front line had passed. UPA also disrupted Soviet efforts at collectivization. In March 1944, UPA insurgents ambushed and killed Nikolai Vatutin, the famous commander of the Battle of Kursk, who led the liberation of Kiev. Several weeks later an NKVD battalion was annihilated by UPA near Rivne, beginning the full-scale struggle in the summer of 1944, involving 30,000 Soviet troops against UPA in Volyn that, despite heavy casualties on both sides, was inconclusive. As late as summer 1945, many battalion-size UPA units continued to control and administer large areas of territory in western Ukraine.

In November 1944, Khrushchev launched the first of several large-scale Soviet assaults on UPA throughout western Ukraine, involving at least 20 NKVD combat divisions supported by artillery and armored units. They blockaded villages and roads and set parts of the forests on fire; NKVD units dressed as UPA soldiers and committed atrocities in order to demoralize the civilian population. Areas of UPA activity were depopulated. An estimated 500,000 Ukrainians were sent to the North between 1946 and 1949. Although the Soviets failed to wipe out UPA, heavy casualties forced UPA to split into small units consisting of 100 soldiers, and many of the troops demobilized and returned home. For this reason, by 1946, UPA was reduced to a a core group of 5-10 thousand fighters, and large-scale UPA activity shifted to the Soviet-Polish border, where in 1947 they have been accused of killing general Karol Świerczewski. During the latter phase of its struggle, UPA obtained help from the CIA and British intelligence, although the operation was betrayed by Kim Philby. Only in 1947-1948 was UPA resistance broken enough to allow the Soviets to implement large-scale collectivization throughout western Ukraine. Sporadic UPA raids continued until the mid 1950's, and UPA's leader, general Roman Shukhevych, was killed in an ambush near Lviv in March 1950.

Metropolitan Oleksiy (Hromadsky) of the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church was also killed by UPA insurgents, as was pro-Soviet writer Yaroslav Halan.

UPA and the destruction of Western Ukraine's Polish community

The UPA's activities are sometimes seen as a response to actions of the inter-war Polish government, which sought to limit the number of Ukrainian institutions and to settle Ukrainian regions with Poles through colonization efforts. The anti-Ukrainian measures of the Polish government were mostly limited to cultural suppression, such as closing Ukrainian language schools and shutting down Ukrainian churches and were not comparable in their scope nor brutality to the actions of UPA during the war.

The UPA strove to remove Poles from areas that it regarded as indigenously Ukrainian and often succeeded. Often such methods involved large-scale terrorism. Some estimates have put the Polish death toll between 35,000 and 60,000 in Volhynia alone with Ukrainian figures being smaller. Many historians use the term genocide or ethnic cleansing to denote the events; some estimates of all Polish dead in Ukraine run as high as 100,000 or even 500,000. Many more Poles left the area because of the UPA terror. No accurate figure on the number of losses on either side is agreed upon, nor are estimates tendered by either side without their detractors.

It should be noted that the Polish side also engaged in acts of brutality and vengeance. Although the exact number of Ukrainian victims is not documented, some claim that retaliation actions of Home Army forces resulted in the deaths of as many as 20,000 Ukrainian civilians in Volhynia alone, and more in other areas.

UPA and Western Ukraine's Jews

In contrast to the well established links between UPA and atrocities committed on Polish civilians, there is a lack of consensus among historians about the involvement of UPA in the massacre of western Ukraine's Jews. Numerous accounts ascribe to UPA a role in the tragic fate of the Ukrainian Jews under the German occupation Other historians, however, do not support the claims that UPA was involved in anti-Jewish massacres. [1]

It has proven to be difficult to ascribe the particular numbers of Jews killed specifically by UPA, as Ukrainian military and paramilitary forces fought under different organizations such as the Ukrainian Auxilary Police, the Bandera SB (the much feared "Security Services"), UPA itself as well as militants without affiliation although many men switched between forces. The Second General Congress of OUN-B (April, 1941, Krakow) held when the the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, the political force behind UPA, had been in alliance with Nazi Germany declared the "Jews of the USSR [are] the most faithful supporters of the Bolshevik regime and the vanguard of the Muscovite imperialism in the Ukraine." Not long afterward, a slogan put forth by the Bandera group and recorded in the July 16, 1941 Einsatzgruppen report stated: "Long live Ukraine without Jews, Poles and Germans; Poles behind the river San, Germans to Berlin, and Jews to the gallows". However, by the time of UPA's formation over a year later, the OUN was at war against Germany and its stance towards some national minorities had been affected. By 1944, it formally "rejected racial and ethnic exclusivity"

One should distinguish between the driving force of the anti-Jewish actions perpetrated by the Ukrainian nationalists from the racial theories professed by the Nazis in their "Final solution" of the Jewish question. Ukrainian nationalists' main goal was not the extermination of Jews in itself but the drive towards the largely mono-ethnic independent Ukrainian state where minorities would be tolerated provided their acceptance of the overall Ukrainian domination. As such, it did not generally target Jews who were not seen as a threat to Ukrainian statehood. In the previous unsuccessful Ukrainian attempt to establish a Ukrainian state in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia (Western Ukrainian People's Republic) many Jews saw Ukrainian statehood in the territory as less dangerous to them than the Polish one which resulted in the history of the Ukrainian-Jewish cooperation in the area. As a result, there were cases of Jewish participation within the UPA, particularly among its medical personnel. These included Dr. Margosh, who headed UPA-West's medical service, Dr. Marksymovich, who was the Chief Physician of the UPA's officer school, and Dr. Abraham Kum, the director of an underground hospital in the Carpathians. The latter individual was the recipient of UPA's Golden Cross of Merit. Isolated reports of the Jewish families being sheltered by UPA have also surfaced. One can conclude that the relationship between UPA and Western Ukraine's Jews was complex and not one-sided.

Aftermath

During the Soviet years, UPA was officially mentioned only in negative terms, and was considered to have been a terrorist organization. After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, former UPA members struggled for official recognition as legitimate combatants, with the accompanying pensions and benefits due to war veterans. They have also striven to hold parades and commemorations of their own, especially in Western Ukraine. This, in turn, led to opposition from the Ukrainian veterans of the Soviet Army, and disapproval from the Russian government too. So far the attempts to reconcile the two groups of veterans have made little progress. An attempt to hold a joint parade in Kiev in May, 2005, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, proved unsuccessful. The assessment of the historical role of UPA remains a controversial issue in Ukrainian society, although Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko joined several public Ukrainian organizations in calls for reconciliation, pensions, and other benefits for UPA veterans that would equate them in status with the veterans of the Soviet Army, and aid the understanding of their role in the chaotic times of UPA operations.[2]

Recently, attempts to reconcile former Armia Krajowa and UPA soldiers have been made by both the Ukrainian and Polish sides. Individual former members UPA have expressed their readiness for mutual apology. Some of the past soldiers of both organisations have met and asked for forgiveness for the past misdeeds.[3] Restoration of graves and cemeteries in Poland, where fallen UPA soldiers were placed have been agreed to by the Polish side.[4]

In late 2006 the Lviv city administration announced the future transference of the tombs of Stepan Bandera, Yevhen Konovalets, Andriy Melnyk and other key leaders of OUN/UPA to a new area of Lychakivskiy Cemetery specifically dedicated to Ukrainian nationalists.[5]

See also

• Massacre of Poles in Volhynia
• 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien (1st Ukrainian)
• Galicia (Central Europe)
• Operation Wisła
• Ukrainian Military Organization, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists

References

1. Subtelny, Orest (1988). Ukraine: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5809-6.
2. Davies, Norman (2005). God's playground : a history of Poland : in two volumes, Vol. 2, Chapter 19. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925340-4.
3. Sowa, Andrzej (1998). Stosunki polsko-ukraińskie 1939-1947. Kraków. ISBN 83-90931-5-8 .{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Template:Pl icon
4. 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) Template:Uk icon
5. Documents on Ukrainian Polish Reconciliation

External links

• UPA - Ukrainian Insurgent Army
• Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Encyclopedia of Ukraine
• Chronicle of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army