Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiya: The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Part 1: The History (1942−1949)

Above photo: Hungarian occupation troops in Ukraine.

In 1944, the Hungarians, even though they were technically German "allies", fearing the Soviet advances towards Hungary, reached a secret agreement with the UPA, "The Treaty of Nonaggression and Mutual Assistance." Both sides agreed to cease hostile activities against each other and the Hungarians agreed to supply the UPA with weapons and other supplies. In 1945, the UPA concluded a similar agreement with the Armia Krajowa to jointly fight the Red Army and the new communist government of Poland. (Source: Trys-Krokhmaliuk, Yuriy. Pages 42 - 43.)

In late 1944, the Soviets mounted a second, considerably larger offensive consisting of twenty infantry divisions supported by tanks and artillery. By the spring of 1945, despite fierce resistance, the UPA had been effectively crushed, an estimated 90,000 UPA fighters were killed and a comparable number had been captured. While the Soviets claimed (?) they lost "only" 12,000 troops in the campaign they were again in control of western Ukraine. To further pacify the region, Moscow arrested and deported as many as a half a million Ukrainians to the gulag camps in Siberia between 1944 and 1946.

During, and after WWII, the Soviets began a propaganda campaign, which continues to the present day, against the UPA claiming they collaborated with the Nazis. While some collaboration against Soviet partisans occurred, it was rare and short term and during the German occupation the UPA directed most of their energies against the police and Waffen SS units.

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 Bezbeky (SB), the anti-espionage wing of the UPA. The UPA also proved to be especially adept at assassinating key Soviet administrative officials. According to KNVD records, between February 1944 and December 1946, 11,725 Soviet officers, agents and collaborators were assassinated and 2,401 were "missing" or were presumed kidnapped, in western Ukraine.

After the end of WWII, the UPA continued to fight against the communist Polish Peoples' Army (Ludowe Wojsko Polskie) and Soviets until 1949. It was particularly strong in the Carpathian mountains, Galicia and Volhynia, all in western Ukraine. UPA fighters constructed extensive networks of underground bunkers including storage, communication and hospital facilities, which were skillfully camouflaged and very difficult for Soviet forces to recognize.

In April of 1947, a combined Soviet, Polish and Czech campaign, Operation Vistula (Polish: Akcja Wisla) resulted in the deaths and forced resettlement of more than 100,000 members of the Ukrainian minority from the southeastern provinces of post-war Poland to lands on the East German border in the west of the country. The action was carried out with the aim of removing material support and assistance to the UPA.

By the late 1940s, the mortality rate for Soviet troops fighting Ukrainian insurgents in all western Ukraine was higher than the mortality rate of Soviet troops during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Between February 1943 and May 1945, unlike most resistance movements, the UPA had no significant foreign support. Its growth and strength were a reflection of the popularity it enjoyed among the people of western Ukraine. Outside of western Ukraine, support was not significant, and the majority of the Eastern Ukrainian population considered the OUN/UPA to have collaborated with the Germans, a viewpoint that the Soviets encouraged.

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.

Soviet authorities tried to win over the local population by making significant economic investment in western Ukraine^, and by setting up rapid reaction groups in many regions to combat the UPA. NKVD agents infiltrated UPA units while others, disguised as UPA fighters, committed atrocities against the civilian population in order to discredit the UPA. According to the Soviets, "By 1948 ideologically we had the support of most of the population."

The UPA's leader, Roman Shukhevych was killed by NKVD troops on March 5, 1950. Although sporadic UPA activity continued until the mid-1950s, after Shukhevych's death the UPA rapidly lost its fighting capability. (Note: According to some sources members of the UPA underground continued to be active into the early 1960s.)

The UPA's Sian Division, which operated in Ukrainian ethnic territories that were annexed by Poland after 1944, defended the Ukrainian population from forced deportations to the USSR in 1945 and 1946. After reaching an understanding with the Armia Krajowa the two conducted several joint operations against communist Polish security forces.

An assessment of UPA manpower by Soviet authorities in April 1952 claimed that UPA/OUN had only 84 fighting units consisting of 252 persons. The UPA's last commander, Vasyl Kuk was captured in May 1954. Despite the existence of some insurgent groups, according to a report by the Ukrainian SSR, the "...liquidation of armed units and OUN underground was accomplished by the beginning of 1956."

In continuing their struggle in western Ukraine after the war, the UPA were not alone in fighting the Soviets in Central and Eastern Europe. Remnants of the Armia Krajowa were active until 1947, refusing to accept the communist government established by Moscow while Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian anti-communist “forest brothers” guerillas - Estonian: metsavennad; Latvian: mežabrali; Lithuanian: miško broliai - were active in the Baltic states until the 1950s.

In the post-WWII years, in the USSR, the UPA was mentioned only as a terrorist organization, although there were still some small units reported to have been active until as late as the early 1960s. Since Ukraine's independence in 1991, there was heated debates about the official recognition to former UPA members as legitimate combatants, with the accompanying pensions and benefits due to war veterans. This led to opposition from Red Army veterans and some Ukrainian politicians.

In March 2019, former members of the UPA 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 and would receive the same benefits as former Ukrainian soldiers who served in the Red Army.

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I would like to thank the following for providing materials used to prepare this historical report: Illya Labunka, Editor Vincent L. (Danylyk) DeNiro, Dr. Ihor Homziak and the "LITOPYS UPA" Publishing Company Archives, Lviv, Ukraine.