To begin with, a short educational program - based on materials from Wikipedia and slovari.yandex.ru:

Stepan Andreevich Bandera (Ukrainian Stepan Andriyovich Bandera) (January 1, 1909 - October 15, 1959) - one of the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Eastern Poland (Galicia), Hero of Ukraine (2010), in 1941-1959 the head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN (b)) ...

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) - a terrorist organization of a nationalist persuasion that operated in the western regions of Ukraine in the 20-50s. XX century It emerged in 1929 as the "Ukrainian Military Organization" (UVO), then changed its name. The founder and first leader of the OUN was Evgen Konovalets, a former colonel of the Austro-Hungarian army. During the Revolution of 1917 and Civil War he actively participated in the nationalist movement in Ukraine together with S. Petliura. At one time he served as the military commandant of Kiev. The ideological platform of the OUN was the concept of radical Ukrainian nationalism, characterized by chauvinism and xenophobia, which had a pronounced anti-Russian orientation and focused on the use of extremist means to achieve the set goal - the creation of an "independent", "independent" Ukraine.

After the Red Army entered the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in September 1939, the OUN, in cooperation with German intelligence agencies, began a struggle against Soviet power. The preservation of the influence of the nationalists was largely facilitated by the methods by which the communist regime was implanted in Western Ukrainian lands. Ukrainian nationalists warmly welcomed the attack of fascist Germany on the USSR and from the first days of the war supported the German troops and the occupation authorities. Members of the OUN helped the German fascists in the "final solution of the Jewish question", that is, the extermination and deportation of Jews in the occupied territories, served in the occupation administration and the police. Even when it became finally clear that Hitler would not grant Ukraine any semblance of "independence", the nationalists did not stop cooperating with the Nazis. With their active support, the SS Galicia division was formed.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) is an armed formation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

It operated from the spring of 1943 on the territories that were part of the General Government (Galicia - from the end of 1943, Kholmshchina - from the fall of 1943), the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volyn - from the end of March 1943), and the Romanian Transnistria (Transnistria) (Northern Bukovina - from summer 1944), which until 1939-1940 were part of Poland and Romania.

In 1943-44. UPA detachments carried out ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in Western Volyn, in the Kholmsk region and in Eastern Galicia.

In 1943-1944 units of the UPA acted against Soviet partisans and units of the Polish underground (both communist and subordinate to the London government, that is, the Home Army).

But about the crimes of the UPA.

UPA was created on October 14, 1942 by the decision of the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). It was headed by Roman Shukhevych, a holder of two orders of knighthood of Nazi Germany. President Yushchenko declared him a hero of Ukraine, and from the UPA itself he is trying to present as a belligerent during the Second World War.

Meanwhile, there is not a single document indicating that the UPA units fought with large Wehrmacht forces. But there are more than enough documents on joint actions of Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis. And even more documents tell about the atrocities committed by the "national hero" Roman Shukhevych and his brothers in arms.

It is known for certain that the published newspaper "Surma", bulletins and other nationalist literature were published in Germany. Some of the nationalist literature was illegally published in Lvov and other cities of Western Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry recently published documents. Here are some of them:

The head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR Pavel Sudoplatov, in a message dated December 5, 1942, testifies: “Ukrainian nationalists, who were previously underground, met the Germans with bread and salt and provided them with all kinds of assistance. The German occupiers widely used nationalists to organize the so-called "new order" in the occupied regions of the Ukrainian SSR.

From the protocol of interrogation of Ivan Tikhonovich Kutkovets, an active Bandera member. February 1, 1944:
“Despite the fact that, at the behest of the Germans, Bandera proclaimed an“ independent ”Ukraine, but the Germans dragged out the issue of creating a national Ukrainian government ... It was not profitable for the Germans to create a Ukrainian national government, they“ conquered ”Ukraine and considered it an eastern colony of the“ Third Empire ”and power over They did not want to share Ukraine with Bandera and they removed this rival. In addition, at this time, the Ukrainian police, created by the OUN, carried an active security service in the rear of the German army to fight partisans, to detain Soviet paratroopers and were looking for Soviet party activists. "

Also noteworthy is the circular "On the treatment of UPA members" issued on 12.2.44 by the so-called Prützmann battle group. It is clear from it how the UPA "fought" with the Germans a year and a half after its creation:

“The negotiations that began in the Derazhnya region with the leaders of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army are now continuing in the Verba region. We agreed: members of the UPA will not attack German military units. The UPA is currently sending scouts, mostly girls, to enemy-occupied territory and reporting the results to a representative of the combat group's reconnaissance department. The captured Red Army soldiers, as well as captured persons who are in Soviet gangs, will be delivered to a representative of the intelligence department for interrogation, and the alien element will be transferred to the combat group for assignment to various work. In order not to interfere with this cooperation, which is necessary for us, it is ordered:

1. Agents of the UPA who have certificates signed by a certain "Captain Felix", or pretend to be members of the UPA, let them through without hindrance, leave the weapons to them. On demand, agents should be immediately brought to the 1st (representative of the reconnaissance department) combat group.

2. Units of the UPA, when meeting with German units for identification, raise their left spread hand to their face, in which case they will not be attacked, but this can happen if fire is opened from the opposite side ...

Signed: Brenner, Major General and SS - Brigadenfuehrer. "

Another "heroic" stage in the history of the Ukrainian nationalists and personally of the UPA commander Roman Shukhevych is the fight against Belarusian partisans. Historian S.I. Drobyazko in his book “Under the Banners of the Enemy. Anti-Soviet formations in the German armed forces ”writes that in 1941 on the territory of Belarus the first Ukrainian police battalions were already formed from Red Army prisoners of war.
“Most of the Ukrainian auxiliary police battalions carried a guard service on the territory of the Reichskommissariat, others were used in anti-partisan operations - mainly in Belarus, where, in addition to the battalions already created here, a number of units were sent from Ukraine, including 101, 102, 109, 115, 118 , 136th, 137th and 201st battalions.

Their actions, like the actions of other similar units involved in punitive actions, were associated with numerous war crimes against the civilian population. The most famous of which was the participation of the company of the 118th battalion under the command of cornet V. Meleshko in the destruction of the village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943, when 149 civilians were killed, half of whom were children, ”he writes.

And now - a word to the Bandera people themselves. Here is what was published in 1991 in No. 8 of Vizvolniy Shlyakh, which came out in London:
“In Belarus, the 201st Ukrainian battalion was not concentrated in one place. His soldiers in couples and hundreds were scattered across different strongholds…. After arriving in Belarus, the kuren was tasked with guarding the bridges on the Berezina and Western Dvina rivers. The departments stationed in the settlements were charged with the duty of protecting the German administration. In addition, they had to constantly comb through forests, identify and destroy partisan bases and camps, ”writes M. Kalba from Bandera in this edition.

“Each hundred guarded the square assigned to it. The third hundred of Lieutenant Sidor were in the south of the zone of responsibility ukrainian battalion, 1st hundred of ROMAN SHUKHEVICH - in the center ... Pursuing partisans in unfamiliar territory, the soldiers fell into an enemy ambush and were blown up by mines ... The battalion spent nine months on the "partisan front" and gained invaluable combat experience in this struggle. According to rough estimates, the legionnaires killed more than two thousand Soviet partisans, ”he notes.

As they say, no comment. Even the Bandera members themselves point out directly what the “national hero” Shukhevych was doing in Belarus. For which Ukraine he fought against the brotherly Belarusian people - we can only guess.

Finally, in 1943-1944. UPA detachments in Volyn and Galicia exterminated over 100 thousand Poles. The Polish edition "Na Rubieїy" (No. 35, 1999), published by the "Volyn" foundation, describes 135 methods of torture and atrocities that UPA soldiers used against the Polish civilian population, including children.

Here are just a few of these barbarities:
001. Driving a large and thick nail into the skull of the head.
002. Stripping the hair off the scalp (scalping).
003. Striking the head with the butt of an ax ...
005. Carving on the forehead "eagle" (Polish coat of arms) ...
006. Driving a bayonet into the temple of the head. ..
012. Piercing children with stakes through and through.
016. Cutting the throat….
022. Mouth gagging with tow when transporting still living victims ...
023. Cutting the neck with a knife or sickle….
024. Striking with an ax to the neck ...
039. Breast cutting for women with sickle.
040. Cutting off women's breasts and sprinkling wounds with salt.
041. Cutting off the genitals of male victims with a sickle.
042. Sawing the body in half with a carpenter's saw.
043. Application of stab wounds to the abdomen with a knife or bayonet.
044. Piercing the belly of a pregnant woman with a bayonet.
045. Cutting the abdomen and pulling out the intestines in adults ...
069. Sawing the body, lined with boards on both sides, in half with a carpenter's saw ...
070. Sawing the body in half with a special saw.
079. Nailing a small child's tongue to the table with a knife, which later hung on it….
080. Cutting a child into pieces with a knife and throwing them around ...
090. Hanging a monk by the legs near the pulpit in the church.
091. Landing the child on the count.
092. Hanging a woman upside down on a tree and mocking her - cutting off the breast and tongue, cutting the abdomen, gouging out the eyes, and also cutting off pieces of the body with knives ...
109. Breaking the torso with chains ...
126. Cutting off the skin from the face with blades ...
133. Nailing hands to the threshold of the dwelling ...
135. Dragging the body on the ground by the legs tied with a rope.
We will only add that the list of UPA crimes is by no means limited to this. Their victims were Russians, Czechs, Jews, but most of all ... the Ukrainians themselves, who did not actively cooperate with them.

a story about women prisoners, in the third - about priests trapped behind barbed wire... In this part of the cycle - the stories of Ukrainian nationalists who fell into German camps.

The publication and prepared a special project dedicated to the Ukrainians who went through the Nazi concentration camps. The series of publications is based on materials from the "Triumph of Man" exhibition, which opened on May 8, 2018, on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, near the Main Post Office in Kiev, and was open until August 23. Researchers at the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement, in collaboration with partners, have collected unique materials about people who have passed the hardest trials, but have not lost their human dignity. The first publication presents the history of the creation of concentration camps, information about camp life and order, in the second - a story about women prisonershow they survived and supported each other in detention. In this part of the cycle - the stories of priests who found themselves behind barbed wire.

The publication and the Center for Research on the Liberation Movement have prepared a special project dedicated to the Ukrainians who went through the Nazi concentration camps. The series of publications is based on materials from the exhibition "The Triumph of Man", which opened on May 8, 2018 on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation near the Main Post Office in Kiev, and was open until August 23. Researchers at the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement, in collaboration with partners, have collected unique materials about people who have passed the hardest trials, but have not lost their human dignity. The first publication presents the history of the creation of concentration camps, information about camp life and order. In the second publication of the cycle, there is a story about women who passed cruel tests in concentration camps, the story of their mutual assistance and resistance. Among the prisoners of concentration camps, there were fewer women than men, but their fate was sometimes worse than a man's.

Edition "GORDON" and the Center for Research on the Liberation Movement are launching a special project dedicated to Ukrainians who passed through Nazi concentration camps. This series of publications is based on the materials of the exhibition "The Triumph of Man", which opened on May 8, 2018 on the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation near the Main Post Office in Kiev, and was open until August 23. Researchers at the Center for the Study of the Liberation Movement, in collaboration with partners, have collected unique materials about people who have passed the hardest trials, but have not lost their human dignity, about indifference, a shared crust of bread, about willpower, faith and love, about the victory of hope. In the first publication of the cycle - the history of the creation of concentration camps, information about the camp life and order.

Modern Ukraine is fascist, as evidenced by the widely used nationalist slogans of the OUN-UPA: “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes! " Death to the enemies! "

Historical reality

Integration of slogansand OUN symbols into modern Ukrainian realities occurred during the Euromaidan, when Ukrainian society, in the course of its confrontation with the pro-Russian-oriented, corrupt Yanukovych regime, turned to the anti-colonial, national liberation heritage of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Introduced to the Maidan by the modern Ukrainian right, these slogans have acquired new meanings. They finally lost their ultranationalist coloring, and began to appeal not to ethnic, but to civic identity of Ukrainians of all nationalities.

Actually, this turn in the ideology of the OUN took place back in 1943 year, when, under the influence of the multinational composition of the UPA, the nationalist movement finally abandonedethnic their priorities . (Cm.: However, as a result of the bloodthirsty image of the Bandera people widely disseminated by Soviet propaganda, the latter was deeply rooted in the public consciousness in the post-Soviet space and was often used by politicians for all kinds of manipulations.

The successful penetration of the slogans and symbols of the OUN-UPA into the Ukrainian public space was due to the reasons and driving forces of the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity.

Among the complex of reasons that brought Ukrainians to the main square of the country, one can conditionally single out four ideological components of equal importance:

Liberal (for the European civilizational choice);

Anti-colonial (against the imperialist inclinations of Russia in the form of the "Russian world" and the mentality of the "scoop");

Social (for social justice, against corruption).

In fact, Euromaidan was a national revolution that united all citizens of Ukraine - regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, religious, socio-economic, age and ideological differences - around the common idea of \u200b\u200ba decent life in their country - Ukraine.

Attempts to ascribe to Euromaidan any one political / ideological coloring do not stand up to criticism at the level of all today's attempts at scientific analysis. The consolidation of Ukrainian citizens was based on a common worldview, not ideology.

The fact that the nationalist symbols and slogans of the Euromaidan correlate with the democratic platform of the OUN in 1943 is important for the correct assessment of the value orientations of the Euromaidan, its anti-colonial / national liberation, democratic orientation.

Attempts to impose on Ukrainian society the ideological attitudes that have existed since Soviet times and are successfully exploited by the Yanukovych regime, based on the opposition “Soviet / Russian-nationalist / Ukrainian”, once again divide Ukraine along the East-West line did not work.

In contrast to Russia, where since 2005 the Kremlin has been consciously pursuing a policy aimed at forming the symbol "", designed to unite Russians around the heroic heritage Russian Empire and the "Great Patriotic War", in Ukraine the adaptation of the OUN-UPA symbols to modern conditions was caused by social demand from below. Faced with the threat of the actual loss of their political rights and freedoms, and, in the long term, independence, the Ukrainian political (and not ethnic) nation appealed to the national liberation / anti-colonial heritage of the Ukrainian nationalist movement.

Understanding of the Ukrainian statehood as the main value for the citizens of Ukraine has led to an increasingly clear definition of the integrating component of Ukrainian political identity and its European civilizational choice, which can be figuratively designated as "Ukraine is the territory of our strength and freedom!"

Traditional nationalist greeting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!" initially appealed to the heroes of the Heavenly Hundred who died on the Maidan, and now to the Ukrainian soldiers who gave and continue to give their lives for the independence of Ukraine in the undeclared Russian-Ukrainian war.

Since "Ukraine is the territory of our strength and freedom!", Then in the face of external aggression, the slogan "Ukraine for a mustache!" ("Ukraine is above all") is only the quintessence of patriotism, and not the slogan of "national exclusivity and superiority."

The “favorite” slogan of Russian propagandists is, of course, “Glory to the nation! Death to the enemies! " It is he who is most conveniently presented as extremely extremist. But, as already noted, the concept of "nation" in the modern Ukrainian socio-political space has primarily political / civil, and not ethnic, meaning and implies all citizens of Ukraine, regardless of their ethnic origin.

Therefore, this slogan is quite comparable in meaning with the Soviet slogan of the Second World War period “ Death to the German occupiers!».

UPA actions against the USSR

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the armed formations of the OUN (b) were actively involved in sabotage and disorganization of the rear, coordinated with the German troops Red army .

In late 1943 - early 1944, with an approach soviet troops (1st Ukrainian Front, 13th and 60th armies) to the areas of operations of the UPA, separate units of the UPA provided them with armed resistance together with German troops.

As the UPA units found themselves in the rear of the Soviet troops, they either crossed the front line or continued attacks on small rear units and individual servicemen of the Red Army; part of the UPA members, following the orders of the leadership, cordially greeted the Red Army in order to dull the vigilance of the Soviet counterintelligence, collected intelligence information about the reserves and the movement of Soviet troops and transferred it to the Department of 1C Army Group "South".

The units of the UPA-North were most active during this period in the Rivne and Volyn regions (in the zone of operations of the 13th Army). From January to February 1944 in the Rivne region, 154 attacks on units and individual servicemen of the Red Army were recorded, as a result of which 439 Soviet servicemen were killed. In a number of cases, the killings were committed with particular cruelty. In total, from January 7 to March 2, 1944, in the zone of operations of the 13th Army, up to 200 attacks by UPA units on small convoys with military equipment and small groups of Red Army soldiers were recorded. As a result of one of these attacks, the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front was wounded and later died. army General Red army ... The reports on the actions of the UPA / OUN looked like this: “On 5.2.1944 the gang attacked the Steshelsk outlet. The sergeant of the railway brigade of the Red Army was killed, the bandits took 9 girls into the forest - the spacecraft servicemen. In 1944 an ambulance train was blown up in the Rivne region, 40 nurses were taken into the forest. In with. Ivanovtsy in Stanislavshchina, a hundred of the UPA "Spartan" shot 30 soldiers of the NKVD railway regiment. " The UPA adhered to this tactic until March 1944. In April-May 1944, the nature of its actions changed dramatically. The reason for this was the preparation of the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front for an offensive against the German troops. The leadership of the OUN instructed the commander of the "Southern Group" of the UPA ("Zagrava-Turov") Aeneas to disrupt this preparation - to disable the main railways and highways, prevent their restoration and begin active operations against the Red Army.

The UPA organized a number of sabotage of communications, and in the north of the Ternopil region there were open armed demonstrations, which were suppressed by the forces of the active units of the Red Army and the NKVD troops. During the clashes, the UPA-Yug units suffered significant losses, in connection with which the GK (Golovna Command) of the UPA disbanded the UPA-Yug and included the surviving units in the UPA-West and the UPA-North, and also changed tactics - “... do not show any activity , do not enter into clashes with the troops, keep and continue to train personnel, create sabotage and terrorist groups for the subsequent fight against Soviet power. "

Only after the advance of Soviet troops to the West and the withdrawal of front-line units from the western regions of Ukraine in July-August 1944 did the UPA resume active operations. In addition to ambushes on highways, firing at cars and killing individual servicemen, attacks on military depots and sabotage of communications, the actions of the OUN-UPA were also aimed at disrupting the mobilization campaign and the supply of food for the Red Army. Separate military units were also attacked - so on August 18, 1944, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe village of Syulko-Bozhikuv, Podhaetsky district, Ternopil region, the 1st battalion of the 1331th rifle regiment, which was going to the front line, was fired at from mortars and machine guns, as a result of which it suffered significant losses. VNOS posts were destroyed.

Units of the UPA carried out attacks on regional centers in order to divert additional military units for their protection.

In the documents of the OUN-UPA, these actions are characterized as follows: “In all places, the mass liquidation of the Red Army began ... taking into account the composition of the army - some Russians and almost all Komsomol members” (OUN information report from Stanislav (Ivano-Frankivsk) region; “10 Bolsheviks taken prisoner All of them were not Ukrainians, but some were Komsomol members. The prisoners were liquidated. "

Sabotage against the communications of the Red Army and attacks on military supplies continued until the end of the war. In total, from the attacks of the UPA and armed members of the OUN (b) and the suppression of armed resistance of other nationalist and bandit formations (UNRA and Melnik's detachments) in 1944, the Red Army suffered the following losses: "killed and hanged" - 157 officers and 1880 soldiers and sergeants, wounded - 74 and 1770, respectively, "missing and taken away into the forest" - 31 and 402. From the beginning of the year to May 1, 1945, 33 officers and 443 soldiers and sergeants were "killed or hanged", 11 officers and 80 soldiers and sergeants disappeared without a trace.

After the liquidation of large armed formations of the UPA in the spring and summer of 1945, attacks by the OUN-UPA on single Red Army servicemen who were on leave or on business trips continued until the end of the 1940s. In total, 3199 servicemen died from the actions of the OUN-UPA in the period from 1944 to 1956 Armed Forces, border and internal troops of the USSR, of which 2844 before May 1, 1945.

UPA and OUN (b) in Poland

Memorial plaque with the names of the victims

The first units of the UPA, which came from Galicia and Volyn, appeared in the southeastern regions of the region in the spring and summer of 1944. Active efforts to develop the OUN (b) network began after the separation of "Zakerzonia" (a term used by the OUN (b) to designate territories lying to the west of the so-called "Curzon Line") into a separate "organizational edge" of the OUN (b) in March 1945 R. Shukhevych appointed Y. Starukh ("Banner") as its leader. P. Fedoriv (“Dalnich”) was appointed to lead the OUN (b) SB in the “region”, the UPA units were headed by M. Onishkevich (“Orest”). In the summer of 1945, another reorganization took place in the structure of the OUN (B), as a result of which the territory where the structures of the OUN (B) were located began to be called VO 6 "Xiang" (Military District "San").

The first task that the UPA was engaged in in the summer of 1945 was the destruction of resettlement commissions, servicemen of the Polish Army and the destruction of villages from which the settlers were evicted to the Ukrainian SSR by method of arson. Polish settlements and civilians were also destroyed.

The attitude of the local population towards the OUN (b) and the UPA, according to the captured reports of the OUN (b), in a number of localities inhabited by Lemkos, was “like people who deserted from the Red Army, somehow guilty before the authorities, and who had no other way out to the forest . " “One is put to our movement with distrust and apprehension ... On the whole, the population does not believe that our movement has any weight and does not believe in the success of our cause.” Also, among the Ukrainians living in Poland, there were also more harsh assessments "in the UPA there are many German police, SS personnel who, saving themselves, involve others in their work." They drew these conclusions by seeing those whom they remembered from the German police and from the stories of "life in the SS and on the German front."

The Polish militia and security forces, which were in the stage of formation, were not able to effectively counter the activity of the UPA and OUN (b). In this regard, a number of areas were virtually outside the control of the Polish civil administration and large units of the UPA (numbering more than 100 armed persons) continued to operate on the territory of the PPR. In the Ukrainian SSR, such formations were eliminated by the summer of 1945. The total number of units of the UPA SB OUN (b) and the OUN (b) network is estimated at up to 6 thousand participants, of which up to 2.5 thousand are only armed members of the UPA.

The final liquidation of the OUN (b) and the UPA on their territory, the Polish authorities began in April 1947, creating for this task force "Vistula". Kurens (battalions) under the leadership of P. Mykolenko - "Baida", "Rena", "Zaliznyak" and "Berkut" and several smaller detachments of the UPA and SB of the OUN (b) operated in the zone of operations of the OG "Vistula". The operation against them was launched on April 19, 1947. The first actions showed the ineffectiveness of using large military formations against small enemy groups. Many of the units that arrived were unfamiliar with the terrain and tactics of the enemy's actions. After the intensification of intelligence activities, actions were launched against the Baida and Rena kurens, as a result of which they (according to the Polish side's estimates) lost up to 80% of their personnel. Their remnants were driven from the territory of the PPR to Czechoslovakia and partially to the USSR. Hundreds (companies) of Zaliznyak kuren were reduced to 15-25 people, one hundred was completely liquidated. At least by July 22, 1947, the smallest kuren "Berkut" suffered, the elimination of which was to be completed by the 3rd Infantry Division.

By July 30, 623 people were killed, 796 were taken prisoner and 56 surrendered voluntarily. They captured 6 mortars, 9 heavy and 119 light machine guns, 4 anti-tank guns, 369 mines and 550 machine guns and carbines. Own sanitary losses amounted to 59 killed and 59 wounded soldiers of the Polish Army. The Internal Security Corps has lost 52 soldiers killed and 14 wounded. Also 152 civilians were killed by the actions of the OUN-UPA. 1582 suspects of belonging to the OUN (b) and UPA networks were also detained.

A special judicial body was created within the framework of the Wisla OG to consider cases of those taken prisoner and detained. Until July 22, 1947, 112 death sentences were imposed on them, 46 were sentenced to imprisonment, and cases against 230 persons were still pending. To contain the suspects, a filtration camp named "Central Labor Camp in Jaworzno" was created. One of the last in it were placed 112 members of the UPA transferred from Czechoslovakia.

The structures of the UPA and OUN (b) in Poland were formally disbanded by R. Shukhevych as “completely lost” at the beginning of autumn 1947. The “commander” of VO 6 “Xiang” M. Onishkevich “Orest”, “Bogdan”, “Bilyi”) himself was taken alive with the archive on March 2, 1948.

Cooperation of the UPA with the Wehrmacht, the German police and the security service (SD)

According to Ivan Kachanovsky, at least 46% of the leaders of the OUN (b) and the UPA in Ukraine served during the Second World War in the police, battalions "Nachtigall" and "Roland", SS Division "Galicia", local administration, or studied in organized by the Germans military and intelligence schools. In particular, at least 23% served in the auxiliary police, the Schutzmannschaft 201 battalion and other police formations, 18% - in the military and intelligence schools in Germany and occupied Poland, 11% - in the battalions "Nachtigall" and "Roland", 8% - in regional and local administrative bodies in Ukraine during the Nazi occupation and 1% - in the SS "Galicia" division. At the same time, at least 27% of the leaders of the OUN (b) and UPA were arrested or interned by the German special services, police or other occupying forces. The number of Nazi collaborators among the leaders of the OUN (b) and the UPA was probably higher than the above estimates, since in many cases there is no information regarding their activities in occupied Ukraine and Poland at the beginning of the war.

The beginning of tactical negotiations and the establishment of ties between the German authorities and the OUN (b) -UPA falls on the end of 1943: at the same time, the actual collapse of the “anti-German front” of the UPA begins. The Tactical Instruction, approved on December 24, 1943, by the leadership of the UPA, indicated that on the anti-German front, the most important current task was to preserve forces and means for the “decisive moment of the struggle”. Only actions in self-defense were allowed. At the same time, cases were indicated when units of the UPA could enter into armed clashes with German troops. These are cases of protecting civilians from pacification , punitive actions, as well as the seizure of weapons and ammunition.

January 29, 1944 Commander of the 13th Army Corps of the Wehrmacht Arthur Hauffe ( german Arthur Hauffe) in his order noted that "the actions of the UPA against the Germans took on a smaller scale" and "in recent days, nationalist gangs were looking for contact with the German troops", and in the case of "reaching an agreement in the negotiations of the latter to conduct battles exclusively against the Red Army, Soviet and Polish partisans "they were allowed to transfer a small amount of weapons and ammunition, while preventing the possibility of its accumulation in large quantities. This approach was approved by the command of the 4th tank army, which included the body. The cooperation of the German command and the UPA is confirmed by the reports of the Soviet partisans. Since February 1944, UPA units, together with units of the 14th Grenadier Division of the SS "Galicia" troops, have been fighting the Soviet and Polish partisans in the Galicia district of the General Government

Fleeing from the terror of the UPA and part of the Ukrainian population (called "rezuny"), the Poles agreed to be sent to labor camps in Germany and sought to move to the districts of the General Government with a predominantly Polish population.

By the beginning of autumn 1943, many districts of the district of Volyn and Podolia of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine had become "ethnically clean" - according to the UPA-SB report for September 1-10, 43 (Mlyniv district), "17 Polish families (58 people) were liquidated during the reporting period ... The area as a whole cleared. Lyakhov are not purebred. The case of mixed families is being considered. "

At the same time, the anti-Polish actions of the UPA spilled over to the territory of the Lublin district of the General Governorship - to Kholmshchina and Podlasie, where, in order to overcome the resistance of the Polish militia, stronger than in Volyn, a number of UPA detachments were transferred from the Volyn and Podolia district of the Ukraine Reichskommissariat.

Units of the 14th Grenadier Division of the SS "Galicia" are also taking part in operations against the Poles. From the beginning of 1944, a large-scale anti-Polish action began in the Galicia district of the General Government. During January-March 1944, Polish settlements ("colonies") were attacked by units of the UPA and units of the 14th Grenadier Division of the SS "Galicia" - 4th and 5th regiments, which were under the authority of the SS and police of the General Government. The most famous joint action of the UPA and the division of the SS Troops "Galicia" was the destruction of the Polish village of Guta Penyatskaya, where more than 500 civilians were killed. According to the Polish side, in the Galicia district in the first half of 1944, about 10 thousand Poles were killed and more than 300 thousand more fled to the inner regions of the General Government.

On July 10, 1944, the commander of the UPA in the Galicia district, Vasil Sidor, ordered "to constantly attack the Poles - until the complete destruction of the last on this earth." late 1944 - early 1945 and ceased on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR only with the mutual exchange of populations between Poland and the Ukrainian SSR 1944-46.

The UPA units operating on the territory of Poland carried out attacks on Poles until the end of the Vistula action in early 1947. The victims of the "retaliation actions" of the UPA were mainly the civilian Polish population, rather than representatives of state structures. In total, according to the historian Norman Davis , from the hands of the UPA killed from 100 to 500 thousand ethnic Poles.

Under the guise of the UPA, attacks on Polish villages to destroy the Polish underground were also carried out by Soviet sabotage detachments (partisans and NKVD units), forcing the Poles to seek contacts with the red partisans, stimulating cooperation with the Soviet authorities, as well as initiating attacks on Ukrainian villages, especially those supporting the UPA or serving as their bases.

And sometimes units of the UPA under the guise of the NKVD and Soviet partisans staged punitive actions.

UPA actions against the Jewish population

A number of papers provide a basic document OUN (b) dated May 1941 - instruction "The struggle and activities of the OUN during the war" which indicated the tasks for the "organizational asset in Ukraine during the war", including "neutralization of the Jews", moreover, "both individually and as a national group" with the exception of assimilation.

Some members of the OUN believed that Jews should be discriminated against and removed from public life:

I. Klimov prepared leaflets of the OUN (B) Regional Wire with anti-Semitic appeals.
“Ukrainian peasant! Ukrainian worker! The land owned by local Jews ... is the property of the Ukrainian nation. Jews are the eternal enemy of the Ukrainian nation. From this day on, no one will go to work for a Jew. Jews must disappear from the Ukrainian land. Whoever goes to work for a Jew will be severely condemned and seriously wounded. Away the Jews "
“Don't let the Jews steal from you,” said a leaflet distributed by OUN members in the village of Korostov, Zdolbunivsky district. - Don't buy from a Jew. Drive the Jew out of the village. Let our slogan be: Away from the Jews "
“Autobiography” of one of the leaders of the OUN (B) Yaroslav Stetsko: “Moscow and Jewry are the main enemies of Ukraine. Therefore, I stand on the position of the destruction of the Jews and the expediency of transferring to Ukraine the German methods of extinction [destruction] of the Jews, excluding their assimilation, etc. "
Y. Stetsko in the first days of the war was directly involved in the creation of the Ukrainian militia to "eliminate the Jews"

According to some Polish historians, Ukrainian nationalists - and personally the future leader UPA Roman Shukhevych - involved in the murders and repressions against the Jewish and Polish population, which began immediately after joining Lviv battalion "Nachtigall".

The involvement of the servicemen of the Ukrainian battalion "Nachtigall" in the repression and murder of civilians during Lviv (and to massacre of Lviv professors in particular) currently remains a controversial issue. A number of works indicate that the pogrom was initiated by German propaganda and it began after the entry of the German occupation forces into Lviv when part of its inhabitants who responded to the incitement of German propaganda July 2 1941 year committed a pogrom of the Jewish population, during which about four thousand people died.

Lviv Jews

It should be noted that accusations against the military personnel of "Nachtigal" were brought forward only in 1959 in connection with the process against Theodore Oberlander , a former officer of this battalion. A court in the GDR sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment. But the trial held in Germany did not find evidence of the crimes of Oberlander and Nachtigal. Nachtigal's war crimes were not mentioned and Nuremberg trials ... It can also be noted that in the criminal cases against the detained soldiers of "Nachtigal", who later occupied command positions in the UPA, the investigation of which took place in 1944-1946, there is no mention of the participation of the "Nachtigal" battalion in war crimes.

OUN-UPA activities in the temporarily occupied territories of the Byelorussian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR

The archives of the Security Service of Ukraine contain a collection of materials on the activities of the OUN underground in the temporarily occupied eastern and southern regions of the Ukrainian SSR. The exact number of documents has not been counted.

In the Luhansk region 12 cases were identified on this issue, in Chernigov - 68, in Poltava - 6, Kiev - 41, Khmelnytsky - over 100 cases. Directly in the Branch State Archives of the SBU in Kiev - more than 300 cases. These are only those materials that were previously identified, and this is not the final number yet. In each of these cases, more than one person is involved - sometimes 10 or 100 people, so we are talking about thousands of underground workers. The names of these people were unknown, classified, and it is not known exactly about them.

Zhytomyr Oblast

In May 1943, the UPA-North Main Team sent a unit of the UPA to a three-month raid on the temporarily occupied Zhytomyr region and the western part of the Kiev region of the Ukrainian SSR. During the raid, the department fought 15 successful battles with German police units and groups of robbers. This department destroyed a German police school near Zhitomir with an outpost of 260 police officers, and not far from the village. Ustinovka , Potievsky district (now - Malinsky district), on July 25 defeated a German military unit, which was specially sent to defeat this special department of the UPA. On the German side, there were more than a hundred killed, wounded and prisoners.

Sumy region

According to the director of the Sumy archive Ivanushchenko, the OUN-UPA operated on the territory of the Sumy region temporarily occupied by German troops.

Crimean ASSR

The first attempts of Ukrainian nationalist organizations to penetrate into Crimea date back to the summer of 1941. All of them are associated with the activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which was the most active during this period. So, at this time in the ranks of the German 11th Army advancing on the Crimea, several so-called OUN marching groups operated. Despite the fact that these groups were nominally part of the larger "Southern marching group of the OUN", in their actions they were completely independent. Their tasks, write modern Ukrainian historians A. Duda and V. Starik, "included the advance along the Black Sea coast up to the Kuban." Throughout their journey, the members of these groups had to propagandize the Ukrainian national idea, and also try to infiltrate the bodies of "local self-government and auxiliary police created by the German occupation authorities with the aim of their subsequent Ukrainization." It should be said that the entire "South Campaign Group of the OUN" belonged to the Melnikov branch of this organization, and its individual units were headed by people from Bukovina: B. Siretsky, I. Polyuy, O. Masikevich and S. Nikorovich - all prominent public figures, most of which had just been released from Soviet prisons by the Germans. The groups headed by them acted very secretly, often under the guise of translators for German military units, members of workers' teams and employees of "economic headquarters".

Cooperation of the UPA / OUN (b) with foreign special services

After Churchill's March 1946 speech, which proclaimed the beginning of the Cold War, the OUN, like other anti-Soviet formations in Eastern Europe, became of interest to the intelligence services of Great Britain, the United States and, to some extent, France. OUN-B supporters were especially active in these contacts.

UPA symbols

The widespread misconception that the OUN (b) symbolism, which includes the red-black banner, arose as the UPA symbolism, is not true. The UPA used only “ sovereign trident ».

UPA awards

By order of the UPA High Command (part 3/44) of January 27, 1944, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army established its own award system. According to this order, any soldier could receive the award, regardless of rank and official duties. Proposals for the celebration could be submitted by the hundredth UPA or senior commanders. After approval by the UGVR commission or the relevant headquarters, an order was issued to award the soldiers, and the message was published in the rebel newspapers.

Battle of Merit Cross

Military Merit Crosses, regardless of grade and class, had the same size: 27 × 27 mm (excluding the order ribbon). The basis of each order was an equal-pointed cross with points protruding from under it, crossed swords. In the center of the cross was a rhombus with a Ukrainian trident ... The ribbon to the cross of a dark red hue had two black horizontal stripes. Crosses were worn on a five-pointed shoe covered with a ribbon. On the ribbon of each cross, diamond-shaped "stars" made of metal identical to that of the cross were fixed.

Cross of Merit

The Crosses of Merit, regardless of the degree and class, had the same size: 27 × 18 mm (excluding the medal ribbon, which had a width of 30 mm). Each order was based on a stylized cross. In the center of the cross was a rhombus with a Ukrainian trident. The ribbon to the cross of a dark red hue had two black horizontal stripes. Crosses were worn on a five-pointed shoe covered with a ribbon. On the ribbons, depending on the order, there were one or two horizontal metal strips of metal corresponding to the order.