Global InformationUkrainian Insurgent Army information
| Ukrainian Insurgent Army | |
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| Українська повстанська армія | |
 Flag of the UPA | |
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| Size | 20,000–200,000 (estimated) [citation needed] |
| Part of | Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists–Bandera faction |
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The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainian: Українська повстанська армія, УПА, romanized: Ukrayins'ka Povstans'ka Armiia, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists on October 14, 1942.[1] During World War II, it was engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Union, and both the Polish Underground State and Communist Poland.[2]
The goal of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was to drive out occupying powers and set up an independent government, which would be achieved by a national revolution led by a leader with dictatorial power; OUN accepted violence as a political tool against enemies of their cause.[3] 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 organisation fought against the Germans in Volhynia and Polesia.[4] At the same time, its forces fought an evenly matched war against the Polish resistance,[5] during which the UPA carried out an ethnic cleansing of the Polish population of Volhynia and eastern Galicia, resulting in between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths.[6][7][8][9] 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.[5]
Organizationally, the UPA was divided into regions. In Western Ukraine the UPA unit was called UPA West;[10] in the centre-southern regions of Podolia, parts of Kyiv region, parts of Zhytomyr region and Odesa - UPA South;[10] in the northern regions of Volhynia, Rivne, parts of Kiev and Zhytomyr regions UPA North was active;[10] in eastern Ukraine the UPA fled north, as Stalinist dictatorship had executed a number of the UPA's participants. The members of UPA East joined other UPA units in Dnipro and in Chernihiv region.[11] The UPA was a decentralised movement widespread throughout Ukraine with each regions following somewhat different agenda given the circumstances of constant moving front line and a double threat of the Soviet and Nazi powers. [12] The UPA was formally disbanded in early September 1949. However, some of its units continued operations until 1956.[citation needed]
In March 2019, surviving UPA members were officially granted the status of veterans by the government of Ukraine.[13]
- ^ Arad, Yitzhak; Arad, Yitzchak (2010). In the Shadow of the Red Banner: Soviet Jews in the War Against Nazi Germany. Gefen Publishing House Ltd. p. 189. ISBN 978-965-229-487-6.
The first UPA unit was officially established on October 14, 1942. …The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armia-UPA) was an arm of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsia Ukrainskikh Nationalistiv – OUN).
- ^ Rudling, Per A. (2011). "The OUN, the UPA and the Holocaust: A Study in the Manufacturing of Historical Myths". The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies (2107). p. 14. doi:10.5195/cbp.2011.164.
While anti-German sentiments were widespread, according to captured activists, at the time of the Third Extraordinary Congress of the OUN(b), held in August 1943, its anti-German declarations were intended to mobilize support against the Soviets, and stayed mostly on the paper.
- ^ 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).
- ^ Piotrowski, Tadeusz (1998). Poland's holocaust. Internet Archive. McFarland. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-7864-0371-4.
By October (1944), all of Eastern Poland lay in Soviet hands. As the German army began its withdrawal, the UPA began to attack its rearguard and seize its equipment. The Germans reacted with raids on UPA positions. On July 15, 1944, the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (Ukrainska Holovna Vyzvolna Rada, or UHVR, an OUN-B outfit) was formed and, at the end of that month, signed an agreement with the Germans for a unified front against the Soviet threat. This ended the UPA attacks as well as the German countermeasures. In exchange for diversionary activities in the rear of the Soviet front, Germans began providing the Ukrainian underground with supplies, arms, and training materials
- ^ a b Timothy Snyder. The reconstruction of nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999. Yale University Press. 2003. pp. 175–178.
- ^ Motyka, Grzegorz (2016). "Czy zbrodnia wołyńsko-galicyjska 1943–1945 była ludobójstwem". Rocznik Polsko-Niemiecki / Deutsch-Polnisches Jahrbuch (in Polish). 2 (24): 45–71. doi:10.35757/RPN.2016.24.15. ISSN 1230-4360.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian anti-hero glorified following the Russian invasion". Le Monde. 12 January 2023.
- ^ a b c Петро Мірчук, Українська Повстанська Армія. 1942–1952. Мюнхен, 1953. – 233–234 ст.
- ^ "БОРОТЬБА УКРАЇНСЬКОГО НАРОДУ НА СХІДНОУКРАЇНСЬКИХ ЗЕМЛЯХ 1941-1944 (Спомини очевидця і учасника)". Bandera.lviv.ua :: Бібліотека націоналіста. 9 September 2011. Archived from the original on 6 February 2023.
- ^ Snyder, Timothy (2012). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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