Anti-Soviet resistance by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army

Anti-Soviet resistance by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army
	Part of World War II
	; Flag of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Date	1944–1960
Location	Western Ukraine (Galicia, Volyn, Polissya), Transcarpathia, Northern Bukovina, Podillya, Western Belarus
Result	Defeat of the UPA
Belligerents
Ukrainian Insurgent Army Self-defense Kushch Units (1944–1946); UPA South (1944–1946); UPA North (1944–1951); UPA West (1944–1949); Sluzhba Bezpeky (1944–1951); Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Melnyk) (to September 1944); Bukovinian Ukrainian Self-Defense Army (1944); Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army	Soviet Union Soviet partisans (1944); Destruction battalions; ; Supported by: Polish People's Republic
Commanders and leaders
Stepan Bandera X; Dmytro Hrytsai ; Dmytro Klyachkivsky †; Roman Shukhevych †; Mykola Lebed; Vasyl Sydor †; Vasyl Kuk Andriy Melnyk; Mykola Kapustiansky; Taras Bulba-Borovets	Joseph Stalin; Lavrentiy Beria; Nikita Khrushchev; Vsevolod Merkulov; Viktor Abakumov; Ivan Serov; Nikolai Vatutin †; Pavel Sudoplatov; Timofei Strokach; Pavlo Meshyk
Casualties and losses
Ukrainian Insurgent Army:; more than 155,000 killed ; 130,000–200,000 arrested[citation needed]	Soviet Union:; 8,340 State Security officers and servicemen killed; According to other data: 25,000 State Security officers and servicemen killed; 30,000 Soviet officials killed.[citation needed]

The Anti-Soviet resistance by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, (UPA - the initials of the Ukrainska Povstanska Armiya) was a guerrilla war waged by Ukrainian nationalist partisan formations against the Soviet Union in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR and southwestern regions of the Byelorussian SSR, during and after World War II.

With the Red Army forces successful counteroffensive against the Nazi Germany and their invasion into western Ukraine in July 1944, UPA resisted the Red Army's advancement with full-scale guerrilla war, holding up 200,000 Soviet soldiers, particularly in the countryside, and was supplying intelligence to the Nazi Sicherheitsdienst (SD) security service.^[1]^[2]

One major UPA victory against the Soviet Union was the killing of a high ranking Soviet General Nikolai Vatutin.^[3]

According to Soviet documents during the conflict a total of 153,000 people were killed, 134,000 arrested and 203,000 deported by the Soviet authorities, mostly in the years 1944–45. At the same time, OUN-UPA killed 30,676 people (in the years 1944–1953), and 8,340 of them were soldiers.^[4]

^ Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda. HITLER'S SHADOW - Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. Published by the National Archives. p. 76. As the Red Army moved into western Ukraine (it liberated Lwów in July 1944) the UPA resisted the Soviet advance with full-scale guerrilla war. Maltz noted that, "Most of the Bandera gangs, men and women, from the villages ... are still hiding out in the woods, armed to the teeth, and hold up Soviet soldiers. The Soviets may be the rulers of the towns, but the Bandera gangs reign supreme in the surrounding countryside, especially at night. The Russians...have their hands full.... Hardly a day passes without a Soviet official being killed...."19 The Banderists and UPA also resumed cooperation with the Germans. Though the SD was pleased with the intelligence received from the UPA on the Soviets, the Wehrmacht viewed Banderist terror against Polish civilians as counterproductive.
^ Simpson, Christopher (2014). Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy. Open Road Media. pp. 158, 172, 173. ISBN 978-1-4976-2306-4. Several organizations of former Nazi collaborators were ready to undertake such slayings on a major scale. Covert operations chief Wisner estimated in 1951 that some 35,000 Soviet police troops and Communist party cadres had been eliminated by guerrillas connected with the Nazi collaborationist OUN/UPA in the Ukraine since the end of the war..But Hitler had no intention of accepting an alliance of equals with persons he considered Slavic "subhumans." He double-crossed and arrested a number of OUN leaders who insisted on more autonomy than he was willing to give. At this point a still more complicated relationship between the Nazis and the OUN emerged. OUN activists continued to play major roles in local quisling governments and in Nazi-sponsored police and militia groups, although the OUN organization as such was banned...The OUN/UPA succeeded in tying down some 200,000 Red Army troops and killing more than 7,000 Soviet officers14 during the Wehrmacht's disordered flight across Europe during 1944 and 1945.
^ Plokhy, Serhii (2015). The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. New York: Basic Books. p. 320. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which had close to 100,000 soldiers at its height in the summer of 1944, was fighting behind the Soviet lines, disrupting Red Army communications and attacking units farther from the front...Among the UPA's major successes was the killing of a leading Soviet commander, General Nikolai Vatutin. On February 29, 1944, UPA fighters ambushed and wounded Vatutin as he was returning from a meeting with subordinates in Rivne, the former capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. He died in Kyiv in mid-April. Khrushchev, who attended Vatutin's funeral, buried his friend in the government center of Kyiv...not all the UPA fighters shared the nationalist ideology or belonged to the OUN.
^ Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 308.

[1] Richard Breitman, Norman J.W. Goda. HITLER'S SHADOW - Nazi War Criminals, U.S. Intelligence, and the Cold War. Published by the National Archives. p. 76. As the Red Army moved into western Ukraine (it liberated Lwów in July 1944) the UPA resisted the Soviet advance with full-scale guerrilla war. Maltz noted that, "Most of the Bandera gangs, men and women, from the villages ... are still hiding out in the woods, armed to the teeth, and hold up Soviet soldiers. The Soviets may be the rulers of the towns, but the Bandera gangs reign supreme in the surrounding countryside, especially at night. The Russians...have their hands full.... Hardly a day passes without a Soviet official being killed...."19 The Banderists and UPA also resumed cooperation with the Germans. Though the SD was pleased with the intelligence received from the UPA on the Soviets, the Wehrmacht viewed Banderist terror against Polish civilians as counterproductive.

[:8-2] Simpson, Christopher (2014). Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Destructive Impact on Our Domestic and Foreign Policy. Open Road Media. pp. 158, 172, 173. ISBN 978-1-4976-2306-4. Several organizations of former Nazi collaborators were ready to undertake such slayings on a major scale. Covert operations chief Wisner estimated in 1951 that some 35,000 Soviet police troops and Communist party cadres had been eliminated by guerrillas connected with the Nazi collaborationist OUN/UPA in the Ukraine since the end of the war..But Hitler had no intention of accepting an alliance of equals with persons he considered Slavic "subhumans." He double-crossed and arrested a number of OUN leaders who insisted on more autonomy than he was willing to give. At this point a still more complicated relationship between the Nazis and the OUN emerged. OUN activists continued to play major roles in local quisling governments and in Nazi-sponsored police and militia groups, although the OUN organization as such was banned...The OUN/UPA succeeded in tying down some 200,000 Red Army troops and killing more than 7,000 Soviet officers14 during the Wehrmacht's disordered flight across Europe during 1944 and 1945.

[:7-3] Plokhy, Serhii (2015). The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. New York: Basic Books. p. 320. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which had close to 100,000 soldiers at its height in the summer of 1944, was fighting behind the Soviet lines, disrupting Red Army communications and attacking units farther from the front...Among the UPA's major successes was the killing of a leading Soviet commander, General Nikolai Vatutin. On February 29, 1944, UPA fighters ambushed and wounded Vatutin as he was returning from a meeting with subordinates in Rivne, the former capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. He died in Kyiv in mid-April. Khrushchev, who attended Vatutin's funeral, buried his friend in the government center of Kyiv...not all the UPA fighters shared the nationalist ideology or belonged to the OUN.

[FOOTNOTERossoliński-Liebe2014308-4] Rossoliński-Liebe 2014, p. 308.

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