Ukrainian -Cuban relations face huge opportunities

Cuba is interested in development of relations with Ukraine, First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Ukraine German Ferras told.

Cuban-Ukrainian relations are friendly. Cuba has a long-lasting experience of cooperation with Ukrainian experts, the diplomat said. Cuba is home to 6,000 ethnic Ukrainians, and 500 more are employed by Cuban companies in various sectors. A Ukrainian school operates in Havana, which provides Ukrainian language, history and culture courses for Ukrainian children. The Ukrainian Diaspora in Cuba publishes a newspaper. Active cooperation between Ukraine and Cuba is predetermined by activity of the joint Ukrainian -Cuban Commission, headed by health ministers of both countries. Next sitting of the commission is slated for late May - early June in Kyiv.

Speaking about prospect sectors of cooperation, German Ferras called cooperation in the transport, aviation, fuel, agriculture, tourism, information and education sectors. Cooperation in the sport sector is also of a great value. The Cuban box team will arrive in Kyiv in June to hold training bouts with Ukrainian boxers.

In this context, German Ferras underscored a necessity to develop cooperation in the information sector. Tight contacts between national news agencies will aid development of tight cooperation. Thus, Bolivia is interested in cooperation in gas sector. Another sector to boost cooperation is aviation. Notably, the Latin-American News Agency "Prensa latina" has 24 correspondent departments in South and North America, Africa, Europe and Asia. The agency intends to open several departments in Lebanon and SAR.

Ukraine to observe day of Europe on June 2

Day of Europe will be observed in Kyiv on June 2 on Khreshchatyk street.

As many as 27 Embassies of member-states of the EU intend to set marquees in Kyiv. In general as many as 50 marquees will be dispatched. Every tent will provide information about the country, it represents.

Within the framework of the event political discussions with free participation will be held in two marquees.

The discussions will be initiated by the Yalta European Strategy.

Traditionally, every eager will be able to taste European cuisine and learn a language lesson.

Ukraine taking part in IDEF-2007 International Defense Industry Fair

A Ukrainian delegation, led by Defense Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko, was taking part in the VII International Military Industry Fair IDEF-2007 in Turkey.

As the Defense Ministry's press service reported, Minister Hrytsenko met with his Azeri counterpart Safar Abiyev there to discuss regional security, particularly, in the energy sector, oil supplies to Europe via Ukraine.

The ministers touched on creating a joint peacekeeping unit in the military-technical cooperation within the framework of GUAM, armaments and materiel supply from Ukraine to Azerbaijan according to the earlier signed contracts.

Messrs Hrytsenko and Abiyev stated deepening cooperation between the two countries' defense ministries and its development.

Later on Tuesday Anatoliy Hrytsenko also met with the director of the defense industry department of the Turkish National Defense Ministry. The Ukrainian official was familiarized with the Turkish military industrial potential, the parties agreed on cooperation between the countries in this sphere.

USA to grant 1.4 million USD for improving safety in Ukrainian mines

The United States of America means to allocate 1.4 million USD for enhancing safety at Ukrainian mines in 2008, the press service of the state committee for industrial security, labor protection and mine supervision reported, referring to a meeting between committee chairman Serhiy Storchak and president of the American company "Partnership for Energy and Environmental Reform" Jerry Triplett.

Mr Storchak stated his confidence that common Ukrainian-American projects, which are directed at reducing industrial traumatism at coal mines of Ukraine, are efficient and extremely important for creating safe labor conditions for miners.

SPF transfers 1.299 bn. UAH to budget

The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF), as of May 18, 2007 transferred to the state budget 1.299 bn. UAH (one USD=5.05 UAH), the SPF press service reported.

The transaction included gains from privatization in the amount of 1,056,504,840 UAH

The biggest profits were gained from privatization of 76% parcel of the public joint-stock company HC "LuhanskTeplovoz" and minority parcels of Mittal Steel Krivoi Rog.

In compliance with the law on the national budget of Ukraine 2007, gains from privatization in 2007 are expected to reach 10.587 billion UAH.

Economy Minister Kinakh: Cabinet of Ministers will sit on June 7 - 10 to discuss improvement of Ukrainian exports

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine will convene a special session on June 7-10 to tackle ways to improve Ukrainian exports, Economy Minister Anatoliy Kinakh told a Tuesday press conference.

"On June 7-10 a special meeting of chiefs of trade-economic missions of Ukraine will be held at the Cabinet of Ministers with the participation of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Govt officials to discuss ways to more efficiently promote Ukrainian economic interests in the world," Kinakh said.

Court bans selling 1% share parcel of Ukrtelecom

The Kyiv economic court ruled Tuesday to ban the May 22 auction at the Ukrainian Stock Exchange to sell 1% share parcel of Ukraine's leading communication operator, the public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom.

As an officer of court told journalists, the ruling was passed following a suit by the "Dotrin-2002" enterprise of the Khmelnytsky regional organization of disabled persons.

The first 1% share parcel of Ukrtelecom was supposed to be sold at an auction at initial price of 215,351,850 UAH with the nominal cost of 46.8 million UAH. The starting price of one share was set at 1.15 UAH (with the nominal price of one share at 0.25 UAH).

On March 21 the SPF approved the plan of Ukrtelecom privatization, according to which, 50+1% shares belong to the state, 37.86% are supposed to be sold at international stock exchanges between August 1 and December 31, 2007, 5% at Ukrainian stock exchanges in parcels 1% shares each between March 28 and July 23, 2007. The SPF means to gain some one billion UAH (one USD=5.05 UAH) from selling 5% shares.

GDP growth in 2008 expected at 7.2%

According to a draft forecast of economic and social development of Ukraine in 2008, the real gross domestic product in 2008 will grow by 7.2%, industrial production by 9%, real salaries by 14.3% and imports by 15.4%, Economy Minister Anatoliy Kinakh told a Tuesday press conference.

According to the minister, the price for imported gas might grow not more than by 7%-10%, which would allow reaching the above mentioned economic performance. "We fight the growing price for natural gas. It must not exceed inflation paces, which would be the optimal variant for Ukraine," Kinakh stressed.

Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council

Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (Ukrainska holovna vyzvolna rada, or UHVR). A body formed toward the end of the Second World War by members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) to provide political leadership for Ukrainian independentist forces. It proclaimed itself the ‘supreme organ of the Ukrainian people in its war of revolutionary liberation.’ The council's organizers hoped to establish a broader political and social base for armed resistance to both the German and the Bolshevik occupational forces and sought to attract support from outside the OUN, although the OUN would continue to serve as the UHVR's ideological and organizational foundation.

In January 1944 Lev Shankovsky, as a leader of UPA forces, headed the initiating commission that established contacts with representatives of former Ukrainian political parties as well as nonpartisan activists. Representatives of the OUN (Melnyk faction) declined to participate in the undertaking. The founding meetings of the UHVR were held on 11–15 July 1944 near Nedilna, in the Sambir region, under the protection of UPA forces. There were 20 participants; another 5 people had agreed to accept mandates but were unable to attend. The majority at the founding meeting were not OUN members, and 10 of them were from the northwestern Ukrainian lands and central Ukraine. The proceedings, chaired by Rostyslav Voloshyn, resulted in the election of a provisional executive (presidium), the formulation of a social and political platform, and the proclamation of a universal to the Ukrainian people. The UHVR resolved to adopt democratic principles of state and political life and outlined the social and economic policies it believed a future Ukrainian administration would institute. The presidium included the president, K. Osmak, of Kyiv; the vice-president, Vasyl Mudry; the director of the general secretariat, Roman Shukhevych; Ivan Hrynokh; and Ivan Vovchuk.

In Soviet-occupied Ukraine the UHVR co-ordinated armed resistance through the UPA and waged a political and propaganda campaign against the Soviet authorities through the OUN. It also aimed its propaganda at Red Army detachments in Western Ukraine. Its official publications were Visnyk UHVR (1944–5), Biuro informatsii UHVR (9 issues, 1948–51), and Samostiinist’ (1 issue, 1946). Petro Poltava headed the information bureau. In 1946 the UHVR organized a boycott of the Soviet-sponsored elections. It also opposed the forced liquidation of the Ukrainian Catholic church.

In October 1949 the UHVR, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists issued a joint communique, Zvernennia voiuiuchoi Ukrainy do vsiei ukrains’koi emigratsii (An Appeal of Fighting Ukraine to the Entire Ukrainian Emigration), as a call for people to mobilize around the independence issue beyond Ukraine's borders. After Roman Shukhevych's death in 1950, Vasyl Kuk headed the general secretariat. According to Soviet sources, Kuk was captured in the mid-1950s. Likewise, most other members of the UHVR in Ukraine were either killed or arrested, and the organization was effectively eliminated there.

A number of UHVR members had left Ukraine in late 1944 and formed its External Representation (Zakordonne predstavnytstvo, or ZP UHVR), which was headed by Ivan Hrynokh. The general secretary was Mykola Lebed, who served as the UHVR's external liaison officer and director of its information bureau. Lebed established contact with the Western Allied leadership in Italy in 1945. In the emigration the ZP UHVR issued a number of memorandums concerning the situation in Ukraine, including a submission (jointly with the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic) to the peace conference in Paris. A Ukrainian press service was established, assistance was organized for UPA expeditionary forces that had worked their way to the West, and contacts were maintained (as far as possible) with the underground in Ukraine. A separate UPA mission was attached to the ZP UHVR.

The OUN (Bandera faction) supported the ZP UHVR until 1948. A number of tactical, ideological, and personal differences had emerged by 1954, and a splinter group of the Bandera OUN was formed, the OUN (Abroad); the new group became the main supporter of the ZP UHVR.

Attempts by the ZP UHVR to attract other organizations and parties to a popular front under its leadership were unsuccessful. After the establishment of the broadly based Ukrainian National Council in 1947, the ZP UHVR formally renounced any intention of leading Ukrainian emigre political life; its focus was to serve as a representative of the revolutionary movement in Ukraine. The group co-opted a number of new members, formed a council, and established representative bodies in various countries.

From the mid-1960s the ZP UHVR held periodic conferences, at which new members were brought in and new executives were elected. In 1980 the group had over 20 members, of whom 10 were founding members. Original members of the UHVR who had died as emigres included P. Chuiko, Oleksander Malynovsky, Vasyl Mudry, Zynovii Pelensky, I. Simianchuk, Ivan Vovchuk, and Yevhen Vretsona.

The ZP UHVR began publishing the biweekly Suchasna Ukraina and the monthly Ukrains’ka literaturna hazeta in Munich in 1951. Those later provided the basis for the establishment of the journal Suchasnist’. In 1952, members of the ZP UHVR formed the Prolog Research Corporation, which issued the English-language journal Prologue (1957–61) and the monthly Digest of the Soviet Ukrainian Press (1957–77). The Suchasnist and Prolog publishing houses have issued more than 100 titles in history, political science, literature, and fine art. In the 1960s the ZP UHVR press bureau began publishing samvydav materials and popularizing the efforts of the Ukrainian dissident movement.

Roman Shukhevych

Shukhevych, Roman [Suxevyc] (noms de guerre: Dzvin, Shchuka, Tur, Taras Chuprynka, R. Lozovsky), b 17 July 1907 in Krakovets, Yavoriv county, Galicia, d 5 March 1950 in Bilohorshcha, near Lviv. (Photo: Roman Shukhevych.) Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), Head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Home Leadership, chairman of the General Secretariat of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR), and its general secretary for Military Affairs. He joined the Ukrainian Military Organization in 1923 and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929; he was active in their combat branches and known as Dzvin. In 1926 he took part in the political assassination of the Lviv school superintendent S. Sobinski. In 1930–4 he headed the OUN combat branch in Galicia and Poland. After being arrested in connection with Bronislaw Pieracki's assassination, he was held for six months in the Bereza Kartuzka concentration camp and sentenced in 1936 to four years' imprisonment, which was reduced by an amnesty to two years'. During 1938–9 he was staff officer in the Carpathian Sich. In 1941 Shukhevych was briefly chief of the OUN (Bandera faction) in Ukrainian territories within the Generalgouvernement. He joined the Nachtigall Battalion in April 1941 and became its top OUN liaison and political officer. When the Nachtigall and Roland battalions were merged in October 1941 to form Schutzmannschaftbataillon 201, Shukhevych was appointed deputy battalion commander and commander of its first company with the rank of captain. The battalion was disarmed and demobilized, and its officers were arrested in January 1943. Shukhevych, however, managed to escape and join the UPA. At the Third OUN Congress on 25 August, he was confirmed as head of the OUN Home Leadership, and in November he was appointed supreme commander of the UPA in the rank of lieutenant colonel. The UHVR elected him on 15 July 1944 to head its General Secretariat and to hold the portfolio of military affairs, and confirmed his appointment to the top post in the UPA. In 1946 he was promoted to brigadier general.

Shukhevych died in combat with special units of the MVD. Posthumously, he was awarded the UPA's highest decorations: the Gold Cross of Combat Merit First Class and the Cross of Merit in gold.

Polisian Sich

Polisian Sich (Poliska sich). A Ukrainian insurgent formation, organized in June 1941 by Taras Borovets under the aegis of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic. Its earliest anti-Soviet activities in Sarny county consisted of attacking NKVD jails and Soviet Army mobilization centers and capturing arms and ammunition. In July 1941 the Sich was recognized by the German authorities as a local militia, whose primary mission was to clear Polisia of the remnants of the Soviet Army before they regrouped into partisan detachments (see Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1941–5). In August Borovets obtained the support of the OUN (Melnyk faction) and, assisted by a cadre of UNR Army officers, expanded his force to several thousand men. The Sich's chief of staff was P. Smorodsky, a lieutenant colonel of the UNR Army. After defeating a Soviet force at Olevske on 21 August, Borovets established his headquarters there. With the elimination of the Soviet partisan threat, the Germans forced the Polisian Sich to demobilize (15 November 1941). In March 1942 Borovets reactivated it, this time as an anti-Nazi insurgent force, and renamed it the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The five-company army began its anti-Nazi activities in late April 1942. Its best-known operation took place at Shepetivka on 19 August. In the autumn of 1942 Borovets signed an armistice with Soviet partisans, but failed to reach an agreement with the Germans, and hostilities with the Soviet partisans and the Germans resumed in February 1943. By that time, partisan units controlled by the OUN (Bandera faction) had become the dominant Ukrainian force. The two Ukrainian insurgent forces shared a common name, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, without merging into one army. The steady loss of men to the rival UPA and the decline in peasant support prompted Borovets to rename his force the Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army. On 18 August 1943 the force was surrounded and disarmed by the UPA. Borovets and his staff escaped and remained active until November 1943.

Ukrainian Insurgent Army

Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia [UPA]). A Ukrainian military formation which fought from 1942 to 1949, mostly in Western Ukraine, against the German and Soviet occupational regimes. Its immediate purpose was to protect the Ukrainian population from German and Soviet repression and exploitation; its ultimate goal was an independent and unified Ukrainian state.

The first UPA units appeared in western Volhynia (now Volhynia oblast and Rivne oblast). They were organized independently by Taras Borovets (in spring 1942), the OUN (Bandera faction) (from October 1942), and the OUN (Melnyk faction) (in spring 1943). As resistance to the Germans intensified, the military forces of the Bandera faction grew rapidly and established their control over many districts of Volhynia. When talks on unification among the three groups failed, the most powerful group, the Bandera units, disarmed and absorbed the two other groups, in July and August 1943. Klym Savur, the leader of the OUN (B) for northwestern Ukraine, became the commander in chief of the unified UPA.

German auxiliary police and guard units, composed not only of ethnic Ukrainians but also of other nationals who had served in the Red Army, defected to the UPA. The number of non-Ukrainian UPA soldiers grew rapidly, and peaked in the late fall of 1943. They were organized into separate national units, the largest of which were the Azerbaidzhani, Uzbek, Georgian, and Tatar. In the autumn of 1943 the UPA established a secret armistice with Hungarian units which guarded German communication lines in Volhynia. Recognizing the importance of national aspirations, the UPA organized on 21–22 November 1943 the Conference of the Oppressed Nations of Eastern Europe and Asia. It was attended by representatives of 13 nationalities, who resolved to support each other's liberation struggles.

Beginning in the summer of 1943, UPA units from the northwestern region conducted southward raids into Kamianets-Podilskyi oblast and Vinnytsia oblast to undermine German control of this territory and to build up local insurgency forces. By the late autumn a new military grouping was consolidated under the command of Vasyl Kuk, the OUN leader for central Ukraine.

In the first two years of the German occupation the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) used Galicia as a training and supply area for the UPA. When a successful recruitment drive for the Division Galizien was launched, in May–June 1943, and a large detachment of Soviet partisans (see Soviet partisans in Ukraine, 1941–5) led by Sydir Kovpak made its way through Galicia into the Carpathian Mountains, in July 1943, the OUN decided to form military units in Galicia as well. Commanded by Oleksander Lutsky, these units were at first called the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense (UNS). As insurgent activity increased, the Germans placed Galicia under martial law, in October 1943. This only provoked stronger resistance.

A single command for all three regions of Ukraine, the Supreme Command of the UPA, was set up on or about 22 November 1943. The command consisted of the supreme commander and the Supreme Military Headquarters or General Staff, which was headed by the chief of staff (who was also the deputy commander) and was divided into six sections: operations, intelligence, logistics, personnel, training, and political-education. Lt Col Roman Shukhevych was appointed commander in chief, and Maj Dmytro Hrytsai became chief of staff. The original UPA in Volhynia was named officially the UPA-North, the insurgent units in central Ukraine became the UPA-South, and the Ukrainian People's Self-Defense in Galicia was renamed the UPA-West. With Maj Vasyl Sydor's appointment to commander of the new UPA-West in January 1944, the reorganization of the unified UPA was completed. Each of the three krais of the UPA was subdivided into military districts. At the beginning of 1944 there were at least 10 districts in total: 2 in the UPA-North, 6 in the UPA-West, and 2 in the UPA-South. In 1945 each district was subdivided into tactical sectors. Every district and sector had its commander and headquarters analogous to the General Staff. This territorial organization of the UPA remained unchanged during the active combat period until 1949. To broaden the social and political base of the armed struggle for Ukraine's independence, the Supreme Command of the UPA took the initiative in setting up the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (est 15 July 1944), which served as a provisional government expressing the political will of the insurgency movement.

The basic combat unit during most of the UPA's history was a company of 120 to 180 men. The standard UPA company had three platoons each with three squads (10 to 12 men armed with a light machine gun, two or three automatic weapons, and seven or more rifles). In 1943–5 most companies were organized into kurins (two to four companies per kurin), and under special conditions two or more kurins were combined into a zahin. A kurin commander's staff included a political-education officer, an adjutant, a sergeant major, and sometimes a chaplain and a medical doctor. Regardless of size, all combat units within one military district formed a group (hrupa). The UPA did not receive aid from other countries; weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, and uniforms had to be seized from the enemy. Although it deployed some cavalry and artillery units during 1943–4, the UPA was basically an infantry force. According to some German intelligence reports in 1944, its strength was 200,000. According to a Soviet source (1988), in 1944–6 some 56,600 UPA soldiers were killed, 108,500 were captured, and 48,300 surrendered voluntarily. According to UPA historians in the West, at its peak in 1944 the army had at least 25,000 and at most 40,000 men.

The UPA made use of two rank systems, a functional one and a traditional formal one (see Military ranks). The functional system was instituted because of an acute shortage of qualified and politically reliable officers during the early stages of organization. Those who demonstrated leadership ability were appointed to command positions regardless of formal rank or training. The most critical leadership shortages were found at the lower levels, ie, the platoon and squad. Almost every district organized its own NCO school, lasting four to six weeks, but the demand for qualified squad leaders could not be met. A severe shortage of medical officers was alleviated partly by enlisting Jewish doctors, who willingly joined the anti-Nazi resistance. The UPA also ran formal officer candidate schools, which produced approx 690 graduates. (For the UPA's award system see Military decorations.)

Publishing was usually the responsibility of the political-education section. The UPA printed journals, such as Do zbroi (1943) and Povstanets’ (1944–6); newspapers; military textbooks; pamphlets for youth; and leaflets. Some military districts and tactical sectors published their own irregular periodicals (eg, Shliakh peremohy, Chornyi lis, and Lisovyk). The best-known contributors to the UPA press were Ya. Busel, Petro Poltava, Osyp Diakiv, and the artists Nil Khasevych and Mykhailo Chereshnovsky.

During 1943 the UPA staged some successful ambushes and battles against the Germans, establishing its control of the countryside in Volhynia and leaving only the towns in German hands. At the same time it cleared some of the region of Soviet partisans and expanded its power southward and eastward. In 1944 it fought its largest engagements with German and Soviet forces. Retreating German units were frequently ambushed for their weapons and supplies. German attempts to secure areas of the Carpathian Mountains in the summer of 1944 led to several pitched battles with the UPA-West. But the main threat to the UPA was the Soviet NKVD combat troops that arrived in the rear of the advancing Red Army with the special task of re-establishing Soviet power.

In the winter of 1944 and spring of 1945 numerous ambushes, skirmishes, and large-scale battles occurred between NKVD forces and the zahony of the UPA-North and UPA-South. In February Gen N. Vatutin, Soviet commander of the First Ukrainian Front, was mortally wounded in an ambush. On 24 April 30,000 NKVD troops encircled and fought 5,000 soldiers of the UPA-South at the Battle of Hurby. Modifying its tactics according to experience, the UPA gradually dispersed its larger units and operated mostly with companies which held specific territories and staged occasional propaganda raids into uncontrolled areas or neighboring countries. The first large-scale NKVD offensive against the UPA was conducted in the winter of 1944–5 in the Carpathian Mountains region. The UPA managed to preserve its control of the countryside and scored successful attacks against Soviet administrative centers and garrisons. With the ending of the war the returning Red Army divisions were turned against the UPA in the summer of 1945. The results were disappointing to the Soviet regime, but its offer of amnesty to soldiers surrendering by 20 July 1945 appeared more successful. Many men evading induction into the Red Army gave themselves up. The UPA used this opportunity to send home some discouraged or disabled soldiers. By 1949 there were at least four more amnesty calls.

The ‘Great Blockade’ in the Carpathian Mountains from January to April 1946 was the only successful Soviet offensive against the UPA. Special contingents of NKVD troops were stationed in all the towns and villages, and mobile combat units scoured the forests. Denied food and shelter, and forced to fight on the march at extremely low temperatures, the UPA experienced casualties of 40 percent. The Supreme Command decided to demobilize most combat units and ordered their surviving members to continue the struggle underground. The UPA command structure (krai, military district, and tactical-sector headquarters), however, continued to function.

The demobilization order did not apply to the forces of the Sixth Military District—the Sian Division of the UPA-West—which operated in Ukrainian ethnic territories that were annexed by Poland after 1944. The division defended the Ukrainian population from forced deportations to the USSR in 1945 and 1946. Having reached an understanding with the Polish Home Army, it conducted several joint operations against Polish security forces. On 28 March 1947 Gen K. Swierczewski, the deputy defense minister of Poland, was killed in an ambush by the Lemko Company of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army under Lt Stepan Stebelsky (‘Khrin’). In the spring and summer of 1947 the Polish authorities staged Operation Wisla, in which the remaining Ukrainian population was deported by force to other parts of Poland. UPA battle losses went up sharply, and the surviving units were ordered either to cross into the USSR or to march across Czechoslovakia to West Germany. Remnants of Company 95, led by Lt M. Duda (‘Hromenko’), reached West Germany on 11 September 1947 (photo: Company 95 soldiers in Germany).

Some UPA units continued to operate in 1948 and 1949 in the Carpathian Hoverlia Military District (see Hoverlia (4th) Group of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army). They were usually composed of two platoons of two squads each, and had a total strength of 30 to 50 veteran noncommissioned officers. Except for two units, they were demobilized at the end of the summer of 1948. On 3 September 1949, Roman Shukhevych ordered the command structure and the remaining combat units to be deactivated, and their members to be transferred to the underground network. After Shukhevych's death (5 March 1950) the underground continued the armed struggle under Vasyl Kuk's (‘Koval's’) leadership until 1954.

Yevhen Petrushevych

Petrushevych, Yevhen [Petrusevyc, Jevhen], b 3 June 1863 in Buzke, Kaminka-Strumylova county, Galicia, d 29 August 1940 in Berlin. (Photo: Yevhen Petrushevych.) Lawyer, political leader, and president of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. As a law student at Lviv University he was president of the Academic Brotherhood. While practicing law in Sokal (1896–1910) and then in Skole, he organized and led various local societies. An executive member of the National Democratic party, he was elected to the Austrian parliament (1907, 1911) and to the Galician Diet (see Diet, provincial) (1910, 1913) and served as vice-chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in Vienna (1910–16) and the Ukrainian caucus in the Diet (1910–14). He rejected political compromises with the Austrian government and led a determined struggle in both assemblies for the rights of the Ukrainian people; in particular he played a key role in the Galician Diet's electoral reforms of 1913, which gave Ukrainians a greater voice in the Diet. After becoming vice-president of the General Ukrainian Council (1915) Petrushevych resigned from that body because of what he regarded as its naive trust in the Austrian government. At the end of 1916 he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Representation in the Austrian parliament and was recognized as the leading Ukrainian politician of his day. With a number of other Slavic leaders he proposed to transform Austria-Hungary into a federation of national states, including a Ukrainian one composed of eastern Galicia, northern Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia.

While the emperor vacillated, Petrushevych summoned a Ukrainian constituent assembly to Lviv to decide the future of those territories. At its first session on 18 October 1918, the assembly named itself the Ukrainian National Rada, chose Petrushevych as its president, and proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state. Petrushevych was re-elected president of the Rada on 3 January 1919 in Stanyslaviv and proved himself a capable leader and mediator. With the merging of the Western Ukrainian National Republic with the Ukrainian National Republic in January 1919, Petrushevych became the sixth member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. By mid-1919 the Ukrainian National Rada and the State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic had recognized that military and political setbacks made it impossible for them to govern, and on 9 June they transferred their powers to Petrushevych, whom they nominated as dictator (see Dictatorship of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic). Under his regime the Chortkiv offensive was conducted, the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) crossed the Zbruch River, and the combined forces of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and the UHA liberated Kyiv. The divergencies between Symon Petliura's and Petrushevych's governments in domestic and foreign policy increased during their stay in Kamianets-Podilskyi and finally led to a break, in November 1919. Petrushevych left Ukraine to pursue the struggle for independence abroad by diplomatic means.

On 25 July 1920 Petrushevych formed a government-in-exile in Vienna and lobbied for international recognition of Western Ukrainian statehood. Having gained a certain measure of support for his quest, he rejected Polish overtures for a degree of Ukrainian autonomy in exchange for recognition of their control over Galicia. His campaign collapsed after March 1923, however, when the Conference of Ambassadors recognized Galicia as part of the new Polish state. Petrushevych, then in Berlin, began to look for Soviet assistance in his aspirations. This tack also proved unfruitful, and support for him soon withered away.

Ukrainian Galician Army

Ukrainian Galician Army (Ukrainska halytska armiia [UHA]). The regular army of the Western Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR), known as the Galician Army (Halytska armiia). It was formed around a nucleus consisting of the Legion of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and other Ukrainian detachments of the Austro-Hungarian army, which recognized the authority of the Ukrainian National Rada and took part in the November Uprising in Lviv, 1918.

The UHA was a well-organized and disciplined force. It was established as a regular army of the ZUNR by the law of 13 November 1918 on compulsory military service, which empowered the State Secretariat for Military Affairs (DSVS) to divide the country into military districts, to define an organizational structure for the army, and to call up Ukrainian males between the ages of 18 and 35 for military duty. Three military regions (Lviv, Ternopil, and Stanyslaviv) were introduced, each consisting of four districts (covering five to eight counties). The military commander of each district was responsible for recruitment, training, and combat readiness.

Until 9 June 1919 all military affairs of the ZUNR came under the jurisdiction of the State Secretariat for Military Affairs (DSVS), which was divided into a chancellery and 16 departments, and was headed initially by Col Dmytro Vitovsky (to 13 February 1919) and then by Col Viktor Kurmanovych. With the installation of the Dictatorship of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic, the functions of the DSVS were transferred partly to the Military Chancellery, directed by Lt Col K. Dolezhal, and partly to the Supreme Command of the Ukrainian Galician Army (NKHA).

The Supreme Command of the Ukrainian Galician Army (NKHA) was set up in November 1918 in Lviv. Its chief, the UHA supreme commander, was appointed by the head of the Ukrainian National Rada and later by the dictator of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic. All UHA units at the front came under its command; all other UHA units came under the district commands, and ultimately under the State Secretariat for Military Affairs (DSVS). When the DSVS was abolished, the NKHA assumed responsibility for supplies and training. The supreme commanders of the UHA were Col Dmytro Vitovsky (29 October–5 November 1918), Col Hryhorii Kossak (to 9 November), Col Hnat Stefaniv (to 10 December), Brig Gen Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko (to 9 June 1919), Maj Gen Oleksander Hrekov (to 5 July), Brig Gen Myron Tarnavsky (to 7 November), and Brig Gen Osyp Mykytka (to 10 February 1920). The chiefs of the General Staff included Col Mykola Marynovych (to 5 November 1918), Maj Semen Goruk (to 10 December), Col Yevhen Myshkivsky (to 12 February 1919), Col Viktor Kurmanovych (to 7 June), Col Alfred Schamanek (to 7 November 1919, and 10 February–1 March 1920), and Gen Gustav Ziritz (to 10 February 1920).

The territory controlled by the UHA was divided into 13 military districts of four or five counties each: Berezhany, Chortkiv, Drohobych, Kolomyia, Lviv, Peremyshl, Rava-Ruska, Sambir, Sokal, Stanyslaviv, Stryi, Ternopil, and Zolochiv (Lviv region). The commands of the districts, which grew out of military committees established in November 1918, were responsible for security and public order in the army's rear. They conducted drafts, trained draftees and organized them into infantry units, and protected government property.

The first regular UHA units were joined by worker and student detachments, which sprang up spontaneously to resist the Polish underground in Lviv and the Polish army invading Galicia. By December 1918 the Galician Army consisted of combat groups of different strength and profile—regular, semi-insurgent, and insurgent. The strongest were the Navariia, Stare Selo, and Skhid groups operating around Lviv. On the northern border of the ZUNR the Northern Group under Col Osyp Mykytka was organized to repel the Polish offensive. The oblast command in Stryi, under Col Hryhorii Kossak, took charge of the groups that sprang up on the western front, including the Komancha, Liutkiv, Staryi Sambir, Hlyboka, Krukenychi (see Krukenychi Group), Rudky, South I, and South II groups. They did not form a continuous front and were rarely in contact with the NKHA or with each other. At the beginning of December 1918, when Gen Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko took command of the Galician Army, it numbered 30,000 officers and men, half of whom were combat-ready.

In December 1918 all field units were brought under the Supreme Command of the Ukrainian Galician Army, and in January–February 1919 they were organized into three corps, each consisting of four brigades. A brigade generally had three to six infantry battalions (sometimes merged into two regiments), a cavalry company, a field artillery regiment with four to six batteries, a sapper company, and communications, auxiliary, and support groups. The First Corps, based in Kaminka-Strumylova and commanded by Col Osyp Mykytka, consisted of the Sokal Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, the Rava Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, the Uhniv Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, and the Yaniv Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army. The Second Corps, based in Bibrka and commanded by Col Myron Tarnavsky, included the First Brigade of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and the Kolomyia Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, the Third (Berezhany) Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, and the Zolochiv Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army. The Third Corps, based in Stryi and commanded by Col Hryhorii Kossak and then Gen M. Gembachiv, encompassed the Lviv Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army (initially named the Seventh Stryi Brigade), the Sambir Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, the Mountain Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army, and the Stryi Brigade of the Ukrainian Galician Army (formed out of the Krukenychi Group and the Hlyboka Group). The basic combat unit was the kurin (51 on the Polish front, 48 on the Soviet front), consisting of four companies (sotni), which were in turn divided into platoons (choty).

In June 1919 the UHA at its maximum strength numbered 70,000 to 75,000 men, including reserves. Its proportion of officers to men was very low, only 2.4 percent. To overcome the shortage of staff and higher officers, non-Ukrainian specialists of the Austrian-Hungarian army and officers of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic were recruited. To train young officers three infantry schools, an artillery, and a communications cadet school were set up in Galicia, and one infantry and artillery school in central Ukraine.

The bulk (67 percent) of the combat force was infantry. Each kurin had a machine-gun company. About 10 percent of the soldiers belonged to artillery units, with 58 batteries on the Polish front and 47 on the Soviet front. The Galician Army also had two or three armored cars and two armored trains. Cavalry did not play an important role, because the State Secretariat for Military Affairs preferred the tactics of positional warfare. On Gen Oleksander Hrekov's recommendation a cavalry brigade and regiment were set up in June and July 1919 with a total of 1,340 sabers. The first air force unit was organized by Capt Petro Franko in Krasne. With the help of former pilots of the Russian army, a flying regiment under Col B. Huber (later under Col D. Bulat Kanukov) was formed. Until April 1919 the UHA had an advantage in the air over the Polish forces, but it lost it as the Polish strength increased (150 Polish planes vs 40 Ukrainian). Four of the nine sapper companies were attached to the corps and five to the brigades. The companies were formed and trained by the reserve sapper kurin in Chortkiv, which was reorganized into a technical kurin under K. Kiziuk's command. Communications specialists were trained in Stanyslaviv. Each corps had two to five field hospitals and sanitary trains. Because of a severe shortage of medical personnel and supplies, medical care deteriorated quickly, and by the end of 1919 the army fell victim to typhus.

In the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918–19, the UHA scored some victories against the numerically stronger and better-equipped Polish forces. After the Chortkiv offensive it retreated across the Zbruch River and joined up with the UNR Army to take part in the Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21. Reduced by typhus to a mere 5,000 combat-ready men, the UHA accepted absorption into the Red Army and became the Red Ukrainian Galician Army. Having been thrown into battle against the Poles, its First Brigade was defeated and captured; its Second and Third brigades deserted the Red Army and allowed themselves to be disarmed by the Poles. By the end of April 1920 the UHA had ceased to exist.

November Uprising in Lviv, 1918

November Uprising in Lviv, 1918 (Lystopadovyi zryv). The first stage of armed conflict in the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918–19. The proclamation of the Ukrainian National Rada on 18 October 1918 concerning the founding of an independent Ukrainian state initiated preparations on the part of Ukrainians for taking power in eastern Galicia. The Rada originally hoped to establish a Ukrainian administration with the support of the Austrian authorities (Viceroy, K. Huyn), but when those hopes were only partially fulfilled, it decided to act unilaterally. It then empowered the Ukrainian Military Committee under Captain Dmytro Vitovsky to oversee the entire operation. The seizure of Lviv was planned originally for 3 November 1918. It was to be carried out by the Ukrainian soldiers who constituted the majority of the Austrian troops garrisoned in the city as well as by a brigade of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (USS) garrisoned in Bukovyna. The creation in Cracow of the Polish Liquidation Commission (28 October 1918), which announced that it would transfer to Lviv, compelled the Ukrainian politicians to move up the date of the operation.

On 1 November 1918 between 3:30 and 4:00 a.m. the Ukrainian soldiers occupied the public utility buildings and military objectives in Lviv without bloodshed. Ukrainian flags were raised, and proclamations issued announcing the emergence of a Ukrainian state. The Austrian authorities were interned, and Huyn handed power over to Volodymyr Detsykevych, the vice-director of the governor-generalship, who recognized the supreme authority of the Ukrainian National Rada. The Austrian military commander of the city called on his subordinates to recognize the Rada. Colonel Mykola Marynovych now became commandant of Lviv, and the newly promoted Colonel Dmytro Vitovsky became commander in chief of the Ukrainian force (numbering 60 officers and 1,200 soldiers).

The Ukrainian uprising met with armed resistance from the city's Polish residents, who constituted about 60 percent of its population. Polish activity before noon on 1 November 1918 was spontaneous and unorganized. Groups of young people assembled in various parts of the city and were directed by members of Polish paramilitary associations. In the afternoon Capt C. Maczynski assumed control of the opposition forces. The Poles managed to obtain arms and ammunition from a police garrison in the Horodok suburb, and in the evening a Polish detachment over 100 strong captured part of the Novyi Svit district.

On the night of 2 November the Poles captured a large ammunition depot in the railway station. At the same time the Ukrainian General Command (from 18 November known as the High Command) was unable to bring into the city detachments of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen: the detachments encountered strong Polish resistance in the Klepariv suburb and only partly managed to break through into Lviv, on 3 November. The failure brought about a crisis in the Ukrainian command, and Dmytro Vitovsky was replaced by Col Mykola Marynovych.

Until 4 November, battles were waged in different parts of the city, notably near the Sienkiewicz School, the Technician's Center, the Uhlan barracks in Vilka, Hora Strachennia, the post office, and Saint George's Cathedral, as well as in the Klepariv and Zamarstyniv suburbs. During that time the Poles (numbering approx 1,000) were able to consolidate gains in the western parts of the city and establish, by 5 November, a north–south dividing line.

The outbreak of combat in Lviv mobilized Ukrainian public opinion in Dnieper Ukraine under German occupation and the Hetman government of Pavlo Skoropadsky. Local political organizations (the Ukrainian National Union, the Kyiv-based Batkivshchyna society) issued appeals for rapid assistance for their Galician brethren. The first Dnieper detachments arrived in Lviv on 12 November 1918.

On 5 November the function of chief commander was taken over by Hryhorii Kossak, who initiated attacks to oust the Poles from the center of the city. The fiercest battles were conducted around the barracks in Vilka. On 9 November the Poles initiated their only offensive, in the area of Saint George's Cathedral. It was unsuccessful, and the Poles remained largely in defensive positions from that time.

On 9 November another change occurred within the Ukrainian high command, which was now entrusted to Col Hnat Stefaniv. He delivered a series of blows in the northern and southern parts of the city in order to break through the Polish front line. On 10 November the Ukrainian detachments attacked the building of the railway directory and then occupied the Ferdinand barracks. From 11 to 13 November a battle was waged for the village of Sokilnyky, and on 13 November the Ukrainian forces commenced an assault along the Vilka road. On 14 November an effective Ukrainian offensive on Zamarstyniv and Klepariv pressed hard on the Polish positions in the north. On 15 November another attack was launched against the Cadet School, and two days later the Polish front line in that region was temporarily broken.

In spite of local victories in such skirmishes the line of the front essentially did not change. On 18 November an armistice was signed, originally for two and then for three days. The Ukrainians tried to bring in auxiliary troops from Stanyslaviv, Ternopil, and Stryi, and the Polish authorities in Warsaw made final preparations for an operation intended to seize Lviv. That operation was entrusted to an assault group led by Major J. Stachiewicz, which on 11 November captured Peremyshl. On 20 November a Polish detachment commanded by Col M. Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski (consisting of 140 officers, 1,228 soldiers, and 8 artillery guns) reached Lviv. On 21 November it began an assault with the intention of encircling the Ukrainians. Though repelled, the assault persuaded Col Hnat Stefaniv to order a retreat, and most of the detachments left town at night. The next day Lviv was in Polish hands, although Ukrainians surrounded the city on three sides. (See also Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918–19.)

Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918–19

Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918–19. The Ukrainian-Polish War broke out in late 1918 as a result of the Polish rejection of Ukrainian efforts to establish an independent state—the Western Ukrainian National Republic (ZUNR)—in the wake of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The major issue of dispute in the conflict was control over eastern Galicia, a predominantly Ukrainian ethnic territory regarded by the Poles as an integral part of the historical Polish realm. As the boundaries of the new Polish state had not yet been established, and the ZUNR had not been granted international diplomatic recognition, the matter was ultimately reduced to a question of control by military force.

The outbreak of hostilities can be dated to 1 November, when Poles in Lviv organized resistance to Ukrainian efforts to take control of the city (see November Uprising in Lviv, 1918). Similar resistance by Poles to the Ukrainian takeover followed in Drohobych, Sambir, Jaroslaw, and Peremyshl. The Ukrainian government, in response, established the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) as its regular military force. Until the end of December the war remained a series of local skirmishes that developed into a standoff in which the Poles controlled Lviv and certain territories east of the city. The command of the UHA did not possess an overall operational plan, and the Poles simply tried to maintain their position. By January 1919 the front stretched from Baligrod (Balyhorod), in the Carpathian Mountains, along the Khyriv–Peremyshl railway line (with the Poles in possession of Peremyshl) to Lviv (in Polish hands) and then looped around in a clockwise direction to the Uhniv–Rava-Ruska area, from which it went northward.

When the Polish government in Warsaw began to dispatch regular troops to eastern Galicia, the conflict assumed a new dimension. By January 1919, Polish numbers reached about 20,000 men. On 15 February the UHA (some 40,000 men) began a great offensive (the so-called Vovchukhy Operation) toward Lviv, the Peremyshl–Lviv railway line, Rava-Ruska, and Belz. By the end of the month a short armistice was being enforced by the Entente (as a result of negotiations by the Berthelemy Mission). On 2 March, however, the UHA renewed the attack and was able to encircle Lviv. On 19 March the Polish divisions broke through the Ukrainian lines in the region of Horodok (Lviv region) and retook the Lviv–Peremyshl corridor.

On 2 April the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference established a commission headed by Gen Louis Botha to arrange an armistice between Poland and Ukraine. The proposed demarcation line it suggested (Lviv to be on the Polish side, Drohobych and Boryslav, on the Ukrainian side) was accepted by the government of the ZUNR but rejected by the Polish government, which claimed the right to take over the whole of eastern Galicia.

By that time the Poles had acquired the means to enforce their will. On 17 March the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference had given permission for the army of Gen Jozef Haller (six divisions, with about 68,000 men) to be transferred from France to Poland for the express purpose of securing a frontier against potential Bolshevik attack. It was moved in April. Although the Polish prime minister, Ignacy Paderewski, had assured the council that the army would not be sent to eastern Galicia, the troops were nonetheless being deployed there by mid-May. On 14 May a Polish force of approx 50,000 men attacked from the regions of Peremyshl, Horodok (Lviv region), and Lviv; in six days it had occupied Turka, Drohobych, and Stryi in the south and Kaminka-Strumylova in the north (the Polish offensive also included Volhynia). By 27 May the Poles had taken Halych and Stanyslaviv and were making contact with the Rumanian troops which entered Pokutia. The protests of the Entente and the need to transfer the armed forces to the west (because of fears of a German attack against Poland) stopped the Polish offensive on the Brody–Zolota Lypa River line.

On 7 June the reorganized UHA (with Gen Oleksander Hrekov as commander in chief from 9 June) embarked upon the Chortkiv offensive, which in two weeks reached the Brody–Krasne–Peremyshliany–Hnyla Lypa River line. The UHA troops were now about 40 km from Lviv, but they began to run short of ammunition and provisions. At the same time the international situation of the ZUNR also changed for the worse: following the defeat of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic in Volhynia by the Red Army the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference empowered Poland (25 June) to take over the whole of eastern Galicia up to the Zbruch River in a move intended to block a potential Bolshevik onslaught to the west. The council, however, did not regard that resolution as a final decision on the political future of eastern Galicia.

After new Polish troops (under the command of Jozef Pilsudski) were transferred to the east, they commenced a decisive offensive on 28 June. On 5 July the Poles reached the line of the Strypa River, and on 15 July they seized Ternopil and the area on both sides of the Seret River. Despite the defeat the UHA forces (about 80,000 men, including 36,000 in the first line of the front) retained their combat readiness and on 16–18 July crossed to the eastern side of the Zbruch River, where the UNR Army was stationed. The government of the ZUNR also crossed the Zbruch River to Kamianets-Podilskyi.

Western Ukrainian National Republic

Western Ukrainian National Republic (Zakhidno-Ukrainska Narodnia Respublika, or ZUNR). A nation-state established on the Ukrainian ethnic territory of former Austria-Hungary on 19 October 1918 by the Ukrainian National Rada in Lviv. The Constitution of 13 November 1918 determined its name and defined the territory of the ZUNR as that which encompassed the Ukrainian regions of the Austrian crown lands (see Crown land) of Galicia and Bukovyna and the Transcarpathian Szepes komitat, Sros komitat, Zemplen komitat, Ung komitat, Bereg komitat, Ugocsa komitat, and Maramaros komitat (see Maramures region). A Ukrainian government took power on 1 November 1918 in Galicia (see November Uprising in Lviv, 1918), on 6 November in Bukovyna, and on 19 November in Transcarpathia. The governments in the last two territories were short-lived. In spite of the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia, 1918–19 the government of the ZUNR held out longest in eastern Galicia.

The Ukrainian National Rada, a legislative council, was the state's ruling body before the calling of the Constituent Assembly of the ZUNR. The State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic was its executive branch. Its power was eventually transferred to the Dictatorship of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic.

On 1 December 1918 the State Secretariat of the Western Ukrainian National Republic concluded a preliminary agreement with the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic on the union of the two Ukrainian states. The agreement was approved by the Ukrainian National Rada on 3 January 1919 and by the Directory on 22 January. The union was proclaimed in a special proclamation of 22 January. Thenceforth the ZUNR assumed the name Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic. But the union was not fully implemented: the government bodies of the ZUNR continued to operate separately (see Dictatorship of the Western Province of the Ukrainian National Republic). When the government of the Ukrainian National Republic recognized Polish rule in Ukrainian territory west of the Zbruch River, the ZUNR government rejected its policies completely.

In July 1919 Poland occupied most of the territory of the ZUNR and tried to get Entente recognition for its rule in Galicia. Although the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference representing the Entente instructed Poland on 25 June to occupy Ukrainian Galicia temporarily, it recognized Galicia's special status. On 20 November it drafted a treaty with Poland on the autonomy of eastern Galicia under the higher administration of Poland for 25 years, but the Poles rejected that treaty. The Conference of Ambassadors of the great powers of the Entente finally recognized (12 March 1923) the Polish occupation, albeit with the provision that eastern Galicia was to remain autonomous.

Winter campaigns

Winter campaigns. Offensives of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic behind the lines of the Volunteer Army and Red Army in 1919–20 and 1921.

The First Winter Campaign lasted from 6 December 1919 to 6 May 1920. As conventional military action in the Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21, became impossible, the Ukrainian National Republic government decided to demobilize those units unfit for battle and to send its battle-ready troops behind enemy lines to conduct partisan warfare until it could set up a regular front. The participating UNR troops were commanded by Gen Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko. His assistant was Gen Yurii Tiutiunnyk, and his chief of staff was Col Andrii Dolud. Permanent political officers were assigned to the army to maintain liaison among the government, the troops, and the civilian population. Prime Minister Isaak Mazepa kept in touch with the army and even accompanied it for a while. The combat troops consisted of the following groups (renamed divisions in February 1920): Zaporizhia (commanded by Gen Andrii Huly-Hulenko), formed from the remnants of the Zaporozhian Corps; Kyiv (commanded by Gen Tiutiunnyk), formed from the remaining troops of the Sich Riflemen; and Volhynia (commanded by Gen Oleksander Zahrodsky). At first the units operated in the Yelysavethrad region between the Red Army and Anton Denikin's forces. When the Bolshevik-Denikin front moved southward, the Ukrainian units penetrated east behind the Bolshevik lines, and in February 1920 they crossed the Dnieper River into the Zolotonosha region. In April the raiding army fought its way back to the Ukrainian forces on the Polish-Bolshevik front, which it reached finally on 6 May in the vicinity of Yampil.

The participants in the First Winter Campaign marched almost 2,500 km and fought for the following locations: Lypovets, Zhashkiv, Uman, Kaniv, Cherkasy, Smila, Zolotonosha, Olviopil, Holovanivske, Haisyn, Voznesenske (capturing major items from the 14th Soviet Army), Ananiv, and Balta. Estimates of the number of officers and men who took part in the campaign range from 3,000 to 6,000.

The Second Winter Campaign (also known as the Ice Campaign or the November Raid) took place in November 1921, while the Ukrainian National Republic government and its disarmed army were in Poland, and the partisan movement was still active in Ukraine (see Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22). The goal of the raid behind the Bolshevik lines was quite bold: to unify the partisan operations and to sweep the Soviet regime from Ukraine. Detachments of volunteers from the interned soldiers of the UNR Army in Poland formed what was called the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. It was commanded by Gen Yurii Tiutiunnyk, and its chief of staff was Col Yurii Otmarshtain.

The main Volhynia group (800 men) was commanded by Gen Tiutiunnyk, and the Podilian group (400 men), by Lt Col M. Palii and, later, Col S. Chorny. Gen Andrii Huly-Hulenko's Bessarabia group did not undertake any serious operations and after a few days returned from Ukraine to Rumanian territory. The men in all the groups were poorly armed and clothed. The Podilian group set out on 25 October and fought its way through Podilia, where it crushed a Soviet cavalry regiment and transformed itself into a cavalry group. It reached the village of Vakhnivka, 60 km north of Kyiv, and then returned through Volhynia, to cross the Polish border on 29 November. The Volhynia group set out on 4 November and captured Korosten on 7 November but was unable to defend it. The group then moved as far east as the village of Leontivka. Having lost any hope of meeting with the Polisia group and replenishing supplies, it turned west. During the return march it was encircled by Hryhorii Kotovsky's cavalry near the town of Bazar, in the Zhytomyr region. Many of its men were killed in battle at Mali Mynky on 17 November, but the majority (443) were captured: 359 of them were executed at Bazar on 23 November, and the rest (84) were handed over to Bolshevik police. Only 120 men and the staff broke out of the encirclement, and they had fought their way to the Polish border by 20 November. The Second Campaign was the last operation of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic against the Bolshevik forces occupying Ukraine.

Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22

Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22. As government and public order in the Russian Empire dissolved after the February Revolution of 1917, a host of partisan groups sprang up in Ukraine. Differing in size and political orientation, they never formed a unified force behind a single leader or program and often switched their support from one to another of the major contenders for control of Ukraine. Formed mostly from among the Ukrainian peasantry, the movement defended the broad social and political goals of the revolution and sided increasingly with the national aspirations of the Ukrainian people. After the defeat of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic, the partisan movement became the chief opponent of Bolshevik power in Ukraine.

The first partisan groups were formed in 1917 in the Kyiv region to defend the local population from roving bands of soldiers returning from the front. The peasant brigades that arose from some of these groups, such as the Tarashcha, Zvenyhorod, and Uman brigades, took part in resisting the Bolshevik offensive on Kyiv in January–February 1918. Maintaining contact with army units loyal to the Central Rada, these brigades operated in the rear of the Bolshevik forces until April.

During 1918 numerous peasant revolts broke out against the German occupational authorities and the Hetman government in Ukraine. The peasants reacted with violence to forced food requisitions and the return of estates to their former owners. The largest rebellion flared up in the summer in the southern part of Kyiv gubernia (Tarashcha, Zvenyhorod, Skvyra, Uman, and Kaniv counties) and was put down only with the help of a German corps (see Tarashcha uprising). Some partisan operations against the Hetman were instigated by Bolshevik agitators, but they failed to attract wide peasant support. In November–December over 100,000 peasant partisans took part in the overthrow of the Hetman government, which was organized by the Ukrainian National Union.

The partisan movement in Ukraine grew rapidly in 1919. Some partisan units reached sufficient strength to have a decisive influence on the struggle for power among the main protagonists. Nykyfor Hryhoriv's support of the Red Army in February–April was a key factor in its successful offensive against the Whites and the Allies in southern Ukraine. Danylo Zeleny's revolt against the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic impaired its control of the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Poltava regions. Nestor Makhno, who established a brief and uneasy alliance with the Bolsheviks in March, inflicted six months later a harsh defeat on Anton Denikin's army, which forced the Whites to abandon their planned offensive on Moscow and to retreat before the Red Army. At the height of his power Makhno commanded a force of 40,000 men and controlled about a third of Ukraine's present territory.

The Bolshevik occupation of Ukraine met with considerable popular resistance in March–June 1919. Heavy requisition of food destined for Russia, Cheka terror, and the Bolshevik land policy provoked widespread revolts. Later, Bolshevik leaders admitted the extent of partisan opposition: according to Khristian Rakovsky, between 1 April and 15 June there were 328 anti-Bolshevik revolts in Ukraine, and according to Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko, in April and May peasant unrest in Kyiv gubernia, Chernihiv gubernia, Podilia gubernia, and Volhynia gubernia tied down 21,000 Red Army troops. Large anti-Bolshevik detachments were led by otamans, such as Ananii Volynets, I. Romashko, and P. Sokolovsky. Many of the instigators of the peasant unrest were Socialist Revolutionaries (SRS) and members of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party (Independentists), who wanted an independent socialist Ukrainian republic. In April these parties established in Skvyra the All-Ukrainian Revolutionary Committee, the Supreme Insurgent Council, and the Supreme Insurgent Staff to co-ordinate the anti-Bolshevik insurrection. The committee was dissolved in July to allow the Bolsheviks to concentrate their forces against Anton Denikin's offensive. Many of the committee's insurgent groups transferred their support to the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. A regiment of Nykyfor Hryhoriv's partisans (3,600 men) after his death broke through the Bolshevik front and under Yurii Tiutiunnyk's command formed the Kyiv Group of the UNR Army. In September, Otaman Danylo Zeleny recognized the authority of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. At the beginning of the month the UNR government set up in Kamianets-Podilskyi the Central Ukrainian Insurgent Committee to co-ordinate partisan activity. The committee was chaired by Nazar Petrenko and supported by the SRS, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party, and the Peasant Association.

In the summer and fall of 1919, as Bolshevik power in Ukraine declined, the partisan movement turned against Anton Denikin's forces, which occupied the territories abandoned by the Bolsheviks. The reactionary social policies of the Whites, their exploitation of the peasants, and their repression of Ukrainian activists provoked spontaneous and uncoordinated mass insurrection. Some of the partisan bands were organized by the Bolsheviks or their sympathizers. The larger and more powerful groups were led by Danylo Zeleny, Andrii Huly-Hulenko, and Nestor Makhno. Partisan activity in his rear undermined Denikin's offensive and enabled the Red Army to score a decisive blow against him at the end of 1919.

The re-established Bolshevik regime was regarded as foreign by most of the population and encountered strong resistance. Generally, the countryside was controlled by partisan bands, and Soviet power remained confined to the towns. During its First Winter Campaign (December 1919–May 1920) the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic tried to unite the various partisan groups in a common uprising against the Bolsheviks. It made contact with Otaman Chuchupaka's forces in Kholodnyi Yar, Otaman Zabolotny's detachments at Balta, and the larger, well-disciplined units of Andrii Huly-Hulenko in the Yelysavethrad region. There were many other sizable bands besides these, including A. Bondarenko's in the Zvenyhorodka region, Kuzmenko-Tytarenko's around Tarashcha, Fotii Meleshko's around Yelysavethrad, and I. Sokil's near Cherkasy. In the summer of 1920 the Cheka chief F. Dzerzhinsky was sent from Moscow with 6,000 special Cheka troops to deal with the partisan problem. In Kyiv gubernia there were 11 peasant revolts in June, 51 in July, and 106 in August, and in Poltava gubernia there were 76, 99, and 98, respectively. Vladimir Lenin admitted as late as October 1920 that Soviet control of Ukraine was formal rather than real.

At the beginning of 1921 there were about 40,000 partisans in Ukraine. The largest force was Nestor Makhno's in southern Ukraine, but several bands numbered 500 or more men: those under Struk, Sirko, and Yakiv Mordalevych (in Kyiv gubernia), Loshyn (Chernihiv gubernia), Yurii Tiutiunnyk (Volhynia gubernia), Holub (Podilia), Shuba (Poltava gubernia), and Burlaka and Siroshapka (Kharkiv gubernia). In March 1921 the Bolshevik regime offered amnesty to insurgents who surrendered voluntarily. By September 1922, 200 otamans and 10,000 men had surrendered. With the suspension of Soviet-Polish hostilities and the defeat of Petr Wrangel's army, the Bolsheviks redirected their forces in early 1921 against the partisan movement. Using Mikhail Frunze's tactics of ruthless executions, they launched a wide clearing campaign. In 87 operations during April and May they reportedly killed 5,000 and captured 4,200 partisans, and destroyed 28 bands. In June they eliminated the All-Ukrainian Insurgent Committee headed by Bondarenko in the Bratslav region and the Ukrainian Central Insurgent Committee headed by Ivan Andrukh in Kyiv. By the end of the summer the main partisan groups were crushed, although small, sporadic revolts continued to break out. The Ukrainian National Republic government's last attempt to spark a general insurrection against the Bolshevik regime—the Second Winter Campaign, led by Yurii Tiutiunnyk in October and November 1921—ended tragically, with the execution of 359 soldiers at Bazar.

The partisan movement in Ukraine demonstrated the deep hostility of the Ukrainian peasantry to any foreign invader and particularly to the Bolshevik regime. It also made the Soviet rulers permanently suspicious about Ukraine's loyalty.

Symon Petliura

Petliura, Symon [Petljura] (pseuds: V. Marchenko, V. Salevsky, I. Rokytny, S. Prosvitianyn, O. Riast), b 10 May 1879 in Poltava, d 25 May 1926 in Paris. (Photo: Symon Petliura.) Statesman and publicist; supreme commander of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and president of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. He entered the Poltava Theological Seminary in 1895 but was expelled in 1901 for belonging to a clandestine Ukrainian hromada (see Hromadas), which he had joined in 1898. From 1900 he was also active in a political cell in Poltava that became the nucleus of the Revolutionary Ukrainian party (RUP). To avoid arrest he moved in the autumn of 1902 to Katerynodar, in the Kuban, where he worked as a teacher and then, under the supervision of Fedir Shcherbyna, cataloged the archives of the Kuban Cossack Army. For his involvement in Katerynodar in the local RUP branch (the Black Sea Free Hromada) and in RUP periodicals (notably Dobra novyna) published in Austrian-ruled Lviv, he was arrested in December 1903. After being released on bail in March 1904, he went to Kyiv and from there, in the autumn, to Lviv to do RUP work and to edit its monthly Selianyn. . In 1905, after the general amnesty, he returned to Kyiv. In January 1906 he left for Saint Petersburg to edit, with Prokip Poniatenko and Mykola Porsh, the social democratic monthly Vil’na Ukraina (-17937L-->Saint Petersburg). After returning to Kyiv in July 1906, he worked as secretary of the newspaper Rada (Kyiv), coedited (in 1907–8) Slovo (-14562L-->Kyiv), the organ of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party, and contributed to the monthly Ukraina (-16770L-->1907). In 1909 he moved to Moscow and worked there as a bookkeeper until 1912, when he became coeditor, with Oleksander Salikovsky, of the Russian-language monthly Ukrainskaia zhizn’ (1912–17). In 1916 and until the beginning of 1917 he was deputy plenipotentiary of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos aid committee on the Russian western front.

After the February Revolution of 1917 Petliura was elected head of the Ukrainian Military Committee of the Western Front. He was sent as a delegate to the First All-Ukrainian Military Congress (18–21 May 1917; see All-Ukrainian military congresses) in Kyiv, where he was elected chairman of the Ukrainian General Military Committee. In June 1917 he was appointed general secretary of military affairs in the first General Secretariat of the Central Rada, and directed all his energies to organizing and building up the Ukrainian armed forces, while facing opposition from certain members of the Central Rada as well as open and active hostility from Russian circles. In late 1917, disagreeing with the policies of Volodymyr Vynnychenko, the chairman of the General Secretariat, Petliura resigned and went to Left-Bank Ukraine. There he organized and commanded the Haidamaka Battalion of Slobidska Ukraine, a military formation that played a decisive role in the January–February 1918 battles for Kyiv and suppression of the Arsenal uprising there.

After Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky's coup in April 1918, Petliura headed the Kyiv Gubernial Zemstvo and All-Ukrainian Union of Zemstvos. He was arrested by the Hetman government in July 1918 but was released after four months, and went to Bila Tserkva. There he took part in the popular uprising against Skoropadsky's regime and was then elected a member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic and supreme otaman of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. On 11 February 1919, after the army's retreat from Kyiv and Volodymyr Vynnychenko's flight abroad, Petliura succeeded him as president of the Directory and resigned from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. In the difficult conditions of the next 10 months he commanded the UNR army and later joint UNR Army and Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) against the Red Army and Volunteer Army (see Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21). On 5 December 1919, surrounded by the enemy and faced with certain defeat after the UHA established a separate alliance with the Volunteer Army, Petliura and some members of his government fled Ukraine and made for Warsaw in the hope of finding support and allies there. In the meantime Petliura ordered the UNR Army to begin the First Winter Campaign.

After the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw in April 1920, the UNR army under Petliura's command and its Polish military ally mounted an offensive against the Bolshevik occupation in Ukraine. The joint forces took Kyiv on 7 May 1920 but were forced to retreat in June. Thereafter Petliura continued the war against the Bolsheviks without Polish involvement. Poland and Soviet Russia concluded an armistice in October 1920, and in November the major UNR army formations were forced to retreat across the Zbruch River into Polish-held territory and to submit to internment (see Internment camps). Petliura and his government resided temporarily in Tarnow. Later Petliura moved to Warsaw under an assumed name. In late 1923, faced with increased Soviet demands that Poland hand him over, he was forced to leave for Budapest. From there he went to Vienna and Geneva, and in late 1924 he settled in Paris. There he founded the weekly Tryzub and oversaw the activities of the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic until his assassination by a Bessarabian Jew (Shalom Schwartzbard) claiming vengeance for Petliura's purported responsibility for the pogroms in Ukraine (see Schwartzbard Trial). He was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Petliura debuted as a publicist in 1902 in Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk. There and in the periodicals he edited he published many articles on political, civic, and cultural affairs, particularly on the question of Ukraine's national liberation. His articles had a discernible impact on the formation of Ukrainian national consciousness before the Revolution of 1917. As an emigre in Poland Petliura wrote a brochure on contemporary Ukrainian emigres and their responsibility (1923). In Tryzub he wrote mainly about the 1917–21 attempts at Ukrainian nation building, the responsibility of emigres, and Ukraine under Bolshevik rule.

The entire 1917–21 period of struggle for Ukrainian statehood is indissolubly linked with Petliura. As a publicist, politician, and military leader he was uncompromising on the issue of Ukrainian independence. Petliura's broad outlook was particularly evident in his definition of the tasks of Ukrainian emigres and their role in the struggle for Ukrainian statehood. Despite the initially negative, if not openly hostile, attitudes of certain emigre (particularly Western Ukrainian) circles to Petliura because of his central role in the Treaty of Warsaw and the Ukrainian-Polish alliance, since the mid-1920s he has personified, perhaps more than any other person, the Struggle for Independence (1917–20). The personification seemingly also extends to the issue of the pogroms that took place in Ukraine during the revolutionary period of 1918–20, and Petliura has frequently been invested with the responsibility for those acts. Petliura's own personal convictions render such responsibility highly unlikely, and all the documentary evidence indicates that he consistently made efforts to stem pogrom activity by UNR troops. The Russian and Soviet authorities also made Petliura a symbol of Ukrainian efforts at independence, although in their rendition he was a traitor to the Ukrainian people, and his followers (Petliurites) were unprincipled opportunists.

Army of the Ukrainian National Republic

Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. The armed forces of Ukraine during the struggle for independence (1917–20). Unlike the Ukrainian Galician Army, the regular armed forces of the Western Ukrainian National Republic, the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic was never a regular, well-structured organization, but was made up of various armed volunteer units. The history of the UNR Army can be divided into three main phases: the periods of the Central Rada, the Hetman government, and the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, although the formation of its units in all phases was to a large degree spontaneous and chaotic.

During the Central Rada period the UNR Army was formed in three ways: (1) by spontaneous detachment of Ukrainian units from the Russian army, forming, on the western front, the Haidamaka Cavalry Regiment; in Moscow, three Shevchenko regiments; in Symferopil and Chernihiv, the Doroshenko regiments; in Kyiv, the Polubotok Regiment, the Khmelnytsky Regiment (Bohdanivtsi), and other smaller units; (2) through Ukrainianization of Russian army units (at first without, but later with, the consent of the Russian army command); (3) through the reorganization of former army units (eg, the Sich Riflemen company was formed out of Austrian prisoners of war in Russia) or the creation of new units out of various army personnel (eg, the Bluecoats were formed out of Ukrainian prisoners of war in German camps and the Graycoats were formed out of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Austrian camps).

The formation of Ukrainian units in the Russian army was part of the process of general disintegration of the multinational Russian army along national lines that had begun at the front and in the rear immediately after the February Revolution of 1917. Soviets of soldiers' deputies were elected by separate units. In units with a significant number of Ukrainian soldiers, separate Ukrainian soldiers' soviets were formed in parallel with the general soviets (in the rear they were called also soldiers' clubs, assemblies, and committees). Apart from the spontaneous national awakening, an important role in the formation of Ukrainian units was played by the Ukrainian Military Club (formed in Kyiv on 22 February on the initiative of Lt Mykola Mikhnovsky), which formed the Ukrainian Military Organizing Committee, whose task was to organize Ukrainian volunteer units. The appeals of the committee were very successful and stimulated the first manifestation of Ukrainian military strength during the All-Ukrainian military congresses in Kyiv (the first on 18–21 May 1917, the second on 18–23 June, the third on 2–12 November), which supported the Central Rada unconditionally, called for the separation of Ukrainian units from the Russian army and elected the first military leadership—the Ukrainian Military Committee.

Instances of spontaneous Ukrainianization on the front became widespread (on the northern front, the 21st Corps; on the Romanian front, the 10th and 11th corps; on the western front, part of the 9th Corps). In units that were nationally mixed, the Ukrainian soldiers formed their own subunits, in which both discipline and fighting ability were superior and resistance to the Bolshevik appeals for demobilization was stronger than in other subunits. Because of this and the demands of the representatives of the organizing committee, the Russian commander in chief, Gen A. Brusilov, agreed to the official Ukrainianization of some units: the two-division 34th Russian Corps under the command of Gen Pavlo Skoropadsky (renamed the 1st Ukrainian) and the 6th Russian Corps (renamed the 2nd Sich Zaporozhian Corps) under the command of Gen Mandryka. Of 4 million Ukrainians in the Russian army in 1917, only 1.5 million were Ukrainianized, and the majority of these declared themselves neutral when it came to fighting the Bolsheviks or demobilized under the influence of Bolshevik agitation.

The Central Rada itself had no clear plans concerning military organization and did not recognize the need for a standing army based on compulsory military service. Instead, the concept of Free Cossacks, a volunteer, territorial, national militia, won out and was ratified by the Rada on 13 November 1917. As a result, on the eve of the Bolshevik invasion, the Central Rada announced the demobilization of the regular army (16 January 1918). Instead of building a standing army the government began recruitment for the national militia, for which uniforms and insignia were already designed. The Ukrainian-Bolshevik war (see Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21) convinced the Central Rada that Ukraine needed a regular standing army. A recruitment plan was worked out for an army that was to be made up of eight infantry corps and four cavalry divisions. Before these plans could be realized the Central Rada was overthrown by the Germans and replaced by the Hetman government. Before the downfall of the Central Rada, the UNR Army consisted of the Zaporozhian Corps (four infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and two light-artillery detachments), the Sich Riflemen Regiment, the Bluecoats, the Graycoats (in the process of formation), plus an indeterminate number of Free Cossacks, for a total of approximately 15,000 soldiers.

After the First All-Ukrainian Military Congress, the command of the UNR Army was taken over by the Ukrainian General Military Committee, headed by Symon Petliura. After the proclamation of the Ukrainian National Republic on 20 November 1917, a General Secretariat of Military Affairs was formed (general secretary, Petliura; chief of the general staff, Oleksander Hrekov). After the proclamation of the independence of Ukraine on 22 January 1918 the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Ukrainian National Republic was formed (Mykola Porsh, A. Nemolovsky, and Col Oleksander Zhukovsky were ministers) and, under its auspices, the Military General Staff was created (headed by Gen Hrekov, Gen B. Bobrovsky, and Col Oleksander Slyvynsky). At first the general staff had several departments (organization, liaison, supplies, training, and artillery), whose number was reduced to only two—the organizational department and the quartermaster's department—after a reorganization by Col Slyvynsky.

During the period of the Central Rada the UNR Army was in a constant state of organization. Units that were formed at the front continued to serve there until the armistice, leaving the defense of Kyiv and the government mainly to the units of the Kyiv garrison (the Haidamaka Battalion of Slobidska Ukraine, commanded by Otaman Symon Petliura, the Galician Battalion of the Sich Riflemen, 16 small battalions of Free Cossacks under Mykhailo Kovenko, and the auxiliary student battalion of the Sich Riflemen under Capt Ahapii Honcharenko, which was routed in the Battle of Kruty). Such a weak force could not hold Kyiv, and the Bolsheviks occupied the city on 8 February 1918. Only at the end of the month, after the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the signing of the armistice with the Central Powers, were the Ukrainian forces, under Gen K. Prisovsky and Otaman Petliura and with the help of the Austro-Hungarian and German armies, able to repel the Bolsheviks. In addition to the battles for Kyiv, the Ukrainian forces (the Zaporozhian Corps under Gen Oleksander Natiiv and the detachments of Otaman Petro Bolbochan and Otaman Volodymyr Sikevych) occupied the Crimea and the Don region. But the Germans forced the Ukrainian army to leave the Crimea because it was not part of the Ukrainian National Republic and, on the eve of the establishment of the Hetman government, reduced the UNR Army to the Zaporozhian Corps after disarming the Bluecoats and the Sich Riflemen Regiment.

The Hetman government. Although the government and even the name of the country were changed (to the Ukrainian State), plans for establishing a regular army continued to be pursued. On 24 July 1918 the Council of Ministers passed a law establishing compulsory military service and ratified plans for the organization of the army (formerly proposed under the Central Rada), military courts, and medical services and supplies. In peacetime the army was to consist of 310,000 military personnel in eight territorial corps, with a budget of 1,254 million karbovantsi annually. A uniform was not established for the Ukrainian army, but military ranks and insignia were to be based on the German model, and the trident was ratified as the insignia for the cap (it remained so after the fall of the hetman). On 16 October 1918 by proclamation of the hetman, the Cossack organizational system, based on territorial units (several regiments in each unit) and otaman commanders under the hetman, was revived. The Cossacks were to be governed by the Great Cossack Council (with 32 members, some of whom were elected and others appointed). Although the otaman commanders were appointed, the Cossack system could not be put into effect before the November uprising against the hetman.

Apart from the units that remained from the period of the Central Rada (the Zaporozhian Corps, renamed the Zaporozhian Division; the Zaporozhian and the Black Sea garrisons), some units were formed during the Hetman government: the Serdiuk Guard Division (in July 1918, 5,000 men) (see Serdiuk guard divisions), the Graycoats (begun in Austria under the Central Rada), the Sich Riflemen unit (revived as a separate detachment of the Sich Riflemen at the end of August 1918). In the autumn of 1918 commissioned and non-commissioned officer corps and cavalry divisions were formed. In October 1918 the Special Corps was formed of Russian officers, and in the larger cities Russian volunteer-officer companies were formed as part of the Ukrainian army. The armed forces were acquiring a Russian character through the ‘National Guard’ (Derzhavna Varta), whose composition made it a continuation of the tsarist police, and the district special companies, which had been used for punitive expeditions. In November 1918 the Army of the Ukrainian State numbered 60,000 and was under the authority of the War Ministry. Gen Aleksandr Rogoza, a Russian, was appointed minister by the hetman; Col Kakurin was appointed chief of the general staff; Gen Drozdovsky and Gen Prokhorovych were appointed chief quartermasters.

Although Ukraine was not at war between July and October 1918, the Hetman government took an active interest in the army. However, the Army of the Ukrainian State did not develop beyond the organizational phase, although it did receive a good organizational foundation. Its development was hindered by the officers who were often indifferent or hostile to the Ukrainian movement (to become an officer one had to have a record of active service before the war and many who did were Russians) and by the German high command, which feared a sizable Ukrainian armed force. The situation improved slightly as a result of the personal visit of the hetman to the kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, but the continuing revolts of the populace against the oppression of the Hetman government and the arbitrariness of the Russian Whites, tolerated by the hetman, forced him to appoint as chief commander of the armed forces Gen Fedor Keller, who, on 11 November, abrogated all Ukrainian army regulations and replaced them with Russian ones. Only the November uprising against the hetman, organized by the Ukrainian National Union (which later designated the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic) saved the UNR Army from Russification and the Ukrainian state from absorption into the Russian anti-Bolshevik movement.

The period of the Directory. Although many independent insurgent units (eg, the Dnipro Division, which fell apart after the occupation of Kyiv, and the Black Sea Division, which was crushed in battle by the Bolsheviks) took part in the uprising against Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, the main part of the UNR Army was at first made up of those units that crossed from the hetman's side to the Directory: the Zaporozhian Division, the Graycoats, and the Sich Riflemen Regiment, which expanded into a two-division corps incorporating the Serdiuk guard divisions and other units and was renamed the Siege Corps of Sich Riflemen. Later, on the orders of the Directory, other units were formed: the Volhynia Division (composed of the hetman's Nalyvaiko Regiment, the Galician Regiment, the Czech-Ukrainian Regiment, and others) and the Podilia Division (made up of various revolutionary groups that were active in Podilia—the Karmeliuk, Zalizniak, Blackhoods [Chornoslychnyky] and other regiments). In December 1918 the General Council (Heneralna Bulava) of the Ministry of War organized the UNR Army into four groups, in accordance with the demands of the front: Left Bank (under Otaman Petro Bolbochan, in charge of the Bolshevik front), North Right Bank (under Otaman Volodymyr Oskilko, in charge of the Bolshevik-Polish front), Southern (under Gen Oleksander Hrekov, in charge of the front against the Entente), and Dniester (on the Romanian front). In February 1919 the Southern and Dniester groups were disbanded, and their units transferred to the Bolshevik front.

Apart from the regular units there were also partisan detachments, commanded by politically inexperienced officers lacking any national consciousness. They willingly rose up against Pavlo Skoropadsky, but in battles with the Bolsheviks succumbed to their propaganda, declared themselves neutral, and often, in critical moments, would cross over to the Bolshevik side (Nestor Makhno, Nykyfor Hryhoriv, and Danylo Zeleny; see Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22). After the retreat to the Right Bank (spring 1919), the UNR Army was again reorganized: small units were amalgamated into 11 divisions (each consisting of three infantry, one artillery, and one cavalry regiment) and divided into five independent detachments: the Sich Riflemen (three divisions) under Col Yevhen Konovalets, the Zaporozhian Group (three divisions) under Col Volodymyr Salsky, the Volhynia Group (two divisions) under Col Vsevolod Petriv, a division under Col Oleksander Udovychenko, and two divisions under Otaman Vasyl Tiutiunnyk.

In mid-July 1919 the Ukrainian Galician Army crossed the Zbruch River and, although it continued to exist as a separate unit under its own command, co-ordinated its actions with the UNR Army under a common operational command—the supreme otaman's staff. At this time the armed forces of the Ukrainian state consisted of three Galician corps (50,000 men) and five formations of the UNR Army (30,000 men). The total fighting strength of the united armies, together with the partisan detachments (Nestor Makhno in the Katerynoslav region, Anhel in the Chernihiv region, Danylo Zeleny in the south, Ya. Shepel in the Lityn region, Nykyfor Hryhoriv in the Kherson region, and others), was about 100,000 personnel (including 35,000 combat troops), 335 cannons, 1,100 machine guns, two air regiments, and armored trains and motor vehicles.

UNR Army command. With the establishment of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic, military affairs were taken over by Symon Petliura. He was designated supreme otaman (commander in chief) and under his authority were put the Ministry of War (headed, in turn, by the generals Oleksander Hrekov, Vsevolod Petriv, and Volodymyr Salsky) and the acting otaman (Gen Oleksander Osetsky), who directed army operations and the general staff. The general staff was again reorganized into a two-quartermaster system (an operational section under Gen Drozdovsky and an organizational section under Gen Kakurin), with appropriate departments (operations, intelligence, foreign relations, etc). After the retreat from Kyiv the command of the UNR Army was assumed by the staff of the acting army, which consulted with Petliura only on crucial decisions. The staff of the acting army was headed by Otaman Andrii Melnyk, with Vasyl Tiutiunnyk as second in command. Gen Volodymyr Sinkler was chief quartermaster, Col Mykola Kapustiansky was operations chief, and Col Mykola Chebotariv was chief of intelligence. After the operational union of the two armies (Ukrainian Galician Army and UNR Army), a supreme otaman's staff was created. It was made up of personnel from both armies (Gen Mykola Yunakiv was chief of staff, Gen Viktor Kurmanovych was chief quartermaster, Lt Col K. Dolezhal was in charge of operations, and Lt Col Hrytsiv was in charge of intelligence).

From the First Winter Campaign to the end of the war for independence, the command of the UNR Army consisted of Gen Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko, commander in chief; Col Petro Lypko, chief of staff; and Gen Viktor Kushch, chief quartermaster. The Ministry of War was headed by Gen Oleksa Halkyn and then Col V. Salsky. The restored general staff was headed by Gen V. Sinkler, and Gen M. Yunakiv was head of the Supreme Military Council of the Ukrainian National Republic.

From December 1918 to the fall of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic warfare continued uninterruptedly. The front shifted, and at the same time units were re-formed and renamed. After a difficult retreat in the fall of 1919, the UNR Army found itself near Chortoryia in Volhynia, surrounded by Polish troops, by the Bolsheviks, and by Anton Denikin's army, without any possibility of maintaining a regular front. It was forced to resort to guerrilla warfare, and on 6 December 1919 the UNR Army set out on the First Winter Campaign. In this campaign the following divisions took part: Zaporozhian Division, Volhynian Division, Kyiv Division (Peasant), and some detachments of the Sich Riflemen. In May 1920, 2,680 men returned from the campaign, and they took part in the continuing Ukrainian-Soviet War. In January 1920 the Sixth Sich Division of the Army of the UNR, under Col Marko Bezruchko, and the revived Third Iron Rifle Division of the Army of the UNR, under Col Oleksander Udovychenko, were formed from Ukrainian prisoners of war interned in Poland. They were attached to the 3rd and 6th Polish armies, remaining there through the Polish-Ukrainian campaign against the Bolsheviks. At the beginning of the joint Polish-Ukrainian effort, the UNR Army was composed of the following divisions: the Zaporozhian Division, Volhynian Division, Third Iron Rifle Division, Kyiv Division, Kherson Division, and Sich Division (each made up of three infantry brigades with artillery, one cavalry regiment, and one technical regiment); there was also a separate cavalry division (see Separate Cavalry Division of the Army of the UNR). At the end of the Polish-Ukrainian war in October 1920, the UNR Army had 23,000 men. After the Polish-Bolshevik armistice the staff of the UNR Army prepared an anti-Bolshevik offensive, but the Red Army began its own offensive, and after intense battles (11–12 November 1920) the Ukrainian army retreated westward. On 21 November the UNR Army crossed the Zbruch River and was interned by the Polish authorities.

The war in Ukraine continued, fought by guerrilla detachments under the Revolutionary staff, headed by Gen Yurii Tiutiunnyk. At the beginning of November 1921 the Revolutionary staff ordered a partisan raid on the Right Bank (the so-called Second Winter Campaign) to be carried out by two groups—a Podilian unit and a Volhynian unit, made up of 1,500 volunteers from among the interned soldiers of the UNR Army. The Bolsheviks routed both groups. The Volhynian unit was surrounded and defeated near Bazar; 359 soldiers were executed (23 November 1921).

After a lengthy and difficult confinement in internment camps in Poland (Wadowice, Piotrkow Trybunalski, Tuchola, Aleksandrow Kujawski, Lancut, Strzalkow, Kalisz, Szczepiorno), the interned soldiers of the UNR Army were granted the status of emigres. The staff of the UNR Army continued to exist as an institution subordinate to the Government-in-exile of the Ukrainian National Republic. The military traditions of the UNR Army were preserved by various Ukrainian veterans' organizations, the most active of which was the Society of Former Combatants of the Ukrainian Republican Democratic Army in France (est 1927).

General characteristics of the UNR Army. Having been formed basically by Russian army personnel, the UNR Army followed Russian organizational and tactical models. Because of the frequent changes of the front, regimes, and military commands, because of the anarchy created by guerrilla detachments, and because of German and Austrian opposition, the UNR Army was never able to complete its organization through conscription or general mobilization and hence remained essentially an army of volunteers. The army had no durable home front and hence no permanent base from which to draw human and material resources. Organization, training, uniforms, arms—all the elements of a normal army—were in the process of organization and subject to the vicissitudes of the Ukrainian struggle for independence (1917–1920).

Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21

Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21. A military struggle for control of Ukraine waged intermittently in 1917–21 by Ukrainian independentist forces and pro-Bolshevik elements seeking to establish Soviet rule. The struggle began shortly after the October Revolution of 1917. Notwithstanding the creation of the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) on 20 November 1917, the Bolsheviks planned to seize power in Ukraine with the aid of Russian or Russified urban elements, Russian garrisons, and army units stationed near the front. Their armed uprising in Kyiv on 11 December 1917 was unsuccessful, however, and the Bolshevized army units were deported from Ukraine in stages. A pro-Bolshevik force under Yevheniia Bosh moving in on Kyiv was also disarmed by Ukrainian troops under Pavlo Skoropadsky near Zhmerynka and then sent off to Russia.

December 1917 to April 1918. Hostilities broke out in Ukraine after a series of diplomatic maneuvers. On 17 December 1917 the Petrograd-based Council of People's Commissars issued an ultimatum demanding that Bolshevik troops be granted the legal right to be stationed on Ukrainian soil. The ultimatum was rejected by the UNR. The Bolsheviks countered by proclaiming their own Ukrainian government based in Kharkiv on 25 December, and then proceeded with a campaign to establish effective military control over Ukraine. The Ukrainian forces at that time consisted of a small volunteer detachment and several battalions of the Free Cossacks. The pro-Soviet forces in Ukraine included Russian army regulars stationed at the front, a number of garrisoned units, and Red Guard detachments composed of laborers from Kharkiv gubernia and the Donbas. Their main strength, however, lay in a large force of Red Guards from Russia, which had been stationed along the Ukrainian border. On 25 December that 30,000-strong army, led by Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko, set off in four groups from Homel and Briansk toward Chernihiv–Bakhmach, Hlukhiv–Konotip, and Kharkiv–Poltava–Lozova.

The invasion by pro-Soviet forces was accompanied by uprisings initiated by local Bolshevik agitators in cities throughout Left-Bank Ukraine. The Bolshevik forces occupied Kharkiv (26 December), Lozova and Katerynoslav (now Dnipropetrovske, 9 January 1918), Oleksandrivske (now Zaporizhia, 15 January), and Poltava (20 January). The Briansk group captured Konotip (16 January) and Hlukhiv (19 January). On 27 January the Bolshevik army groups converged on Bakhmach and then set off under the command of Mikhail Muravev to take Kyiv.

The Central Rada prepared for the defense of the capital by sending advance forces of volunteers to Poltava and Bakhmach. One of those, the Student Battalion, was annihilated by a vastly larger (4,000 troops) Bolshevik force at the Battle of Kruty, 130 km northeast of Kyiv, on 29 January. As the Soviet advance continued, an attempt was made to take Kyiv through an uprising organized by non-Ukrainian workers based at the Arsenal plant. Fighting broke out on 29 January and continued until 4 February, when the revolt was put down by a newly formed contingent of the Sich Riflemen and the Free Cossacks. Meanwhile the Bolshevik expeditionary force continued to move on the capital from Bakhmach and Lubni. On 8 February the Ukrainian government was forced to evacuate the city. Soviet troops under Mikhail Muravev's command entered Kyiv on 9 February and then carried out brutal reprisals against the Ukrainian civilian population.

After taking Kyiv the Bolsheviks launched an offensive in Right-Bank Ukraine, where they were engaged in battle mainly with Free Cossack forces. They moved into Volhynia (led by the former Russian Seventh Army), where they took Proskuriv (now Khmelnytskyi), Zhmerynka, Koziatyn, Berdychiv, Rivne, and Shepetivka and forced the Ukrainians back to a Zhytomyr–Korosten–Sarny defensive line.

The tide changed following Ukraine's signature of the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the entry of German and Austrian troops into the conflict in late February as allies of the Central Rada. With a Ukrainian command of Gen K. Prisovsky and Symon Petliura the combined force rolled the Bolshevik troops out of Right-Bank Ukraine's centers, such as Zhytomyr, Berdychiv, Koziatyn, and Bucha, before regaining Kyiv on 1 March. Through March and April the German and Austrian armies took control of Left-Bank Ukraine, and the troops of Petro Bolbochan and Volodymyr Sikevych took the Crimea and the Donets Basin. Alarmed by the changed military situation, Vladimir Lenin ordered his representative in Ukraine, Grigorii Ordzhonikidze, to Ukrainize (at least ostensibly) the predominantly Russian forces of Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko and Mikhail Muravev in a bid for more popular support. The maneuver proved unsuccessful. Continuing military setbacks gave Soviet Russia little choice but to comply with the articles of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and to sign a preliminary peace with the Ukrainian government on 12 June 1918.

December 1918 to December 1919. The second phase of the Ukrainian-Soviet War began with the fall of the German-supported Hetman government to the forces of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the unsettled situation by forming a Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine on 20 November 1918 and starting a military advance into Ukraine in December with an army led by Volodymyr Antonov-Ovsiienko, Joseph Stalin, and Volodymyr Zatonsky. The Directory protested the aggression, with diplomatic notes sent to the Soviet government on 31 December 1918 and on 3, 4, and 9 January 1919. Not having received a reply, the Directory was compelled to declare war against Russia on 16 January. The Ukrainian forces at that time consisted of two regular troop formations, the Zaporozhian Corps and the Sich Riflemen, as well as partisan detachments (see Partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22) led by otamans, such as Nestor Makhno, Nykyfor Hryhoriv, and Danylo Zeleny. The otamans, however, were politically unreliable and occasionally sided with the Bolsheviks.

In December 1918 and January 1919 the Bolshevik expeditionary force, aided by some of the otamans, captured Left-Bank Ukraine, and on 5 February it closed in on Kyiv, where it forced the Ukrainian government once more to flee from the capital. The Soviet attack proceeded on several fronts. A northern group moved along a Mozyr–Korosten and Lunynets–Sarny–Rivne line in an attempt to cut off the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic from the Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) to the west. A southern group proceeded from the Kremenchuk-Katerynoslav region through Znamianka toward the Birzula–Koziatyn–Zhmerynka line in an effort to cut off the UNR troops from possible reinforcement by Entente forces. At a critical moment Otaman Nykyfor Hryhoriv threw his support behind them. The third Bolshevik army group proceeded from Kyiv to the Berdychiv–Koziatyn–Zhmerynka line in an effort to keep the northern and southern wings of the UNR Army divided.

The UNR army launched a counteroffensive in March, in which it defeated the Soviet forces along the Berdychiv–Koziatyn line and advanced almost to Kyiv, thereby effectively cutting off any possibility that the Soviets might march through Romania to Hungary in order to aid the Bela Kun regime. The Bolshevik forces retaliated in April (after the withdrawal of Entente troops) by marching on Zhmerynka and dividing the UNR army's southern flank from the force's main body. The southern group subsequently lost the support of Otaman Omelian Volokh and was forced to retreat into Romania, where it was disarmed (eventually returning through Galicia to Volhynia). At the same time, the UNR army was pushed back to a small parcel of territory approx 40–50 km wide in the Dubno-Brody region of southwestern Volhynia. Its position was weakened further with a coup attempt by one of its commanding officers, Volodymyr Oskilko.

The UNR Army's fortunes improved as Ukrainian peasants, disgruntled by the Bolsheviks' anti-Ukrainian policy and high requisition quotas, started to replenish insurgent ranks. But before the army itself could regroup, it faced an assault by Polish forces in the Lutsk region and advances from the Red Army in the north and southeast that took Rivne, Shepetivka, Proskuriv, and even Kamianets-Podilskyi. The UNR then reached a peace agreement with the Poles and reorganized its army into four groups—the Sich Riflemen and the Zaporozhian Corps, Volhynian Corps, and Southwestern Corps—with a total of approx 15,000 soldiers. In early June the UNR forces launched an offensive which retook Podilia and Kamianets-Podilskyi. The Red Army retaliated at the end of the month with a campaign that regained Proskuriv (5 July) and approached Kamianets-Podilskyi, which had been made the UNR's provisional capital. The UNR was then strengthened by the arrival of Yurii Tiutiunnyk with troops formerly under Nykyfor Hryhoriv, who had worked his way through the Reds' southern flank. The UNR Army launched a campaign which pushed the Bolshevik forces back to the Horodok [see Horodok (Khmelnytskyi oblast)]–Yarmolyntsi–Sharhorod–Dunaivtsi–Nova Ushytsia–Vapniarka line before being joined by UHA troops who had crossed the Zbruch River on 16–17 July; their arrival brought together a combined Ukrainian force of nearly 85,000 regulars and 15,000 partisans.

The subsequent campaign to take Kyiv proceeded with victories in Vinnytsia (12 August), Khmilnyk, Yaniv, Kalynivka, and Starokostiantyniv (14 August), Berdychiv (19 August), and Zhytomyr (21 August). On 31 August the Ukrainian troops entered Kyiv, only to discover that soldiers from Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army had arrived at the same time. Hostilities between the two forces were narrowly averted when the combined Ukrainian forces pulled out of the city. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the Ukrainians' standoff with Denikin's troops to move some of their forces from the Katerynoslav region to Zhytomyr. Meanwhile the leadership of the UNR and UHA split over how to deal with Denikin, a situation exacerbated by an outbreak of typhus among the troops. The UHA leadership finally made a separate peace with the Volunteer Army on 6 November. The military situation had worsened as Bolshevik forces, which had made substantial gains in Right-Bank Ukraine's areas formerly controlled by Denikin's troops, and the Poles moved into the western reaches of Ukraine. By the end of November the government and the UNR Army found themselves hemmed in by Soviet, Polish, and Volunteer Army troops. At a conference on 4 December the army decided to suspend regular military operations in favor of underground partisan warfare.

December 1919 to November 1920. The UNR Army under the command of Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko carried out an underground operation known as the First Winter Campaign in the Yelysavethrad (now Kirovohrad) region against the Soviet 14th Army from 6 December 1919 to 6 May 1920. In addition to that action the UNR government concluded the Treaty of Warsaw on 22 April, and then launched a joint offensive with Polish troops against the Bolsheviks. By 7 May a Ukrainian division under the command of Marko Bezruchko entered Kyiv, but the success was short-lived. A Red Army counteroffensive led by Semen Budenny pushed the combined forces back across the Zbruch River and past Zamosc toward Warsaw. After the decisive battle of 15 September the Polish-Ukrainian forces threw the Bolshevik contingent back as far as the Sharhorod–Bar–Lityn line in Podilia. The Poles concluded a separate peace with the Soviets on 18 October. The 23,000-strong UNR force continued fighting until 21 October, when its position became untenable. The UNR Army crossed the Zbruch River into Polish-controlled Galicia, where they were disarmed and placed in internment camps.

November 1921. The final military action of the UNR against the Soviets was a raid in November 1921 known as the Second Winter Campaign. The intent of the action was to provide a catalyst for the formation of partisan groups which would incite a general uprising against the Bolsheviks in Ukraine. The commander of the action was Yurii Tiutiunnyk. Two expeditionary forces were established, Podilia (400 men) and Volhynia (800 men). The Podilia group advanced as far as the village of Vakhnivka, in the Kyiv region, before returning to Polish territory through Volhynia on 29 November. The Volhynia group took Korosten and advanced as far as the village of Leonivka in the Kyiv region. On its return march it was intercepted by a Bolshevik cavalry force under the command of Hryhorii Kotovsky, however, and routed in battle near Mali Mynky on 17 November. Of the 443 soldiers captured by the Soviets 359 were shot on 23 November near the town of Bazar, in the Zhytomyr region, and 84 were passed on to Soviet security forces.

The Second Winter Campaign brought the Ukrainian-Soviet War to a definite conclusion. The partisan movement in Ukraine, 1918–22 remained active until mid-1922, but conventional military action by regular troops had ceased.