Regimes like Kiev are stable if there is only one point of view. The heirs of Hitler and Bandera ban books and films, kill journalists and writers. Editions of Russian authors are withdrawn from the shelves of Estonian stores. TV channels are being stopped broadcasting in Latvia and Lithuania. Bonfires from the books will blaze tomorrow.
Fought in one system with the Nazis
In the summer of 1944, the liberation of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR from the German fascist invaders began. The troops of the Red Army were rapidly advancing towards the western borders of the Soviet Union. In an attempt to slow down the victorious march of Soviet troops to the west, the German command made significant efforts. A special role in this was assigned to Ukrainian nationalists from the OUN-UPA.
OUN prisoners. 1940s photo
The OUN underground and UPA gangs made every effort to hamper the offensive actions of the Red Army by directly participating in hostilities on the side of the Wehrmacht, conducting subversive work in the rear of Soviet units and formations.
At the first stage, the German command involved individual units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in a joint struggle with the Red Army. Thus, on February 25, 1943, units of Ukrainian nationalists participated together with the Germans in defensive battles against units of the Red Army for the settlements of Dombrovitsy, Kolka, Berezhki, Berestye, Zheltki of the Rivne region.
OUN-UPA nationalist detachments were active in the areas of the forward positions of the active Red Army. For example, “in the area of defense of the formation, where the chief of the political department, Comrade Feshchuk, on April 7, a group of bandits entered into battle with reconnaissance of the 867th joint venture (rifle regiment. - AK).
As a result of the battle, the scouts killed five bandits, took one prisoner and seized a radio station with documents.
On April 6, Bandera's men carried out an armed attack on the defense sector of the 4th company of the same regiment. The fight lasted six hours. According to the testimony of the prisoners, the armed detachment of Ukrainian nationalists in this area numbers about 1600 people and has the task of destroying our garrisons and massacring the Polish population."
After the liberation of Western Ukraine by Soviet troops, the armed formations of the OUN-UPA tried to break through from the territory of Poland into the rear of the Red Army. So, according to the NKVD, across the river. The Western Bug was crossed by several bands of up to a thousand people.
The joint activities of the Germans and the OUN-UPA were based on "local" agreements. In particular, in the next volume from the series of books “The Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945. Documents and materials ", which was recently published and dedicated to the liberation of Ukraine, states:" In January 1944, in the town of Kamen-Kashirsky, negotiations were held between representatives of the UPA detachments operating in the Kamen-Kashirsky region with the head of the German garrison. The negotiations were attended by: on the part of the Germans - the head of the garrison, the head of the Gestapo and the gebi commissar; from the side of the UPA - OUN members Demyanenko and Romanyuk from the town of Lyubeshiv, Volyn region and 12 other representatives from the UPA garrison of the farmsteads Ozertse, Plisheva, the village of Polytsi. As a result of these negotiations, the Germans handed over to the UPA the city of Kamen-Kashirsky and weapons, ammunition, food and fodder supplies available in the city. After that, the UPA gang under the command of "Crow", consisting of 285 people. occupied the city."
In the order of SS Brigadefuehrer K. Brenner said about the negotiations with the leaders of the UPA on February 12, 1944: “The negotiations started in the Derazhno region with the leaders of the Ukrainian national insurgent army were also successfully carried out in the Verba region. An agreement was reached: German units are not attacked by the UPA. The UPA sends scouts, mostly girls, to areas occupied by the enemy and reports the results of reconnaissance. Division of the Battle Group. Prisoners of the Red Army, as well as Soviet partisans, are escorted to reconnaissance. department for interrogation; local alien elements are being used by the Battle Group at work."
The head of the security police and the SD of Lvov, police colonel V. Birkamp, reported that on March 11, 1944, in the Podlamin region, “200 participants of the Ukrainian. free movement declared a struggle against Bolshevism together with the German Wehrmacht. During March 12, 1944, their number reached 1200. They are from the RKU (Reichskommissariat of Ukraine. - AK) and for the most part are armed … provided the gang with weapons and bandages. In the coming days, Major Dr. Ghibel will negotiate with the leader of this national Ukrainian group … In my opinion, here we are already talking not about a gang, but about a "friendly army" that supplies and arms the Wehrmacht. And the police would have treated them differently, just like the Wehrmacht, that is, as allies, if negotiations with them would have led them to undertake (and fulfill these obligations) to treat the German police as a "friendly army."
Since the end of January 1944, various UPA units have been looking for direct contacts with Wehrmacht units. The officer of the reconnaissance department of the Prützmann combat group, SS Sturmbannfuehrer Schmitz, established contact with individual leaders of the UPA gangs in the Postoino region (33 km north-west of Rovno), Kremenets, Verba, Kotin, Beresse, Podkamen and Derazhnya, in order to use them to conduct reconnaissance against the Red Army and as sabotage squads.
On April 11, 1944, the head of Abwehrotryad-104 reported: “The UPA has an order according to which it is forbidden to fight against German soldiers or commit acts of sabotage against their military installations and communications”.
THREAT POWER
OUN-UPA was a real military force. Speaking about the organizational structure, weapons and tactics of the actions of the armed formations, it should be noted that at first they were quite large formations armed with aircraft, artillery, mortars, anti-tank rifles, machine guns and machine guns. Subsequently, starting in 1945, having suffered significant losses from the Red Army and internal troops, they switched to operations in smaller groups of 20-30 people. The bandits made sudden raids, ambushed roads and settlements, attacked small military units, carts, local activists, and mined railway tracks.
The result of the joint actions of the Wehrmacht and the UPA at the first stage: direct participation of nationalists in hostilities against Soviet partisans and the Red Army; the transfer of intelligence materials to the Wehrmacht; execution of the UPA sabotage missions behind the front line; also through negotiations, the German command and special services were able to keep the OUN-UPA from causing significant damage to the German supply of communications and German interests in the region.
At the second stage, after the liberation of the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR by units of the Red Army, the activities of the Bandera members were of a terrorist, intelligence and propaganda nature.
Before the Red Army entered the territory of Western Ukraine, the leaders of the OUN-UPA issued orders to disband the armed detachments. It was indicated that they should go home with weapons, and then, when the Red Army passed to the West, they would again unite and fight against the Soviet regime.
The OUN leadership demanded from all OUN organizations "during the passage of Red Army units to carefully conceal their activities, and when the front withdraws, to conduct an active struggle against the Soviet authorities on the ground by means of terrorist acts against the workers of the Soviet institutions and officers of the Red Army."
The largest and most efficient gangs had to "infiltrate" through the front to the rear of the active army. “According to the testimony of a captive OUN soldier, up to 1,500 people are being transported to the rear of the Red Army in the area of Vinna Pesochnoe. nationalists. The remnants of a group of up to 500 are in the Lyubotin area with the task of crossing into the rear of the Red Army. Strongly armed. " To "check the activities of the OUN members and establish contact with them, the German intelligence agencies send their agents."
The directive documents of the OUN proposed to create unbearable conditions for the presence of Red Army units on the territory of Western Ukraine - not to provide food and fodder, to destroy everything that they did not have time to hide, to disrupt the mobilization measures of the command, and in case of mobilization, to desert.
Local organizations of the OUN were to carry out reconnaissance work in the rear areas of the formations and units of the Red Army, create an agent network in settlements and introduce agents into Soviet institutions.
German intelligence on the territory of Western Ukraine was working to create well-equipped and armed units of the UPA, which operated in the Soviet rear with terrorist and sabotage missions.
The interaction of the OUN-UPA leadership with the German command is confirmed by archival data. So, on February 25, 1945, four enemy paratroopers, Ukrainians by nationality, were dropped on the territory of the Gorodok district of the Lviv region from a German U-88 aircraft, who were detained on February 26, 1945. During interrogation, the paratroopers showed that in December-January 1944/45, they all underwent training at the German intelligence school in Germany, after which on February 25, 1945, they were dropped from the plane to the Soviet rear with the task of collecting data on the economic and political state of the USSR. and also about the state of the OUN movement and UPA gangs.
The effective collection of intelligence data was facilitated by the fact that the leaders of the armed detachments of the OUN-UPA in almost all settlements had their agents who, through a network of liaisons, constantly informed them about the deployment of the Red Army garrisons, about the movement of units and subunits.
THE BANDITS WERE ACTIVE
Gangs of Ukrainian nationalists were very active. In one of the reports we read: “In the second half of January 1944, when the army units, where the head of the political department, Comrade Voronov, were on the defensive along the Goryn River, a number of districts of the Rivne region remained in the rear. The hiding gangs began to intensify their activities. Only during the period from January 10 to February 1, for 20 days, 23 cases of armed clashes with bandit groups of nationalists, attacks by bandits on individual servicemen were noted in the army sector. As our troops moved further westward, attacks and terrorist acts by bandit groups intensified.”
As the regions of the western regions of Ukraine were liberated by units of the Red Army, the nationalists intensified their subversive work. Acting in the rear of the Soviet troops, they attacked individual servicemen, small units and transport with food, weapons, ammunition, and small garrisons. “At the end of March, bandits killed him from around the corner in the village. Gardens of the Shumsky district of the Rivne region st. sergeant of the 7th separate autorot Pavlov and wounded Red Army soldier Chernov, who were sent there to procure meat along with the local authorities.
On April 9, a group of Bandera members of up to 150 people in the area of m. Vishnevets Tarnopil region attacked senior sergeant 59 OTP (separate tank regiment. - A. K.) Comrade. Smolnikov and three soldiers who were repairing the T-34 tank together with him.
The foreman of the repair base, Sergeant Smolnikov, was killed, and the other three privates were disarmed.
On April 11, the Red Army 869 joint venture unit, where the head of the political department, Comrade Feshchuk, Gorobey and Lavrenchuk, under the command of the foreman, went to the village. Lesnaya Slobodka (Chernivtsi region) for food. At the entrance to the settlement, they were fired upon by bandits. In the skirmish that ensued between the fighters and the bandits, one Red Army soldier was killed, and the other was seriously wounded.
There have been repeated cases of missing individual and small groups of servicemen on duty in the areas where the bandits operate.
“April 5 this year. near the village of Staro-Trostyanets, Dubnovsky district, Rivne region, a group of bandits detained a Red Army soldier of the 3rd battery 777 AP (artillery regiment. - AK) Comrade. Borisov, a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), from whom the bandits took away weapons, party card, Red Army book and medal "For Courage", the bandits went to the village and captured two soldiers of the same battery.
… On the night of April 7, 1944, a liaison officer of the 55th Guards Headquarters was sent to the corps headquarters with a report. TBR (Guards Tank Brigade. - A. K.) Guards. Lieutenant Drachev with soldier Bezuglov, but they did not reach the headquarters of the corps. On their route, a search was organized by a group of fighters of 25 people. Near the village. Red they came under fire from bandits and returned back. Officer Drachev and soldier Bezuglov have not been found.
On April 16, 1944, a group of soldiers of the 58th SD (rifle division. - A. K.), consisting of three officers and three fighters, conducting a reconnaissance of the area in the Trostyanets-Mikhayluvka (Rivne region) region, disappeared without a trace. The submachine gunners sent to search were fired upon by the bandits and returned without results."
As a result of the bandit attacks of Ukrainian nationalists, some units suffered significant losses in personnel.
“The unit, where the head of the political department, Comrade Yakunin, was stationed in the districts of the Rivne region, over the past two months from terrorist attacks by bandits, 36 people were killed and 8 people were wounded. 8 officers were killed. In addition, the units of this unit lost 11 people missing.
OUN combat group prepares to inflict another
insidious blow on the sly. 1940s photo
Units of the cavalry unit, where the head of the political department, Comrade Plantov, lost 35 servicemen at the hands of the German-Ukrainian nationalists, among them three officers.
Other units also have losses in personnel at the hands of the Banderaites. The bandits seek first of all to kill our officers. For this purpose, they are trying to infiltrate the headquarters. For example, in the first half of April, a group of Bandera, disguised in Red Army uniforms, attacked the headquarters of the 1st SB (rifle battalion. Martynenko, located in the village of Puklyaki with the aim of capturing officers."
Detachments of Ukrainian nationalists also attacked individual units.
“On March 4, 1944, in the village of Karpalovka, Rokityanskiy district, Rivne region, an armed gang of 120–150 people attacked the communications company of the 1st separate repair and restoration line communications battalion. The bandits were armed with light machine guns, machine guns, rifles and grenades. Taking advantage of the darkness, the bandits approached a distance of up to 600 m to the school where the company was located for night rest. The commanders quickly organized a circular defense. The bandits were met with friendly fire from the soldiers. Having lost 16 people killed and wounded, the bandits went into the forest. Losses of the company - one soldier killed, one lightly wounded.
March 27 of this year. Maly Kuninets of the Kremenets district, a gang of up to 200 people on foot, 15 horsemen, armed with 5 anti-tank rifles, light machine guns and machine guns, there are up to 15 carts of the convoy, aimed to cut the highway and impede the movement of transports of our units."
The OUN members fired at vehicles followed by Soviet servicemen. “On January 15, 1944, a group of Banderites in the Katerinovka area attacked a cart with food, which was heading to the location of 375 AP 181 SD. During the raid, the Red Army soldier Shapovalov was wounded, and Sergeant Major Berezin disappeared without trace. The grocery cart fell into the hands of the bandits."
The victims of the attacks were not only soldiers, sergeants, junior officers of the Red Army and the NKVD troops, but also the highest command personnel of the active army. So, on February 29, 1944, in the village of Milyatino, Ostrogsky District, a bandit group of 100-120 people fired at the car of the commander of the First Ukrainian Front, Army General Nikolai Vatutin, and the escort vehicles. As a result of the attack by N. F. Vatutin was seriously wounded in the leg. Two weeks later, on April 15, 1944, he died of a wound from a blood poisoning in a Kiev hospital.
Feeling an acute need for weapons and ammunition, the bandits, under cover of darkness, attacked houses where soldiers and officers were quartered, killed them and stole weapons.
“January 14 of this year. in the forest near the village. The commander of a hundred of the UPA Lopanchuk Aleksandr Nikodimovich was caught in Tynno, Sarnovsky district, who confessed that he and members of his hundred, Matyuk and Zhigadlo, had killed senior sergeant of the 181st SD Kozhin Nikolai Nikolaevich, who was staying at Lopanchuk's apartment for rest. After the murder, Lopanchuk and other Kozhin's corpses were buried in the forest, and his clothes and weapons were taken away."
“On 5.11.44, in the village of Mizoch in the same district, bandits killed two Red Army men and cut off their noses and ears.
In February, gangs carried out 6 attacks on 5 regional centers of Rivne and one regional center of Volyn regions”.
WAR IN THE LIBERATED TERRITORIES
After the liberation of the western regions by the Red Army, the OUN leadership sought by any means to penetrate the eastern regions of Ukraine.
“In 1943, in Volhynia, separate detachments were formed specially for raids, and the most combat-ready and hardened kurens or hundreds were sent from Galicia. So, in April 1943 in VO 3 "Turiv" of the UPA-"North" group, a special-purpose kuren was formed in two weeks under the command of Nikolai Yakimchuk ("Oleg"). He was to carry out a raid east for the first time, in an area where the insurgency was not widespread."
They were formed with the aim of "popularizing the idea of fighting for an independent Ukraine" and conducting sabotage work in the rear of the Red Army. “Destroy railway bridges, undermine trains and paralyze communications” - these were the tasks assigned to the Zaliznyak UPA unit operating in the area of Kiev and Bila Tserkva.
“A special type of insurgent activity in the region was military sabotage actions on the Kovel, Lvov and Vinnitsa railways, which began with the arrival of the bulk of the spacecraft and the NKVD troops and their further advance to the west in September 1944. So, in the Rivne region (Kovelskaya railway), Soviet authorities recorded the explosion of a train with ammunition, attacks on an armored train and the Tomashgorod station. Similar actions were carried out on other railways. On October 10, 1944, on the Krivin-Mohilyany stretch (Vinnytsia railway), train # 1901 derailed as a result of a railway blast. On October 17, 1944, 6 railway bridges and the Kuskivtsi station were burned on the section of the Krasnosiltse – Lanivtsi – Lyapyasivka railway (Lvov and Vinnytsia railways). In total, in September-December 1944, the rebels carried out 47 such actions on the Kovel railway alone, 11 of them led to disasters … In January-February 1945 in the Volyn region. 10 trains were blown up, and on May 10, 1945The sabotage group of the Independent Ukraine brigade blew up an armored train in the Kovel-Povorsk section.
Here is an example from an OUN document entitled “News from the Places”: “In early May 1945, a group of insurgents blew up a train near the Polish Mountain, Kolkivsky District.
In May 1945, the Kubik rebel operational group blew up three trains and one armored train on the Berestya-Kovel line, the last one was blown up so that it could no longer be repaired."
Of course, this was beneficial to the Nazis. “One of the reasons why the Germans considered it useful to seek contact with the UPA,” writes Vladimir Kosik, “was, without a doubt, that the German intelligence services received information about the battles between the“Ukrainian nationalists”, that is, the UPA, and the Soviet garrisons, more precisely - by the troops of the NKVD in the regions of Kiev, Zhitomir, Proskurov, Kamenets-Podolsky, Slavuta, Rovno, Sarn. This interested the Germans from a military point of view. The reports, among other things, said that the situation in these areas was so difficult that the Soviet government was forced to introduce some restrictions on the entry of citizens from other republics into Ukraine, in particular from Russia. One of the reports informed about "rumors" that "partisans" (Ukrainian nationalists - AK) killed General Vatutin."
The Germans supported their pragmatic interests with the transfer of weapons and ammunition. On April 20, 1944, the commander of the German Army Group "Northern Ukraine" prepared a memo on relations with the UPA. In it, he noted that in some cases, the cooperation offered by the UPA units for military purposes can be used in their own interests. In particular, "to provide all kinds of support when it comes to strengthening the UPA groups that operate in the Soviet rear."
In the period from August 1943 to September 1944 alone, the OUN-UPA was transferred to service from the German authorities about 10 thousand heavy and light machine guns, more than 700 guns and mortars, 26 thousand machine guns, 72 thousand rifles, 22 thousand pistols, 100 thousand grenades, more than 12 million cartridges, a large number of mines and shells.
In an effort to disrupt the most important measures of the Soviet regime, Ukrainian nationalists committed sabotage, robberies, arson of collective farm property and killed rural activists, initiators of collective farm construction, and thwarted the call to the Red Army.
“The population of some villages, intimidated by the threats of Bandera, who promised to burn down the houses and cut out the families of those who would go to the Red Army, when the workers of the military enlistment offices appear, they go into the forest, taking their property and livestock with them.
The district military commissar of the Klevan district of the Rivne region, senior lieutenant Dolgikh, reports that the Bandera men so intimidated the population that, when arriving in the village, one cannot really find out where the headman lives, the isolation is exceptional."
The evasion and concealment of the mobilized from appearing at the assembly points reached considerable proportions. “On March 9, 1944, the Goshchansky regional military registration and enlistment office, along with the Rivne regional military registration and enlistment office, was supposed to present 800 people in the city of Rivne, in fact it represented only 290 people, the remaining 510 people. did not show up at the assembly point”.
Armed detachments of nationalists attacked the military registration and enlistment offices, killed their employees, and took teams of already mobilized local residents into the forest.
“On March 7, 1944, at 5:00 am, a group of 12 armed Bandera bandits attacked the Rivne RVK (rural). As a result, the following were killed: RVK instructor Junior Lieutenant Danilin and a representative from the Kiev Military District of Art. a lieutenant, whose name has not been established, because their corpses were burned along with documents.
A gang of Bandera members of up to 150 people. raided the Stepansky RVC. As a result of the ensuing firefight, there were killed and wounded.
On March 7, 1944, the Zdolbunovsky RVK sent instructor Junior Lieutenant Stepanov to the village of Gorbunovo to obtain lists to be mobilized. Stepanov did not return back, he was brutally killed by Bandera.
Also killed in the village of Mikhailovka was the head of the 3rd unit of the Derazhnyanskiy RVK ml. Lieutenant Zabara, who arrived there to identify the contingent of conscripts."
Implementation of the UPA sabotage missions in the rear of the front, the transfer of reconnaissance materials to the Wehrmacht, attempts to disrupt mobilization into the Red Army, etc. - all this, of course, played into the hands of the command of the Wehrmacht. This means that the structures of the OUN-UPA were allies of Nazi Germany, while modern statements about the national liberation nature of the movement are refuted by documents.
