Ukrainian Insurgent Army

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and both the Polish Underground State and Polish Communists. The UPA carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, which are recognized by Poland as a genocide.
The goal of the OUN was to establish an independent Ukrainian state. This goal, according to the OUN founding declaration, "was to be achieved by a national revolution led by a dictatorship" that would drive out occupying powers and then establish a "government representing all regions and social groups"; OUN accepted violence as a political tool against enemies of their cause. In order to achieve this goal, a number of partisan units were formed, merged into a single structure in the form of the UPA, which was created on 14 October 1942. From February 1943, the organization fought against the Germans in Volhynia and Polesia. At the same time, its forces fought against the Polish resistance, during which the UPA carried out massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia, resulting in the deaths of up to 100,000 Polish civilians. In 1944, as the German army was retreating, the UPA continued its war against them by attacking its rear and seizing its equipment, but at the end of July 1944 the UPA formed a united front with Nazi Germany, ceasing attacks on the withdrawing Wehrmacht and defending against the Soviets in exchange for military aid. Soviet NKVD units fought against the UPA, which engaged in armed resistance against Soviets until 1949. On the territory of Communist Poland, the UPA tried to prevent the forced deportation of Ukrainians from western Galicia to the Soviet Union until 1947.
The UPA was a decentralized movement widespread throughout Ukraine, divided into three operational regions; each region followed a somewhat different agenda, given the circumstances of a constantly moving front line and a double threat from both Soviet and Nazi forces. Not all UPA soldiers were members of the OUN or shared OUN's ideology.
The UPA was formally disbanded in early September 1949, but some of its units continued operations until late 1956. Officially, the UPA's last military engagement occurred in October 1956, when remnants of the group fought on the Hungarian border region in support of that country's revolution. In March 2019, surviving UPA members were officially granted the status of veterans by the government of Ukraine.
The UPA has a mixed legacy, both in Ukraine and abroad. While commemorated by many Ukrainians as heroes of their nation, some Soviet Army veterans oppose their positive remembrance and only some UPA veterans have received official veteran status in March 2019, despite receiving other forms of commemoration along with monuments and memorials. Some UPA veterans have responded to Polish grievances over their past misdeeds by meeting with Polish veterans and apologizing. Despite controversies over the exhumation of UPA victims in Volhynia, Ukrainian and Polish historians have also collaborated on a multi-volume history of the two nations, including the fraught history during the UPA's era.

Organization

The UPA's command structure overlapped with that of the OUN-B ; local OUN and UPA leaders were frequently the same person. The OUN's military referents were the superiors of UPA unit commanders. The UPA was established in Volhynia and initially limited its activities to this region. Its first commander was the OUN military referent for Volhynia and Polesia, Vasyl Ivakhiv. In July, the UPA Supreme Command was organized with Dmytro Klyachkivsky at its head.
Organizationally, the UPA was divided into regions. the Western Operational Group operated in western Ukraine; the Southern Operational Group in the central-southern regions of Podolia and parts of Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Odesa oblasts; the Northern Operational Group in the northern regions of Volhynia, Rivne Oblast, and parts of Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts; in eastern Ukraine, the UPA fled north, as the Soviet Union had executed a number of the UPA's participants. The members of the Eastern Operational Group joined other UPA units in Dnipropetrovsk and Chernihiv oblasts.
In November 1943, the UPA adopted a new structure, creating a Main Military Headquarters and the General Staff. Roman Shukhevych headed the HQ, while Dmytro Hrytsai became chief of staff. The General Staff consisted of operations, intelligence, logistics, personnel, training, political education, and military inspectors departments. In addition to the three regions named above, there was also an attempt to create an Eastern Operational Group, including Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts, but the project never came to fruition. Similarly, the UPA-South region ceased to exist in the summer of 1944, but continued to appear in documents. Three military schools for low-level command staff were also established.
The UPA's largest unit type, the kurin, consisting of 500–700 soldiers, was equivalent to a battalion, and its smallest unit, the rii, with eight to ten soldiers, equivalent to a squad. Occasionally, and particularly in Volyn, during some operations three or more kurins would unite and form a zahin or brigade. Organizational methods were borrowed and adapted from the German, Polish and Soviet military, while UPA units based their training on a modified Red Army field unit manual.
In terms of UPA soldiers' social background, 60 percent were peasants of low to moderate means, 20 to 25 percent were from the working class, and 15 percent were members of the intelligentsia. The latter group provided a large portion of the UPA's military trainers and officer corps. The number of UPA fighters varied: a German Abwehr report from November 1943 estimated that the UPA had 20,000 soldiers; other estimates at that time placed the number at 40,000. By the summer of 1944, estimates of UPA membership varied from 25,000 to 30,000 fighters, up to 100,000, or even 200,000 soldiers.

Structure

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was structured into three units:
The fourth region, UPA-East, was planned, but never created.

Anthem

The anthem of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was called the March of Ukrainian Nationalists, also known as We were born in a great hour. The song, written by Oles Babiy, was officially adopted by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in 1932. The organization was a successor of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, whose anthem was "Chervona Kalyna". Leaders of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, Yevhen Konovalets and Andriy Melnyk, were founding members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. For this reason, "Chervona Kalyna" was also used by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Flag

The flag of the UPA was a red-and-black banner, which continues to be a symbol of the Ukrainian nationalist movement. The colors of the flag symbolize "red Ukrainian blood spilled on the black Ukrainian earth. Use of the flag is also a "sign of the stubborn endurance of the Ukrainian national idea even under the grimmest conditions."

Awards

Cross of Merit
Cross of Combat Merit
Military ranks

The UPA made use of a dual rank system that included functional command position designations and traditional military ranks. The functional system was developed due to an acute shortage of qualified and politically reliable officers during the early stages of organization.


Supreme commander	Regional commander	Division commander	Brigade commander	Battalion commander	Company commander	Platoon leader	Squad leader

UPA rank structure consisted of at least seven commissioned officer ranks, four non-commissioned officer ranks, and two soldier ranks. The hierarchical order of known ranks and their approximate U.S. Army equivalent is as follows:

UPA RANKS	US ARMY EQUIVALENTS
Heneral-Khorunzhyj	Brigadier General
Polkovnyk	Colonel
Pidpolkovnyk	Lieutenant Colonel
Major	Major
Sotnyk	Captain
Poruchnyk	First Lieutenant
Khorunzhyj	Second Lieutenant
Starshyj Bulavnyj	Master Sergeant
Bulavnyj	Sergeant First Class
Starshyj Vistun	Staff Sergeant
Vistun	Sergeant
Starshyj Strilets	Private First Class
Strilets	Private

The rank scheme provided for three more higher general officer ranks: Heneral-Poruchnyk, Heneral-Polkovnyk, and Heneral-Pikhoty.

Armaments

Initially, the UPA used weapons collected from the battlefields of 1939 and 1941. Later, they bought weapons from peasants and individual soldiers or captured them in combat. Some light weapons were also brought by deserting Ukrainian auxiliary policemen. For the most part, the UPA used light infantry weapons of Soviet and, to a lesser extent, German origin. In 1944, German units armed the UPA directly with captured Soviet arms. Many kurins were equipped with light 51 mm and 82 mm mortars. During large-scale operations in 1943–1944, insurgent forces also used artillery. In 1943 a light Hungarian tank was used in Volhynia.
In 1944, the Soviets captured a Polikarpov Po-2 aircraft and one armored car and one personnel carrier from the UPA; however, it was not stated that they were in operable condition, while no OUN/UPA documents noted the usage of such equipment. By the end of World War II in Europe, the NKVD had captured 45 artillery pieces and 423 mortars from the UPA. In attacks against Polish civilians, axes and pikes were used. However, the light infantry weapon was the basic weapon used by the UPA.