The invasion was first planned in November 1918, after the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic annulled the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and was launched in the first days of January 1919, with the occupation of Kharkiv.

The introduction of the policy of war communism and the requisitioning of food for the needs of the cities quickly alienated a significant part of the Ukrainian peasantry from Bolshevik rule.

The outbreak of a number of local uprisings, and in May 1919, the rebellion of the 20,000-strong forces of Nykyfor Hryhoriv, prevented the Red Army from finally destroying the UPA and marching west towards Bessarabia and Hungary.

The Ukrainian Revolutionary Military Council was immediately established, including Antonov-Ovseenko, Joseph Stalin, Volodymyr Zatonsky and Georgy Pyatakov.

It was based on the assumption that, in the first place, the Bolshevik forces should seize cities, industrial centers, ports, and railway junctions, which would provide the necessary resources and guarantee the possibility of gaining support from the workers.

[3] As the commander-in-chief of the Red Army Jukums Vācietis adopted the Antonov-Ovseenko plan without amendments, he decided that he would receive in the course of operations all the necessary replenishment (including armored trains) and supplies.

[4] This was in line with Vladimir Lenin's expectations - while Trotsky was convinced that the seizure of Ukraine should be a priority for the Red Army, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars considered it more important to repel direct threats by the White movement to the Southern and Eastern Fronts.

[4] An additional source of conflicts between Vacietis and the Ukrainian Revolutionary-Military Council was the conviction of Stalin, Zatonsky and Pyatakov that they were performing a task of special importance, independent of other operations conducted by the Southern Front.

Bolshevik supporters in northern Donbas were called on to organize guerrillas and take control of the region, and those who were in Crimea - to prepare to repel possible Allied intervention on the peninsula.

[8] Meanwhile, on 21 November, Vacietis ordered Antonov-Ovseenko to focus on the expansion and training of troops and to set up a strike group that would attack the forces of Pyotr Krasnov at Millerovo.

[17] A significant part of the partisan peasant units in Ukraine, which had previously fought against the Germans and sympathized with Petliura, defected to the Soviet side, under the influence of Bolshevik agitation.

[20] Units of the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Division, led by Pavel Dybenko, entered Katerynoslav, which the Petliurists and Makhnovists had been fighting fierecly over.

He expected that the Allies who landed in Odesa and Crimea also intended to launch an offensive in the same direction, in support of Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army.

[23] In the face of the invasion, treating the Red Army's march as an expression of Russian imperialism, Vynnychenko's Ukrainian socialists supported the defense of the country's independence.

[24] However, it turned out to be impossible to successfully repel the march of the Ukrainian Front, as the forces loyal to the Directorate were dwindling with each passing day.

[30] The Southern Group, supported by the forces of otaman Hryhoriv, was intended to cut off the UPA troops from possible Allied aid and attacked from the Katerynoslav region and Kremenchuk along the line Zhmerynka-Koziatyn-Podilsk.

[30] The third group headed from Kyiv along the Berdychiv-Koziatyn-Zhmerynka line to prevent the northern and southern wings of the Ukrainian People's Republic from joining.

In turn, the loyalty of partisan formations to the Bolshevik command was uncertain, these units repeatedly robbed and murdered Jews, or even local newly arrived Soviet officials.

[29] The implementation of war communism by the government of Rakovsky, which introduced requisitions and the Cheka to the countryside, quickly alienated a significant part of the Ukrainian peasantry from the Bolshevik rule.

The Ukrainian People's Army was pushed to a narrow strip of territory, with an average width of 40-50 km, in the Brody and Dubno region.

His forces numbered 20,000 soldiers, 10 armored trains and 700 machine guns, which allowed him to take control of the area with Katerynoslav, Yelysavethrad, Kherson, Kremenchuk, Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Oleksandriia and Kryvyi Rih.

[41] The necessity to fight Hryhoriv forced the command of the Ukrainian Front to give up any further offensive in the south-west direction, making it impossible to enter Bessarabia and Eastern Galicia and preventing them from providing military support to the Hungarian Soviet Republic.