[19][20][21] Before the war, the OUN regarded the Second Polish Republic as an immediate target, but even then it viewed the Soviet Union, although not operating on its territory, as the main enemy and greatest oppressor of the Ukrainian people.

[22] Even before the war, impressed by the successes of fascism, OUN radicalised its stance, and it saw Nazi Germany as its main ally in the fight for independence.

[24] The leader of the old group Andriy Melnyk claimed in a letter sent to the German minister of foreign affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop on 2 May 1938 that the OUN was "ideologically akin to similar movements in Europe, especially to National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy".

The OUN-M dominated Ukrainian emigration and the Bukovina; in Ukraine itself, the Banderists gained a decisive advantage (60% of the agent network in Volhynia and 80% in Eastern Galicia).

[46] The OUN-B formed Ukrainian People's Militsiya that, displaying exceptional cruelty, carried out at least 58 documented antisemitic pogroms and massacres of Jews that claimed between 13,000 and 35,000 lives.

In November 1941, he was forced to disband his unit (which at that time numbered about 2,000–3,000 people) after the Germans wanted to limit his independence and he refused to participate in the liquidation of the Jews.

[56] As a result, partisan units reappeared in Western Ukraine, including Soviet ones and the first Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) formed by Taras Bulba-Borovets.

OUN-B units in eastern Galicia, bearing the name Ukrainian National Self-Defence (UNS) joined the fight later, only in the late summer of 1943, and only in a limited capacity.

At the Third Congress of the OUN (21–25 August 1943) it was decided to make preparations for an open fight against the Red Army, with plans to extend it to other parts of the Soviet Union, involving other oppressed nations.

[27] It was also around that time when acting OUN leader Mykola Lebed was replaced with a three-person Provid Office in which Roman Shukhevych played a major role.

The OUN-B leadership was initially negative to the idea but later began to support the enlistment of members in the formation as a good opportunity to receive military training.

In the occupied territories, the Soviet authorities seized food, conscripted local Ukrainians en masse into the Red Army, and after a few days of training threw them on the front.

The majority of party and state cadres were foreigners from the USSR, who often behaved like conquerors in a conquered country, and treated the local Ukrainian population with contempt.

[incomprehensible][citation needed] On 29 February 1944, a UPA detachment attacked a Soviet convoy as it left the headquarters of the Thirteenth Army, mortally wounding 1st Ukrainian Front commander Mykola Vatutin.

According to the most common version, near the village of Mylyatyn in the Ostroh district, a column was fired upon by a UPA detachment under the command of Petro "Aeneas" Oliynyk [uk].

According to Soviet reports, they killed 2,018 people and arrested 1,570, they also seized large quantities of weapons and food warehouses, losing only eleven dead and 46 wounded.

In addition to ambushes on highways, shelling and killing individual servicemen, attacks on military depots, and sabotage of communications, the OUN-UPA's actions also aimed to disrupt food supplies to the Red Army.

On 30 July 1944, military groups of 207 and 208 separate infantry battalions discovered and destroyed the UPA-North headquarters headed by Chief of Staff Leonid Stupnytsky [uk] while combing the Dermansky Forest in the Rivne region.

During the Soviet operation of the NKVD and the Fourth Ukrainian Front in the Drohobych area from 18 August to 9 September, 1,171 were killed and 1,180 Banderites were taken prisoner, while 6,000 people who evaded mobilization were detained.

With the sanction of the commander of the OUN-M armed forces, General Kapustyansky, such a merger took place, and Ivan Kedyulych was included in the main military headquarters.

[93] Local historian and writer Ivan Gubka claims in his artistic and documentary works that 18 insurgents were killed in the battle of Pyriatyn: 11 from the SLE and seven from the "Siromantsi" sotnia.

[91] The largest battle in the area between the internal troops of the NKVD and the UPA-West forces of the "Lysonya" military district, which took place from 30 September to 1 October 1944, near the Univ Lavra monastery.

According to Ukrainian sources, the attack of the NKVD internal troops was stopped by Dmytro Karpenko, "Yastrub" personally damaged one of the tanks with an anti-tank gun.

[118] After the death on 12 February 1945 of the commander of the UPA-North and the leader of the OUN-B at the PZUZ Dmytro Klyachkivsky ("Klima Savura"), the leadership was headed by Mykola Kozak ("Smok").

The fact is that Stelmashchuk on 8 February 1945, in the presence of Deputy People's Commissar of the Soviet General Tymofiy Strokach revealed, among other things, that on 30 November 1944 he met with UPA Commander in Volyn Dmytro Klyachkivsky (Klim Savur) near the Orzhivsky hamlet.

In July 1946, the leadership of the Ukrainian underground decided to gradually disband large units of the UPA and shift all the burden of further struggle to the OUN and WB militants.

[incomprehensible] From 20 to 31 January 1947, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR conducted special operations, during which, on the basis of intelligence developments, they struck UPA command centers and cadres.

On 5 April 1947, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) adopted a resolution titled "On Intensifying the Fight Against the Remnants of Ukrainian-German Nationalist Gangs in the Western Regions of the Ukrainian SSR".

They watered their tracks with kerosene, sprinkled with tobacco or pepper, moved along the bottom of rivers and streams, or went out on roads where there was heavy traffic, all to deceive the pursuit, which conducted a search using dogs.

After the war, western Ukraine was annexed into the Soviet Union and 570, 826 people were deported, including OUN-UPA family members, to other regions of USSR without permission to return.