[1] Ivan Babii was born on March 5, 1893, in the village of Dobromirka (now in Zbarazh district of Ternopil region, Ukraine) into a peasant family.

Babii graduated in 1911 from a high school in Tarnopol,[2] then studied classical philology at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów.

Following the start of World War I in 1914, he was called into the Austro-Hungarian Army, where he served in the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.

[5] The revolutionary tribunal of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists sentenced Babii to death for collaborating with Polish authorities.

In the hospital, the militant regained consciousness and confessed that he was a member of the OUN and his name was Mykhailo Tsar, originally from Pozdymyr.