[3] Shukhevych was born in the city of Lemberg (now Lviv),[6] in the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary (some sources claim his place of birth as Krakovets).

[8] In October 1926, Shukhevych entered the Lviv Politechnic Institute (then Politechnika Lwowska – when the city of Lwów was part of the Second Polish Republic) to study civil engineering.

[6] In 1926 the regional team of UVO ordered Shukhevych to assassinate the Lwów school superintendent, Stanisław Sobiński [uk],[6] accused of "Polonizing" the Ukrainian education system.

[citation needed] Shukhevych planned and also participated in terrorist activities and assassinations (sometimes[quantify] claimed by Ukrainian nationalists to be acts of protest against anti-Ukrainian policies).

[18] After the 15 June 1934 OUN assassination of Polish Internal Affairs Minister Bronisław Pieracki, Shukhevych was arrested on 18 July and was sent to the Bereza Kartuska Prison.

The company was very successful and had sections working with the press and film, publishing booklets, printing posters, selling mineral water, and compiling address listings.

[26] There, with the aid of local OUN members and German intelligence,[27][verify] he set up the general headquarters for the fight against the Czechoslovak central government.

The coup d'état attempt occurred on the night of 13–14 March, in relation to the proclamation of Slovak independence, managed by Germany.

With help of sympathizers among the police, the insurgents led by Shukhevych obtained the weapons of the gendarmerie, but their assaults on garrisons of the Czechoslovak army failed.

[citation needed] After the occupation of Carpathian Ruthenia by Hungary ended, Shukhevych traveled through Romania and Yugoslavia to Austria, where he consulted with OUN commanders and was given new orders and sent to Danzig to carry out subversive activities.

[29] The Nazis and Soviets signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact in August 1939, and in September Germany and the USSR invaded Poland, starting World War II and creating new challenges and opportunities for the Ukrainian nationalist movement.

In autumn 1939 Shukhevych moved to Kraków with his family where he acted as the contact for the Ukrainian Nationalist Command directed by Andriy Melnyk.

He organized the illegal transportation of documents and materials across the Soviet-German border and collected information about OUN activities in Ukraine.

As a result, on 10 February 1940, the organization in Kraków split into two factions - one led by Stepan Bandera and the other by Andriy Melnyk, known as OUN-B and OUN-M respectively.

Shukhevych became a member the Revolutionary Command of the OUN-B headed by Bandera, taking charge of the section dealing with territories claimed by the Ukrainians, which after the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact had been seized by Germany (Pidliashshia, Kholm, Nadsiania and Lemkivshchyna).

According to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and other sources, OUN-B leader Stepan Bandera held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of "Nachtigall" and "Roland" Battalions.

On 25 February 1941, the head of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Franz Canaris, sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command.

On arrival in Lviv, Shukhevych reportedly found the body of his brother among the victims of the NKVD prisoner massacres committed by the Soviet occupiers.

There is controversy, though, regarding the extent and scope of the participation of the Nachtigall Battalion and Roman Shukhevych in these atrocities,[citation needed] as well as in the Massacre of Lviv professors.

Survivors observed Ukrainians in Wehrmacht uniforms participating in the pogroms, but it remains unclear what role the battalion played.

[43] The German refusal to accept the OUN-B's 30 June proclamation of Ukrainian independence in Lviv led to a change of the Nachtigall battalion direction.

[3] Polish-German historian and Holocaust expert Frank Golczewski [de; pl] from the University of Hamburg[47] describes the activities of the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion in Belarus as "fighting partisans and killing Jews".

The rise of non-Ukrainians in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army gave stimulus to the special conference for Captive Nations of Europe and Asia which took place 21–22 November 1943 in Buderazh [uk], not far from Rivne.

In spring 1943, the OUN-B's UPA launched a campaign of murder and expulsion against the Polish population of Volhynia, and in early 1944 against the Poles in Eastern Galicia.

This was done as a preemptive strike in expectation of a larger Polish-Ukrainian conflict over disputed territories,[53] which were annexed and internationally recognized as part of Poland in 1923.

[57] University of Alberta historian Per Anders Rudling has stated that Shukhevych commanded the UPA since the summer of 1943, when tens of thousands of Poles were massacred.

[6] According to NKVD officers' memoirs, Roman Shukhevych's body was transported out of the western part of Ukraine, burned, and the ashes scattered.

[64][65] (Nikolai Vatutin was a Soviet military commander during World War II who was killed by Shukhevych's Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

[69] On 16 March 2021, the Lviv Oblast Council likewise approved the renaming of their largest stadium after Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera, the former leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

[74] President Viktor Yanukovych stated on 5 March 2010 he would make a decision to repeal the decrees to honor the title as Heroes of Ukraine to Shukhevych and fellow nationalist Stepan Bandera before the next Victory Day (in August 2011 he stated "if we look at our past history and build our future based on this history, which had numerous contradictions, we will rob our future, which is wrong"[75]).