[15] The UNA-UNSO has been described by International-security expert Andrew McGregor as a "influential but fringe movement", which deeply influenced far-right politics in Ukraine due its visibility and militancy, although it still had small numbers.

On 30 June 1991, about 200 UNS members held a torchlight parade in Lviv commemorating the 1941 declaration of Ukrainian independence.

The squads were formed around a small group of ethnic-Ukrainian Soviet army veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

[3] Because of the 8 September 1991 Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, the sixth session of the UMA was renamed the Ukrainian National Assembly; it became known as the UNA-UNSO, due to the UNSO's close association with the UNA.

In Odesa UNSO halted an initiative to create a Novorossiysk Republic, influencing separatist movements in Bukovina and Zakarpattia.

On 7 June 1992, an UNSO group from Lviv broke up a Romanian congress in Chernivtsi which advocated the unification of northern Bukovina and Romania.

UNA-UNSO deputies destroyed a Russian flag in the Verkhovna Rada, UNA-UNSO fighters joined Chechen rebels in the First Chechen War and activists organised demonstrations against Russian pop singers visiting Ukraine.

[20] In 2008, South Ossetian attorney general Teimuraz Khugayev accused UNA-UNSO of joining a Georgian unit during the August war, but no evidence has been provided.

[28] According to an August 2009 Russian Investigative Committee report, 200 UNA-UNSO members and soldiers from the Ukrainian Ground Forces aided Georgia during the fighting.

UNA-UNSO deputy head Mykola Karpyuk said that "unfortunately", no organisation members took part in the Georgian conflict.

[citation needed] UNA-UNSO participated in the 2012 Ukrainian parliamentary election,[29] receiving 0.08 percent of the national vote and winning none of the five electoral districts in which they fielded candidates.

[31] In March 2014, Russia brought a criminal case against the party and some of its members, including party leader Oleh Tyahnybok of Svoboda, for "organizing an armed gang" which allegedly fought the Russian 76th Guards Air Assault Division during the first Chechen war.

[3] International-security expert Andrew McGregor said in 2006 that the UNA-UNSO "might be best characterized as an influential fringe movement" and "its high visibility belies its limited numbers.