Ukrainian Death Triangle

In September 1919, General Anton Denikin, who was attacking the Bolsheviks without stopping the Advance on Moscow, started a war against the Ukrainian People's Army on the entire front.

The Bolsheviks took advantage of this situation, and their 14th Army, sandwiched between Ukrainians and Denikin forces near Odesa, broke through Olhopil and Skvyra to Zhytomyr.

A witness to the event, N. Koval-Stepovy, recalled that, among the Cossacks, one could see many people with rag-wrapped legs or shoes with bare toes peeking out.

The English journalist G. Arlsberg wrote that Petliura asked the International Red Cross "to save young Ukrainian people in the name of humanity."

And this territory was often plundered by enemy armed forces, which pushed west or rolled back to the east, under pressure from the Ukrainian army, which destroyed cities and villages, declining industry and agriculture.

At a military meeting of both headquarters (UGA and DA UPR) on November 4, 1919, in Zhmerynka, General Salsky said: "We are defeated by enemies, and the enemies are: typhus, famine, poor morale, without which no army can fight…" At this time, the commander of the UGA, General Myron Tarnavsky, due to extremely difficult circumstances, in order to save his army, came to an agreement with Denikin.

One part of it, led by Chief Otaman Petliura and the government of the Ukrainian People's Republic, decided, choosing a lesser evil, to go into captivity in Poland.

On December 2, in Nova Chortoria, at a meeting of Petliura with members of the government and representatives of the top command of the UPR army, it was decided to switch to a guerrilla form of struggle.

The disarmed Corps of Sich Riflemen, as well as some other Ukrainian units that remained in the area of Nova Chortoria, were transported by Poles to Lutsk as internees (prisoners).

Here, too, he had to make a lot of effort, energy and diplomatic skill to somehow alleviate the condition of the shooters, among whom also spread a fierce plague of typhus.

In the end, Konovalets managed to separate typhoid shooters - the Polish authorities allocated the premises of the Lutsk prison near the castle for the hospital, where all the patients were relocated.

Such or even worse circumstances developed in the Rivne camp, where a large number of officers and Cossacks of the Dnieper Army were also gathered.

Yevhen Konovalets and his supporters still did not lose hope for the liberation of Ukraine, they considered the possibility of creating a new unit of the regular Ukrainian army.