"The Forgotten (and Bloody) History of the Ukrainian..." Topic

… Insurgent Army.

"…The UPA emerged in 1942 as one of several partisan armies in German-occupied Ukraine. At its peak, the faction claimed nearly a quarter of a million followers.[1] Fiercely nationalist, the group's raison d'ętre was to establish a free and independent Ukrainian homeland. While it directed much of its energy to combatting the Axis invaders, the UPA always kept its eye on what it considered the real enemy: the communists. And as the fortunes of war on the Eastern Front shifted in favour of the Soviets, the faction suspended hostilities against the Germans entirely to fight off the encroaching Red Army. The movement also orchestrated a fearsome campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting western Ukraine's Polish minority whom they considered also to be among their people's historic enemies. After the war, the UPA would be one of the last European resistance groups to lay down its weapons. In fact, it continued its struggle against the Soviets well into the 1950s. The Ukrainian insurrection would eventually claim more than 35,000 Soviet lives, making it more than twice as costly to the U.S.S.R. than the 1980s Afghanistan War.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was an outgrowth of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, a political confederation that came together in the 1920s to free the nation from Soviet and Polish control. Ukraine did enjoy a brief period of independence following World War One, only to be absorbed by its eastern and western neighbours between 1919 and 1922.

The UPA formed in 1942 after the Red Army ceded Ukraine to the Nazis following Hitler's surprise invasion of the U.S.S.R. Established as a de facto national army for what many hoped would soon be an independent Ukraine, organizers initially sought diplomatic recognition and autonomy from the German invaders. Although Ukraine's nationalists were certainly wary of the Nazis, they hated Moscow even more…"

Full article here.
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

This history may be forgotten or never known in the first place here, but I do not think it is forgotten in Russia or the Ukraine.

That certainly is a well-armed group of insurgents!

SVT-40's,it looks like.

Many don't know, some in the region looked at the Nazis initiatly as "liberators" … Some Ukrainians at one time or another fought along side the Germans. Or at least only fought the USSR. As mentioned in the article. And some guards at those Eastern Consentration/Death Camps were, among others, Ukrainains … Like in the former Yugoslavia, in WWII, there was a mixed bag of participants and belligerents in the East …

So many wargame possibilities! (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Not entirely forgotten, just parts of it.

UPA, following the philosophy of Banderism, was a nazi organisation. At times at odds with the Germans, at times collaborating and being supplied by them. A competing sort of nazism. During two huge massacres against the Poles living on Wolynia UPA murdered between 100 and 180 thousands of civilians. Gender and age were irrelevant. People were raped, shot, chopped apart, sawn in half with rusty saws while still being alive, burned alive, had their eyes poked out. UPA was in its methods very similar to the S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A. (comprised of Ukrainians) which perpetrated very similar crimes during the Warsaw Uprising. UPA was one of the most criminal and deranged organisations in the entire WWII, easily on par with Dirlewanger's people.

Not a fun war, Tango.

My father's family, the ones who got away alive, were from a town named Grzimalow, near Tarnopol, initially under Austrian administration, several wars later part of Poland, presently liberated and devastated by Soviets – then Nazis – then Soviets again, with a general sub-stratum of anarchic chaos going on throughout. Currently part of Ukraine.

Old times there are certainly not forgotten.

I was raised to bear old grudges myself. After reading Timothy Snyder Bloodlands, Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, I feel mostly pity for all the poor bastards who were trapped in that horror.

I wish peace and properity to all their grandchildren.

War is never fun my friend. I know that.
But I was speaking about wargame possibilities.
Sorry for the bad moments of your origin family.
I have my own too.

Amicalement
Armand