UPA Veterans Rally to Demand Recognition

By Orest Zakydalsky, in Kyiv

Veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) gathered on October 14 at Maidan Nezalezhnosty (Independence Square) in Kyiv to celebrate UPA’s 64th anniversary and to demand financial and political recognition as veterans.

Taking part in the rally were several political organizations, including Sobor, the Ukrainian National Assembly- National Self Defence (UNA-UNSO), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (CUN), and Svoboda.

More than 5,000 UPA supporters assembled at the Maidan and then walked to Mykhailivskyj Sobor, where they placed flowers at the Memorial of the Ukrainian Holodomor, or Famine. They then proceeded to Sofiiskyi Sobor where  they held a ceremony to honour the heroes of the Ukrainian independence movement.

 The UPA veterans demanded that the government officially recognize their role in the fight for an independent Ukraine and grant them status as veterans of the Second World War.

At the same time, about 1,000 supporters of the Communists, Progressive Socialists, and other leftist groups, held a counter-rally, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, and demanded that the government not grant recognition to UPA.

Tempers ran high and there were some minor scuffles. But violence was largely avoided, in part due to the presence of a large contingent of local police and Ministry of Internal Affairs troops.

Why does this issue still bring out such high emotions on both sides?

The answer lies partly in the extreme politicization of the war in Ukrainian historical discourse. The Communist Party of Ukraine and other leftist forces continue to insist that UPA were bandits who collaborated with the Germans, and for this reason should not be recognized as World War Two veterans.

Communist leader Petro Symonenko said on October 14: “UPA fought on the side of the fascists and against its own people.” This statement is indicative of the Communists’ attempts to skew history and their continued support for a completely Soviet interpretation of the Second World War.  His statement is also a blatant lie.

The Soviet interpretation of the Second World War still holds salience in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts. It continues to be taught in many schools in the East.

For many veterans who served in the Red Army and units of the Peoples’ Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), exploring the real history of the war would raise serious and difficult questions about their own role in this terribly violent time.

Officially, veteran status in Ukraine applies not only to those who served in the Red Army and NKVD from 1941-1945, but until 1953. Thus, NKVD units that were responsible for the pacification of Western Ukraine, the Caucuses and the Baltic states, the mass arrests and deportations from these regions that followed the war, also enjoy veteran status.

It is estimated that of some 2.5 million veterans of the Soviet forces still living, only about 500,000 were frontoviki, that is, actually saw fighting on the front against the Germans from 1941-1945. In this context, it is more convenient for the politicians of the far left and their supporters to insist that UPA were collaborators of the Germans, and not an insurgent army that fought for an independent Ukraine against both occupiers, German and Soviet.

In actual fact, UPA fought the Germans as ruthlessly as they later fought the Soviets. In 1943, according to the book UPA Warfare in Ukraine, published in New York in 1972, the Germans committed “… the following units: 10 battalions of motorized SS troops with heavy weapons and artillery; 10,000 German and Polish police; 2 regiments of the Hungarian Army; 3 battalions of Cossacks, organized from among the Soviet prisoners of war...; 50 tanks, 27 planes and 5 armored trains”1 to the battle against UPA.

At its height, UPA numbered some 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers, and were supported by thousands of civilians. Myriad historical sources show that UPA fought against both occupiers and for an independent Ukraine.

Yet, there are political forces that, for their own benefit, distort history. As a result, while objective information and evidence are available, a sizeable, albeit shrinking, part of the Ukrainian population continues to believe the Soviet line on history.

The Kremlin’s role cannot be discounted. Members of the Russian nationalist party Rodina were present at the leftist rallies, and Moscow also has a vested interest in sticking to the Soviet historical line.

On October 14, President Victor Yushchenko finally signed a decree that extends recognition to members of UPA as veterans of the Second World War. That it took him nearly two years to take this action is undoubtedly a black mark on his presidency.

Moreover, it remains to be seen if the necessary legislation required in Parliament to bring the decree into law will be passed; Symonenko has already promised that the Communists will attempt to block such legislation.

It was evident on Saturday that the Ukrainian polity still suffers from serious divisions, which cannot be mended until Ukrainian politicians stop exacerbating these divisions for their own political gain. Official recognition of UPA as veterans of the Second World War and of their role in the struggle for Ukrainian independence is necessary, essential, and long overdue.