War after the war. How the Soviet government defeated Bandera
Military personnel of the military unit 3229 of the USSR State Security Ministry in the Korosten forest during the liquidation of the OUN-UPA formations in Western Ukraine. 1949 year
In May 1945, the Red Army finished off the Third Reich, but peace did not come for all Soviet citizens. For another 10 years, our military, border guards, employees of state security agencies and the police had to fight the Bandera underground.
Nationalist underground
Soviet power in Western Ukraine was opposed by a well-organized and extensive network of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the OUN-UPA, better known to the people as Bandera. The backbone of the OUN (OUN - Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) were legionnaires of the disbanded nationalist battalions, the defeated SS division "Galicia" and punitive, police detachments. Many nationalist cadres were trained in German intelligence schools.
The constant number of the UPA, according to various estimates, ranged from 25 to 100 thousand people. The bandit underground was well armed with German and Soviet weapons, had large reserves. A clear organization was observed: the groups "North", "West" and "South", in each group 3-4 kurens, one kuren included 2-4 hundreds. A hundred consisted of 3-4 chots (platoons), and they were from swarms - 10-12 fighters. It had its own security service, intelligence, prosecutor's office, investigative apparatus and prisons.
At the first stage, the UPA even tried to give battle to the Red Army. The collection of documents "Internal troops in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" noted:
“Initially, the big UPA gangs themselves challenged us. Having strengthened in advance at advantageous lines, they imposed a battle. In the forests on the Kremenets Upland, the bandits created a system of defensive structures: trenches, dugouts, blockages, etc.
In a battle with Bandera, the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, N. Vatutin, was mortally wounded.
The struggle was complicated by the fact that the nationalist underground was supported by external forces. First, Nazi Germany helped Bandera, then England and the United States, which waged a cold war against the USSR. Emissaries, money, ammunition, etc. were thrown into the forests of Western Ukraine from the air. In the “war after the war” in 1945-1955, 25 thousand military men, NKVD soldiers and policemen, 32 thousand people from among the Soviet party activists, died.
Group portrait of OUN-UPA militants in Transcarpathia. The character in the center is dressed in the uniform of the Wehrmacht. Some of the militants are dressed in Hutsul national clothes. 1944
"Bunker War"
By the beginning of 1945, Ukrainian bandit formations began to avoid direct clashes, switching to new tactics ("National heroes" of Ukraine - Hitler's accomplices, terrorists and murderers), trying to hide as deeply as possible and wage a "bunker war".
All gang members had pseudonyms, they kept in touch with each other only through trusted liaisons. As a rule, "lads" from different divisions did not know each other. The system of underground caches ("kryivki"), which began to be prepared as early as 1944, was actively used. As one of the instructions of the OUN stated:
“... every underground worker must know the rules of conspiracy, like a soldier - the charter of field service. The underground worker must live underground.”
By 1950, a system of underground caches existed throughout Western Ukraine. These were warehouses, radio stations, printing houses, barracks and arsenals. They were built like dugouts, but they were well camouflaged.
The entrances to the shelters were arranged under stumps, young trees, which were specially planted. Hide ventilation. In the settlements, the entrances were masked with dog kennels, haystacks, garbage, even graves and wells. In the book “SMERSH against Bandera. War after the war ”one of these caches was described as follows:
“At the top of the well, made of an oak frame, stood a gate with a wound chain and a bucket. Somewhere at the level of five meters to the water in the shaft, a disguised door was made from the crowns of the well. Behind it was a corridor with two disguised bunker rooms. One was intended for the radio operator, members of the detachment and the dining room. The other is for leadership and meetings. They went down to the caches on a bucket, the one who was on duty opened the door. A trusted fellow villager lowered the Bandera people.
It was difficult to fight the "bunkers" of Bandera. But over time, they found control over them. We used specially trained dogs, long probes. In winter, at sunrise and sunset, ventilation could be detected.
OUN members often did not surrender. They entered the last battle or committed suicide. The leader of the group killed his people, then himself. Therefore, caches began to be taken with the help of gas grenades. Later, during the assault on such shelters, they began to use a special drug "Typhoon" - an instant sleeping pill, without side effects.
Officers of the USSR Ministry of State Security are negotiating with UPA militants blocked in an underground bunker. 1946
New tactics for fighting gangs
It became clear to the Soviet authorities that in the fight against the OUN-UPA it was no longer possible to conduct only military operations. The blockade, combing the forests with the use of large contingents of internal troops (VV), brought success in the fight against large gangs of Ukrainian nationalists. Small groups of OUN members infiltrated through the barriers, mixed with the civilian population, hid in well-camouflaged "bunkers", or went to other areas. The Nazis turned mainly to terror and sabotage, while political activists went deep underground in order to save their cadres. Military operations ceased to be effective, forces and resources were idle.
Therefore, the Soviet authorities switched to combined methods of using explosives and NKVD operatives. On February 26, 1945, a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CP(b)U was held in Kyiv, where they adopted a resolution that largely determined the further actions of the Soviet security forces in the fight against the nationalist underground in Ukraine. The Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Ukraine ordered the creation of special, mobile combat detachments, with the inclusion of well-trained intelligence officers, operational, party and Soviet workers. The detachment was provided with undercover data, means of communication, and was not burdened with rear. The unit was supposed to, having discovered the gang, pursue it until it was completely destroyed, regardless of the district and region.
The areas where OUN formations operated were divided into operational areas (within the administrative boundaries of the region), and those, in turn, into operational groups. Each group included, depending on the operational situation, a certain number of subdivisions and units of the explosives (squad, platoon, and rarely a company), and NKVD operatives. Also, mobile reserves were created in the troops (on vehicles, on carts, cavalry) in order to assist the task force when entering into battle with the gang and block the likely escape routes of the bandits. The main task of the raiding operational-military (or Chekist-military) groups was the rapid implementation of operational data from the internal affairs and state security agencies.
Such task forces proved to be an effective method of combating the Ukrainian bandit, nationalist underground. But for more successful work, there was not enough intelligence support. Reliable intelligence was needed to establish the exact location of the gangs, their numbers, weapons, leaders and possible escape routes. This was also pointed out by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria:
"... to organize special intelligence and information work to prevent terrorist acts by the OUN, leaving not a single terrorist act against Soviet citizens undiscovered and unpunished."
Former OUN members in the fight against their past
Undercover work became a decisive factor in the fight against Ukrainian bandits and terrorists. Some of the operational sources were recruited among the local population, but their data were scarce. The peasants could report about the appearance of strangers in the village, about which of the fellow villagers maintains ties with the "forest", etc. However, they did not know the leaders, their plans, the composition of the gangs, their bases and weapons. Therefore, former members of nationalist organizations were involved in undercover work.
The fact is that, while taking a generally uncompromising position with regard to Bandera, the government of the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR, at the same time, repeatedly gave former collaborators, bandits the opportunity to return to civilian life. The authorities promised the OUN, who "sincerely and completely stop all struggle and hostile speeches against the Red Army and the Soviet government, complete forgiveness of their grave mistake, their past guilt before the Motherland."
Since 1944, repeated appeals of the Soviet authorities were issued, in which full forgiveness was guaranteed to everyone who would leave the nationalist gangs and return to peaceful work. Such appeals were broadcast on the radio, published in all regional and district newspapers in the western part of Ukraine, printed in mass circulation in the form of leaflets and posters, which were distributed in villages, hung out in public places. Also, leaflets were scattered from aircraft in forests where Bandera could be based.
The peacekeeping steps of the government, the mood of the local population, which longed for a peaceful life and saw the real fruits of the actions of the Soviet government (restored cities and villages, bridges and roads, schools and libraries, collective farms and enterprises, and many others), led to the fact that the "lads" massively knocked out of the forest to surrender to the "Soviets". The mobilized peasants surrendered whole kurens (battalion). Often, fellow villagers and close relatives helped to turn themselves in, informing the forest inmates that forgiveness really works.
According to the Department for Combating Banditry of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, in the first year alone, more than 29 people turned themselves in. During the period from February 1944 to July 1946, over 52 thousand people took advantage of this opportunity. In total, over the entire period of confrontation between the Soviet government and the nationalist underground in Western Ukraine, over 77 thousand members of gangs and their accomplices took advantage of the amnesty. In addition, tens of thousands of people were detained during operations. Therefore, the Chekists had someone to involve in undercover activities.
It should also be noted that the “bloody” Stalinist regime, which, according to foreigners and homegrown Westerners, was supposed to shoot, hang, send to concentration camps everyone who came with a confession or was detained, was very humane in relation to former collaborators, bandits and murderers . Most of the Bandera people, who were simple peasants mobilized in the OUN-UPA through brutal terror, under the threat of the death of their families and close relatives, after an appropriate check, were simply allowed to go home to restore the destroyed economy. Naturally, they were registered. In the conditions of the war in 1944 - early 1945, a part was drafted into the army.
The bulk of ordinary OUN members who were amnestied were of no interest to the state security agencies. First of all, they recruited the commanding leadership of the OUN-UPA. They were used for propaganda among the population, the decomposition of the remaining gangs, to identify lines of communication, underground shelters, etc. Things went on: in 1944, the agent apparatus in the region consisted of 725 agents, in 1945 - 1, in 200 - 1946 agents. Thanks to the information that was received from captured or surrendered "heroes", who sold their accomplices wholesale and retail, indicated the places of caches and bases, the operational-military groups carried out many successful operations.
Special groups of the NKVD
The leadership of the NKVD also used the repentant and surrendered Bandera not only as agents, but also created special-purpose groups from them, which were reinforced by experienced state security officers who knew the Galician dialect. They imitated the OUN-UPA units. Special squads went to the forest, lived in caches and came into contact with real bandits. The use of such special groups has shown their high efficiency. The remaining bandits were destroyed and captured, including leaders, messengers and accomplices. After the liquidation of the leaders, the remaining gangs often disintegrated. Weapons, ammunition, radio stations and documents were seized.
As the network of agents grew, operational groups and special groups successfully operated, nationalist personnel were destroyed and recruited, the OUN “bunker war” was lost. In 1950, UPA commander Roman Shukhevych, the closest associate of Stepan Bandera, was destroyed in a safe house (he was hiding abroad and was killed in 1959). The agony of the nationalist underground movement began. In 1954, the new commander of the UPA, Vasily Kuk (pseudonym Lemesh), was caught. Cook spent six years in prison and lived until 2007.
Georgy Sannikov, an employee of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, noted:
“Cook never came over to our side. Some consider him a KGB agent, but in fact he was not. And he made an appeal to his underground workers, because he understood: there is no point in fighting further, it is necessary to save personnel for the future Ukraine. It was a smart, seasoned enemy. A brilliant conspirator, so he lasted longer than all the leaders.
Unfinished anti-Russian project
Unfortunately, at that time in the USSR they did not understand that it was necessary to completely destroy the anti-Russian project "Ukraine" and return historical New Russia and Little Russia, Russian Galicia. Eliminate the concept of "brotherly Ukrainian people", "three East Slavic peoples", and return to the unity of the Russian superethnos.
"Russian great-power chauvinism" was not encouraged. And Ukrainian nationalism quite successfully “repainted” into communism and lived up to the “independence” of 1991. Former Bandera became members of the Communist Party, retaining the old ideology. For example, the future first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, began his career as a young Banderist. It's funny and sad, but in Soviet Ukraine Kravchuk was largely responsible for the ideological sector.
There is an opinion that the nationalist structures (security service) had contacts with part of the Soviet leadership. In particular, Khrushchev. Therefore, the nationalists were not allowed to finish off. And after the death of Stalin, under the amnesty arranged by Khrushchev, many OUN-UPA activists were released. The Banderists returned to their homeland, and a measured restoration of militant Ukrainians began.
At first they "repainted" as communists, penetrated into the Komsomol, into the party and economic bodies. Already in the late USSR, the western regions of Ukraine were imbued with the spirit of Petliura-Banderaism. And during perestroika, a big abscess of “independence” ripened.
So, the project "Ukraine" has again become a toy of our Western "partners" in a big game against Russian civilization and people. Bandera, Shukhevych and other collaborators, Nazis, terrorists and bandits suddenly became "national heroes" of the new Ukraine. And the true heroes who fought for the people, their happiness, future and prosperous life, turned into "Stalin's executioners."
- Alexander Samsonov
- http://waralbum.ru/
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