UPA, Cursed Soldiers

History Ukraine page 8 UPA Cursed Soldiers Ukrainian History Page 8

Ukraine is full of riches, best agricultural land in Europe and minerals beyond belief.  That's why every country around Ukraine wanted to capture it.  Every country invaded it from time to time. Each country which invaded Ukraine made serfs out of the people. 

The Ukrainian war history is not allowed to be told.  The winners get to write the history.  USA supported both Russia and Poland.  Ukraine fought a 3-front war against: Russia, Poland and Germany.  God have mercy on the Ukrainian souls  - for wanting freedom from all oppressors. 

Ukraine asked USA numerous times for assistance. USA helped divide Ukraine between Poland and Russia along the Curzon Line after WW1 and WW2.  The CIA/ Obama /Biden administration ransacked Ukraine, filled their pockets with oligarch cash, promised support and provided blankets instead of ammo.  President Trump provided weapons. Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden, Hiliary Clinton and George Soros are very complicit in giving Ukraine a current reputation that Ukrainian government is corrupt.

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3 Forgotten Bands of Freedom Fighters Who Faced Russian Invaders
By Matt Fratus | January 21, 2022
https://coffeeordie.com 

The popular aphorism “one man’s terrorists are another man’s freedom fighters” is about perspective. Some of the best-known freedom fighters to face off against a Soviet or Russian invasion were the Afghan mujahedeen. After fighting from 1979 to 1989 — with support from US Army Special Forces soldiers and CIA Stinger missiles — the Afghan mujahedeen defeated their invaders.

But while the Afghan freedom fighters are well known, many others are largely forgotten. We’ve put together a list of resistance movements and freedom fighters — from the Ukrainian Insurgent Army to the “Cursed Soldiers” in Poland and the “Forest Brothers” from the Baltic States — that each faced Russian invasions.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
Insurgents of the UPA (also known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army) from Staryi Sambir area, Lviv region.
See photos on the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine/Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.

The Ukrayinska Povstanska Armiya (UPA), otherwise known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, fought both Soviet and Nazi troops in a long campaign to keep Ukraine independent. A staunchly anti-communist group formed in the 1920s to resist Soviet occupiers, the UPA shifted in 1942 to a resistance force again Nazi occupation after the Soviet Union’s Red Army pulled out of the country to defend Russia. Nearly 1 million Ukrainian followers preached recognition of Ukraine as a free and independent nation.

The UPA had no outside support from the Allies, unlike the French Resistance, the Polish Underground State, and other popular resistance movements of the time. Still, the UPA engaged in an insurgency against the Nazis — and later, the Russians — throughout the war using small arms and limited artillery field guns.

In the summer of 1944, the Soviets maneuvered 30,000 troops to Volyn to destroy a UPA uprising. The UPA defended against the assault, inflicting, according to some estimates, 2,000 Russian deaths. The battle may have been won, but a much larger offensive consisting of 20 infantry divisions supported by artillery and armor support crushed the UPA’s efforts by spring of 1945.

The UPA killed an estimated 12,000 Germans and their allies in battle, but it came at a cost. Between 1944 and 1953, around 153,000 Ukrainians lost their lives, while nearly 204,000 Ukrainians were arrested and deported to Siberia and northern Russia.

The UPA also clashed with Poland, and between spring of 1943 and autumn of 1944, Ukrainian troops slaughtered 100,000 Poles in a heinous ethnic cleansing campaign. The UPA fought against Soviet rule until the mid-1950s.

Poland’s ‘Cursed Soldiers’
Danuta Siedzikówna, who had the nom de guerre “Inka,” was tortured and executed by communist authorities
for her role as a “Cursed Soldier” in 1946. She was only 17. Photo on The Krakow Post.

For decades after World War II, the Soviet Union attempted to erase the history of Polish anti-communist freedom fighters. When Poland regained its sovereignty in 1989, the nation finally recognized the war these fighters covertly prosecuted. They called them by the same name that Russians had labeled them in propaganda: “Cursed Soldiers” (also called “Doomed Soldiers”).

“The Cursed Soldiers did not lay down arms, because they did not want to live in a country where there was no real freedom, sovereignty or independence, and which was in fact ruled by the enemy,” Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said at a National Cursed Soldiers Remembrance Day ceremony in 2020. They were “those who never surrendered,” he added.

The soldiers and their support network within the postwar underground hid under assumed names as a means of survival. They feared reprisals, prison, torture, and death, and the Soviets regarded them as enemies of the communist system. Their operational activities included propaganda and armed resistance. A circulated newspaper, Orzeł Biały, offered the Polish people the ground truth, fighting the disinformation the Soviets had weaponized. The Cursed Soldiers also carried out armed conflict by overrunning prison camps, breaking into security sites, attacking militia posts, and killing double agents.  

Matt Fratus
Staff Writer
Matt Fratus is a history staff writer for Coffee or Die. He prides himself on uncovering the most fascinating tales of history by sharing them through any means of engaging storytelling. He writes for his micro-blog @LateNightHistory on Instagram, where he shares the story behind the image. He is also the host of the Late Night History podcast. When not writing about history, Matt enjoys volunteering for One More Wave and rooting for Boston sports teams.

See more on Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Lipotys, Organization of the Ukrainian Nationals (OUN) : UPAarmy.htm