As Many as 700,000 Ukrainians Formed Underground Units to Fight Soviet Occupation of Their Republic in the Decade after 1945

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 22 – Articles are now appearing in the Russian media on how as many as 700,000 Ukrainians joined underground units to fight Moscow’s occupation of their republic after 1945, articles that undoubtedly reflect the fears of some in the Russian capital that if Moscow occupied more of Ukraine, something similar will occur again.

            While these Russian articles stress the ultimate victory of Soviet forces, they unintentionally highlight just how large and strong the underground was and how many years, until after the death of Stalin, it operated successfully against Soviet and comprador Ukrainian institutions.

            An especially noteworthy example of this is an article on the Rhythm of Eurasia portal by Russian journalist Anton Tutintsev (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2025-08-22--vojna-s-banderovschinoj-shla-i-posle-velikoj-otechestvennoj-82300). Its key passage about the size and strength of the anti-Soviet Ukrainian underground deserves to be quoted in full:

Ukrainian nationalists were able to create a large-scale anti-Soviet underground and insurgent movement. According to various estimates, from 400,000 to 700,000 fighters participated in the armed struggle against the Soviet government. The core of these armed formations of the OUN-UPA were former legionnaires of the Nachtigal and Roland special battalions, police, and deserters from the Red Army.

In total, between 1945 and 1953, they committed more than 14,000 acts of sabotage and terrorism including attacks on military units and individual military personnel, government agencies, railway facilities, arson, robberies of collective farms, financial institutions, village stores and procurement organizations.

According to KGB veteran G.Z. Sannikov, between 1945 and 1955, approximately 25,000 Soviet soldiers, employees of state security agencies, police and border guards, up to 30,000 representatives of Soviet and party activists, as well as ordinary citizens, including children and the elderly died in the fight against UPA militants.

And in 1948-1955 alone, 329 chairmen of village councils, 231 chairmen of collective farms, 426 district party workers as well as employes of district organizations and activists dies at the hands of Bandera supporters.

            The anti-Soviet underground in Ukraine in the decade after World War II was animated by hatred of Moscow and the Soviet state. No one can doubt that if more of Ukraine is occupied by Russian forces, hatred of Moscow and of the Russian state is at least as strong and will lead to the formation of a new underground, however brutal Putin’s regime is.

            That is something that should be remembered by all involved in talks about some kind of a settlement there. Officials in capital cities may assume that once they reach an agreement, that will be the end of conflict. But the experience of Ukrainian resistance to Stalinism shows how wrong they are likely to be and how strong their resistance to Putin will be in the future.