Hero of Ukraine Bandera and the crime of one-oops. All Bandera crimes

The Polish government acted as if Eastern Galicia was originally Polish land. Some radical Ukrainian organizations decided not to limit themselves to boycott and sabotage and began to carry out terrorist acts. At the end of 1923, after another assurance given by Poland to the Western powers that it would guarantee autonomy for Eastern Galicia, the use of the Ukrainian language on an equal basis with Polish in government institutions, and also open a Ukrainian university, the Council of Ambassadors agreed to Polish sovereignty over Eastern Galicia. The Ukrainian population received this news with great disappointment. (Western Ukraine is now doing very similar things in relation to South-Eastern Ukraine).

Quote:

“Our enemy is not only this regime - tsarist, Bolshevik, not only the state and social system, but the Russian nation itself, infected with the demons of imperialism, the greed of being ever larger, more powerful, richer” (Stepan Bandera, “There is no common language with the Russians” , 1952).

Stepan’s peers recalled that even as a child he engaged in self-torture and even drove needles under his nails, thus preparing for police torture. Little Stepan, on a dare, “to strengthen his will,” strangled cats with one hand in front of his peers, described Soviet journalist V Belyaev, who studied the biography of Bandera.

Formally, Bandera became a member of the UVO in 1928, having received an appointment to the intelligence and then to the propaganda department. In 1928-1930, Stepan was listed as a correspondent for the underground monthly satirical magazine “Pride of the Nation.” He signed his articles with the pseudonym “Matvey Gordon.” During the period from 1930 to 1933, Bandera was arrested five times: in 1930, together with his father, for anti-Polish propaganda, in the summer of 1931, for attempting to illegally cross the Polish-Czech border, then again in 1931, this time for involvement in an assassination attempt. Commissioner of the Political Police Brigade in Lviv E. Chekhovsky. On March 10, 1932, Bandera was detained in Cieszyn, and on June 2 of the following year - in Tczew.
In 1933, Bandera led the operation to liquidate the Soviet consul in Lvov. The operation partially failed: on the day when the perpetrator of the assassination attempt, Nikolai Lemik, came to the Soviet consulate, the intended victim was not there, so Lemik decided to shoot the consulate secretary A.P. Mailov, for which he received for life.
Another action carried out by order of Bandera was the planting of a bomb under the building of the editorial office of the Pratsya newspaper by the well-known OUN activist Ekaterina Zaritskaya.
At a conference of OUN members, held in July 1933 in Prague, he proposed to reorganize the UVO into the OUN combat referenture. This initiative was approved. Structural changes were particularly reflected in military actions, the leadership of which was entrusted to Bandera. A twenty-four-year-old young man, at the conference he was formally approved as a regional guide and included in the OUN Wire. During the period of Bandera’s activity in this position, changes also occurred in the tactics of anti-Polish armed uprisings: if before that most of them were of an expropriation nature (the so-called “exes”), then under Bandera the OUN began to increasingly give preference to terrorist acts, which had previously been less widely used .
In 1934, Stepan Bandera, at that time known under the pseudonyms "Baba" and "Fox", was entrusted with general leadership over the assassination attempt on the Polish Minister of Internal Affairs Bronislaw Peracki. The minister was killed by a young militant Grigory Matseiko, who managed to escape from the scene of the crime and subsequently fled abroad. They managed to reveal the organizers, and on January 13, 1936, in accordance with the court verdict, Stepan Bandera, along with Nikolai Lebed and Yaroslav Karpinets, was sentenced to death by hanging, but the OUN members were saved by the amnesty resolution adopted during trial - the execution was replaced by life imprisonment.

While Stepan Bandera was being tried in Warsaw, OUN militants killed Ivan Babiy, professor of philology at Lvov University, and his student Yakov Bachinsky in Lviv. The crime was soon discovered. He did not deny his involvement in the deaths of Babii and Baczynski - they were killed on his personal order for collaborating with the Polish police. Bandera was sentenced to life imprisonment (according to the totality of both trials - seven life imprisonments).
In 1937, Roman Shukhevych and Zenon Kossak wanted to use bribery to free Bandera, the Polish authorities became aware of this, and Bandera was transported to Brest, to a prison located in the Brest Fortress. On September 13, a few days after Germany attacked Poland, the prison administration left the city, and soon Bandera, along with the rest of the Ukrainian nationalists prisoners of the Brest Fortress, was released.
With the outbreak of the Second World War and the capture of Poland by the Germans, thousands of prisoners were released from Polish prisons, incl. and Bandera, who collaborated with the Abwehr. Irrefutable proof of this cooperation is the testimony of the head of the Abwehr department, Colonel Erwin Stolze (May 29, 1945):
“... To carry out the above instructions from Keitel and Jodl, I contacted Ukrainian National Socialists who worked in German intelligence and other members of nationalist fascist groups with whom I contacted to carry out [the tasks assigned to me]. In particular, I personally gave instructions to the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists, Melnik (code name Consul I) and Bandera, to organize immediately after the German attack on the Soviet Union, and to provoke demonstrations in Ukraine to organize unrest in the rear of the Soviet armies, in order to convince world opinion about the possible collapse of the Soviet rear."
On April 5, 1940, a split occurred in the OUN. Melnik (who was proclaimed the successor of the organization’s leader Yevgeny Konovalets, who was killed in Rotterdam) rejected the proposal to sever ties with Germany and did not agree to remove Yaroslav Baranovsky from a key post in PUN, whom Bandera’s supporters blamed for some of the OUN’s failures. According to Ivan Jovik, Bandera stood “for presenting the Germans with a fait accompli – recognizing the Ukrainian Independent State.” Melnyk, on the contrary, believed that the bet should be placed on Nazi Germany, and that an armed underground should under no circumstances be created. Melnyk’s intransigence and Bandera's insistence led to the historical split of the OUN into two factions - OUN(b) (Bandera) and OUN(m) (Melnikov's).

A.Melnik

Back in 1940, having predicted an imminent military conflict between the USSR and Nazi Germany, Bandera began preparations for the armed struggle of Ukrainian nationalists against “Moscow”.
On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and the Great Patriotic War began. And already on June 30, the Germans, rapidly moving east, occupied Lvov. Following them, soldiers of the Nachtigal battalion, led by Roman Shukhevych, entered the city. On the same day, on behalf of the leadership of the OUN(b), Yaroslav Stetsko read out the “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State,” which announced the creation of “a new Ukrainian state on the motherland Ukrainian lands.” Over the next few days, representatives of the OUN(b) formed an executive body - the Ukrainian State Administration (UGP), organized a National Assembly, and enlisted the support of the Greek Catholic clergy, including Metropolitan Andrey (Sheptytsky) of Galicia. Bandera during this period was in Krakow, far from the scene of events.
The German leadership reacted extremely negatively to this initiative: an SD team and a Gestapo special group were immediately sent to Lvov to eliminate the “conspiracy” of Ukrainian nationalists. Stetsko, proclaimed chairman of the UGP, and a number of its members were arrested. On July 5, the German authorities invited Stepan Bandera, allegedly for negotiations on the case of German non-interference in the sovereign rights of the Ukrainian state, but upon arrival at the meeting place he was arrested. They demanded that he abandon the “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State.” Regarding what followed, the opinions of historians differ: some believe that Bandera refused, after which he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, while others claim that the leader of the OUN (b) accepted the demand of the Germans and only later, in September of the same years, was arrested again and sent to a concentration camp, where he was subsequently kept in good conditions. One way or another, after the events mentioned, Bandera was kept in the German police prison Montelupich in Krakow for a year and a half and only then was transferred to Sachsenhausen.
Once in the concentration camp, Bandera found himself outside the process of creating the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Volyn, which began in October 1942. Despite this circumstance, the command and military personnel of the UPA, like many other nationalist formations, connected their struggle with his name. “Some discussions reached the point that the Ukrainian State should be headed by Bandera, and if not, then let there be no Ukraine,” recalled the smoked UPA Maxim Skorupsky, noting at the same time that it was not “respected people” who said this, but “only a stupefied youth.” In official documents and reports, the Germans applied the term “Bandera movement” (German: Banderabewegung) to the Ukrainian rebels, and the concepts of “Banderaism” and “Bandera people” appeared in Soviet terminology. While in prison, through his wife, who came to see him, Bandera maintained contact with his comrades-in-arms, namely Roman Shukhevych, a member of the OUN Wire Bureau and the Chief Commander of the UPA, who actually headed the OUN(b) in Bandera’s absence.
Gradually, the UPA turned into one of the most combat-ready Ukrainian anti-Soviet units. This forced the German leadership to reconsider its attitude towards Ukrainian nationalism. On September 25, 1944, several hundred Ukrainian prisoners were released from Sachsenhausen, including Bandera and Melnik. After his release, according to Stepan Mudrik Mechnik, Bandera stayed in Berlin for some time. In response to a proposal for cooperation from the Germans, Bandera put forward a condition - to recognize the “Act of Revival ...” and ensure the creation of the Ukrainian army as the armed forces of a separate state, independent of the Third Reich. The German side did not agree to recognize the independence of Ukraine, and thus no agreement was reached with Bandera. According to another version, stated by the head of the secret unit of Abwehr-2, Erwin Stolze, Bandera was nevertheless recruited by the Abwehr and later appeared in the Abwehr file cabinet under the nickname Gray. As for Melnik, he openly cooperated with the Germans, as a result of which he lost many supporters.

Roman Shukhevych, previously the de facto head of the OUN(b), said that it was difficult for him to lead the OUN and the UPA at the same time, and expressed the opinion that leadership of the organization should again be transferred to Bandera. In February 1945, he convened the next OUN(b) conference, at which he proposed electing Stepan Bandera as head of the organization. Shukhevych's initiative was supported: Bandera became the head of the organization, and Yaroslav Stetsko became his deputy.
In February 1946, speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian SSR at a session of the UN General Assembly in London, the Soviet Ukrainian poet Nikolai Bazhan demanded that Western countries extradite many Ukrainian nationalists, primarily Stepan Bandera, calling him a “criminal against humanity.” In the same year, realizing that it was impossible to wage the anti-Bolshevik struggle with the help of Ukrainian nationalists alone, Bandera initiated the organizational formation of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Peoples (ABN), which was formed back in 1943 - the coordination center of anti-communist political organizations of emigrants from the USSR and other countries of the Socialist Camp. The ABN was headed by Bandera’s closest associate, Yaroslav Stetsko.
From the second half of the 1940s, Bandera collaborated with British intelligence services and, according to some sources, even helped them in finding and training spies to send to the USSR. The British intelligence department that worked against the USSR was headed by Kim Philby, who was at the same time an agent of Soviet intelligence. It is noteworthy that in 1946-1947, right up to the formation of Bisonia, Bandera was hunted by the military police in the American Zone of Occupation of Germany, and therefore he had to hide and live illegally.
On October 15, 1959, Stepan Bandera was getting ready to go home for lunch. Before this, he stopped at the market, accompanied by his secretary, where he made some purchases, and then went home alone. Bodyguards joined him near the house. Bandera left his car in the garage, opened the door with the key in the entrance of house No. 7 on Kreittmayrstrasse, where he lived with his family, and went inside. Here KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky, who had been watching the future victim since January, was waiting for him. He hid the murder weapon - a syringe pistol with potassium cyanide - in a rolled-up newspaper. Two years before the assassination attempt on Bandera, Stashinsky eliminated Lev Rebet here in Munich using a similar device. Always careful and vigilant, that day Stepan Bandera released his bodyguards before entering the entrance, and they drove away. Having risen to the third floor, the leader of the OUN (b) recognized Stashinsky - in the morning of the same day he saw him in the church (the future killer carefully watched Bandera for several days). To the question “What are you doing here?” the stranger extended his hand with a bundle of newspaper forward and shot in the face area. The pop that was heard as a result of the shot was barely audible - the attention of the neighbors was attracted by the scream of Bandera, who, under the influence of cyanide, slowly sank and collapsed on the steps. By the time the neighbors looked out of their apartments, Stashinsky had already left the crime scene. This happened at approximately 1:55 p.m.

According to the Ukrainian philosopher and writer Pyotr Kralyuk, a scientific biography of Bandera still does not exist, and there are very few “valuable, non-partisan publications.” “The problem is that in Ukraine there is no serious and recognized biography of Bandera,” notes Andreas Umland, associate professor of the department of political science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. — Most of the literature about Ukrainian nationalism was written by Ukrainian nationalists. In turn, there is a lack of research on people who are not drawn into this ideology.”
The former head of the Security Council of the OUN and ally of Bandera, Miron Matvieiko, in his manuscript presented to the Soviet investigation in August 1951, wrote: “Bandera’s moral character is very low.” From Matvieiko’s testimony it follows that Bandera beat his wife and was a “womanizer”, was distinguished by greed (“literally shaking over money”) and pettiness, was unfair to others and used the OUN “exclusively for his own purposes.”
Professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences Anatoly Tchaikovsky noted in an interview that Bandera always “had extraordinary leadership ambitions.” The historian Pyotr Baley, who knew him, also wrote about this feature of Bandera, and OUN activist Dmitry Paliev called Bandera “a freshman who dreams of becoming a leader-dictator.”
“... In October 1939, Lahousen and I involved Bandera in direct work in
Abwere. According to his characterization, Bandera was an energetic agent and at the same time a great
a demagogue, careerist, fanatic and bandit who disregarded all principles of human morality to achieve his goal, always ready to commit any crime. Agent relations with Bandera were maintained at that time by Lahousen, I - Colonel E. Stolze, Major Dühring, Sonderführer Markert and others...”
Many historians, such as professor Anatoly Tchaikovsky, Hamburg researcher Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe and Hungarian historian Borbala Obruszanski, consider Stepan Bandera a supporter of fascism. The famous American historian, Yale University professor Timothy Snyder called Bandera a “fascist hero” and a supporter of the “idea of fascist Ukraine.”
According to the modern Ukrainian historian and journalist Danila Yanevsky, Bandera did not play the leading role in the nationalist underground that was later attributed to him and was “simply artificially pulled into the Ukrainian national movement.” Referring to certain documents, he drew attention to the fact that the Ukrainian rebels called themselves not “Bandera”, but “rebels”, “our guys”.
On January 20, 2010, shortly before the end of his presidential term, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko issued decree number 46/2010, according to which Stepan Bandera was posthumously awarded the highest degree of distinction in Ukraine - the title of Hero of Ukraine, with the wording “for the invincibility of the spirit in defending national idea, heroism and self-sacrifice shown in the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state.”
The awarding of the title of Hero of Ukraine to Bandera caused a controversial reaction and created a wide public outcry both in Ukraine and abroad. On February 17, 2010, members of the European Parliament officially expressed regret over the awarding of the title of Hero of Ukraine to Bandera and called on the newly elected President Viktor Yanukovych to reconsider Yushchenko’s actions.
On April 2, 2010, the Donetsk District Court declared Yushchenko’s decree to award Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine illegal, formally citing the fact that Bandera was not a citizen of Ukraine (according to the law, only a Ukrainian citizen can become a Hero of Ukraine).

Crimes of Bandera.

Finally, in 1943-1944. UPA detachments in Volyn and Galicia exterminated over 100 thousand Poles. The Polish publication “Na Rubieїy” (Nr 35, 1999), published by the Volyn Foundation, describes 135 methods of torture and atrocities that UPA soldiers applied to the Polish civilian population, including children.

Here are just a few of these extravagances:
001. Driving a large and thick nail into the skull of the head.
002. Ripping off hair and skin from the head (scalping).
003. Hitting the skull of the head with the butt of an ax...
005. Carving of an “eagle” on the forehead (Polish coat of arms - V.T.)…
006. Driving a bayonet into the temple of the head. ..
012. Piercing children through with stakes.
016. Throat cutting….
022. Closing mouths with tow while transporting still living victims...
023. Cutting the neck with a knife or sickle… .
024. Hitting the neck with an ax...
039. Cutting off women's breasts with a sickle.
040. Cutting off women's breasts and sprinkling salt on the wounds.
041. Cutting off the genitals of male victims with a sickle.
042. Sawing the body in half with a carpenter's saw.
043. Causing puncture wounds to the abdomen with a knife or bayonet.
044. Piercing a pregnant woman's stomach with a bayonet.
045. Cutting open the abdomen and pulling out the intestines of adults...
069. Sawing the body, lined with boards on both sides, in half with a carpenter's saw...
070. Sawing the body in half with a special saw.
079. Nailing the tongue of a small child, who later hung on it, to the table with a knife….
080. Cutting a child into pieces with a knife and throwing them around...
090. Hanging a monk by his feet near the pulpit in a church.
091. Placing a child on a stake.
092. Hanging a woman upside down from a tree and mocking her - cutting off her breasts and tongue, cutting her stomach, gouging out her eyes, and also cutting off pieces of her body with knives...
109. Tearing the torso with chains...
126. Cutting off the skin from the face with blades...
133. Nailing hands to the threshold of a home...
135. Dragging a body along the ground by legs tied with a rope.
Let us only add that the list of UPA crimes is by no means limited to this. Their victims were Russians, Czechs, Jews, but most of all... the Ukrainians themselves, who did not actively cooperate with them.

On June 30, 1941, on the very first day of their invasion of Lviv, Bandera’s men committed a massacre in the city, which ended in the destruction of several thousand Jews, Polish intelligentsia and Soviet activists in three days. Eyewitnesses describing these atrocities were shocked by the combination of the Ukrainian dialect of the pogromists and the SS emblems on their uniforms. Then the destruction of people took on a completely organized form. Mass murders varied in all sorts of “arts”. Here, for example, is the testimony of Western researcher Alexander Korman: “In the alley of old trees, they “decorated” the trunk of each tree with the corpse of a child killed before. The corpses were nailed to the trees in such a way as to create the appearance of a wreath. They called this alley “the road to an independent Ukraine "".

The Ukrainian Nazis, to whom the Germans delegated the delivery of Kyiv Jews to the place of execution at Babyn Yar, decided to destroy both Jews and Karaites. So that no one has any doubt that it was the thugs from the OUN who were doing this more, I will cite the speech of one of the deputies of the Rivne City Council (Shkurityuk), sounded to the applause of his “co-religionists” in 1993: “I am proud (!) of the fact that among the 1,500 punitive forces at Babi Yar there were 1,200 policemen from the OUN and only 300 Germans.”
In total, during the three-year Nazi occupation in the western regions of Ukraine, the Nazis, with the active help of Ukrainian militant nationalists (or directly by the forces of the OUN-UPA), killed over two million citizens, of which: about a million Jews, 200-220 thousand Poles, over 400 thousand Soviet prisoners of war, over 500 thousand local Ukrainians.

To date, many books have been written describing the numerous crimes of those who were collectively called “Banderaites.” Not everyone was skilled in semantic tricks with abbreviations and names of various formations of Ukrainian nationalists. Viktor Polishchuk in his book “The Bitter Truth. Crimes of the OUN-UPA (Confession of a Ukrainian)” writes: “We didn’t understand who was in the UPA, who was in another group - everyone was called Bandera, since they themselves glorified the “leader” Bandera.” However, as shown below, Bandera’s current followers also, without further ado, prefer to call themselves Banderaites.
So, the UPA did not fall out of the moon and was not the fruit of an “immaculate conception.” It fully relied on the ideology of the OUN and put its policies into practice with the hands of those who gained their bloody experience while being in formations with other names. The punishers and their accomplices have not disappeared anywhere. It was not them who were destroyed by the Nazis...

My subjective opinion (as a resident of Eastern Ukraine) about modern Banderaites:
If modern Banderaites justify the actions of Ukrainian nationalists of the middle of the last century, then they would have acted shoulder to shoulder with them at that time. God forbid, a civil war breaks out (and the South-East will never accept Western Ukrainian “values”), it is already clear what methods will be used by adherents of Bandera ideology.
In the western part of Ukraine, a large part of the population is infected with this idea, people are raised to be nationalists from childhood, with this tendency in the east of the country the “heroism” of maniacs and murderers will be promoted in schools. To be honest, I would not want to live with these “people” in one country.

The name of Stepan Bandera is now identical to the concept of fascism for many, along with Hitler, Goebbels and Mussolini. But for many, Stepan Bandera is a symbol of the struggle for independence, sovereignty and unity of Ukraine, whose cult of personality is sacredly revered, and whose nationalist ideas still excite minds and are a cause of concern for the whole world. Stepan Bandera, a native of the kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, in Austria-Hungary, is the theorist and ideologist of all Ukrainian nationalism. He was born into the family of a Greek Catholic priest and was distinguished by religious fanaticism and, at the same time, obedience. He is the organizer of a number of terrorist acts, involved in the massacres of the Polish civilian population during, since 1927 - a member of the UVO (Ukrainian Military Organization), since 1933 - a member of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). He was also the regional guide of the OUN in Western Ukrainian lands.

Life of Stepan Bandera (01/1/1909-10/15/1959)

Stepan Bandera is the son of a priest, brought up in the spirit of Ukrainian nationalism, back in 1917 - 1920. commanded various combat units that fought against communism. He joined the Nationalist Youth Union in 1922. And in 1928 he became a student at the Lvov Higher Polytechnic School, enrolling in the Faculty of Agronomy. A year later, in 1929, he underwent training at an Italian school for saboteurs. In the same year he became a member of the OUN and soon led the radical group of this organization. He organized the murders of his political opponents, and also led robberies of post offices and postal trains. He also personally organized the murders of Tadeusz Gołówko (deputy of the Polish Sejm), Yemelyan Chekhovsky (Lviv police commissioner), Andrei Mailov (secretary of the Soviet consulate in Lviv). In 1939, Bandera, like many other nationalists, fled to Poland. This was due to the annexation of Western Ukraine to the Soviet Union. In occupied Poland, the Nazis released all members of the OUN, as they saw them as allies in the upcoming war with the Soviet Union. In the same year, having received freedom from the Germans, Bandera rebelled against Melnik, the leader of the OUN, whom he considered an unsuitable leader due to his lack of initiative.

During the war

On June 30, 1941, on behalf of Bandera, Y. Stetsko proclaimed the creation of Ukraine as a power. At the same time, Stepan’s supporters in Lvov staged pogroms, in which more than three thousand people died, after which Bandera was arrested by the Gestapo, where he signed an agreement to cooperate, and then called on all true Ukrainian people to help the Germans in everything and defeat Moscow. However, despite agreeing to cooperate, he was arrested again in September. He was sent to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp where he was kept in quite decent conditions. Bandera was one of the initiators of the creation of the UPA (10/14/42), at the head of which he put, who replaced D. Klyachkivsky in this post. The goal of the UPA was, in general, the same - the struggle for the independence of Ukraine. But still, the OUN leaders did not recommend fighting the Germans, seeing them as allies. In 1943, the OUN decided at a meeting with the German authorities to jointly fight against partisanship. So it was decided that the Ukrainian Insurgent Army would protect the railways from partisans and support any initiatives of the German authorities in the already occupied territories. Germany, in return, supplied Bandera's army with weapons. In 1944, with a new round of cooperation proposed by Himmler, Bandera was released and began training sabotage troops in Krakow as part of the 202nd Abwehr team. In February 1945, Stepan Bandera took over as leader of the OUN. By the way, he did not leave this post until his death.

After the war

After the end of the war, during 1946 and 1947, Bandera had to hide from the authorities, as he fell into the zone of American occupation of Germany. Stepan had to live illegally until the early 1950s, when he settled in Munich, where he could live almost legally. Four years later, in 1954, his wife and children joined him in Munich. By this time, the Americans were no longer pursuing Bandera, leaving him alone, but the intelligence agents of the Soviet Union still continued the hunt and did not give up hope of eliminating the leader of the OUN UPA. The OUN allocated powerful security to Bandera, who, collaborating with the German criminal police, saved their leader’s life several times by preventing attempts on his life. But in 1959, the Security Council of the OUN (b) nevertheless found out that the murder of Bandera had already been planned and this plan could be carried out at any time. He was offered, for the sake of safety, to leave Munich. At first he refused, but then he nevertheless entrusted the preparations for his departure to Stepan “Mechnik,” the head of intelligence of the OUN ZCH.

Murder of Stepan Bandera

On October 15, 1959, OUN leader Stepan got ready to go home for lunch. Together with his secretary, he went to the market, where he made a few purchases, then he left the secretary and went home alone. As always, security was waiting for him near the house. Leaving his car in the garage, Bandera opened the entrance door to the house where he lived with his family and went inside alone. The killer, who had been watching him for several months, was already waiting for him at the entrance. The killer, KGB agent - Bogdan Stashinsky - held in his hand the murder weapon - a pistol-syringe filled with potassium cyanide hidden in a newspaper tube wrapped. When Bandera went up to the third floor, he ran into Stashinsky and recognized him as the man he had seen in church that morning. "What are you doing here?" - he asked a logical question. Without answering, Stashinsky raised his hand with the newspaper forward and fired a shot in the face. The pop from the shot was almost inaudible, but the neighbors reacted to Bandera’s scream. Under the influence of potassium cyanide, the OUN leader slowly sank onto the steps, but Stashinsky was no longer nearby... Stepan Bandera died on the way to the hospital without regaining consciousness.

Monument to Stepan Bandera

At the moment, there are several monuments to the OUN leader Stepan Bandera, and all of them are concentrated in Western Ukraine, or more precisely, in the Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil regions. In Ivano-Frankivsk, the monument was erected for the centenary of Stepan Bandera in 2009, on January 1st. In Kolomyia the monument was erected in 1991, on August 18, in Gorodenka - in 2008, on November 30. It is interesting that the monument to Bandera in his small homeland, in Stary Ugrinov, was blown up by unknown people twice. Monuments to the OUN leader were also erected in Sambir, Stary Sambir, Lviv, Buchach, Terebovlya, Kremenets, Truskavets, Zalishchiki and many other settlements.

Performance evaluation

Now it is quite difficult to fully assess the activities and personality of the OUN leader Stepan Bandera, because there is still no complete biography of him. It is even more difficult to evaluate books about Ukrainian nationalism because they were written exclusively by Ukrainian nationalists. People who were not drawn into the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism were never involved in researching his activities. Some historians accuse Bandera’s biographers of sparingly listing facts from his life, saying that he was an obedient son, a fanatically pious person, that he was a good friend, and talking rather dryly about his “heroism.” , fearing to make a cult of personality out of this controversial figure. Only one thing is clear: for some, Stepan Bandera is a ruthless killer of thousands and thousands of people, and for others, he is a fighter for the independence of his own country. And for such a lofty goal, they say, one cannot disdain any means, including cooperation with the fascists and the extermination of civilians, clearing a place on Polish soil in order to then create an independent state of Ukraine there and settle only Ukrainians. For some, Bandera is a romantic utopian, for others a dictator and tyrant, who from childhood prepared himself for a great mission. In a word, and you can’t argue with this – he is a very controversial figure.

Stepan Andreevich Bandera is an ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism, one of the main initiators of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1942, whose goal was the declared struggle for the independence of Ukraine. He was born on January 1, 1909 in the village of Stary Ugryniv, Kalush district (now Ivano-Frankivsk region) in the family of a Greek Catholic priest. After the end of the civil war, this part of Ukraine became part of Poland.

In 1922, Stepan Bandera joined the Union of Ukrainian Nationalist Youth. In 1928 he entered the agronomy department of the Lvov Higher Polytechnic School, which he never graduated from.

In the summer of 1941, after the arrival of the Nazis, Bandera called on “the Ukrainian people to help the German army everywhere to defeat Moscow and Bolshevism.”

On the same day, Stepan Bandera, without any coordination with the German command, solemnly proclaimed the restoration of the great Ukrainian power. The “Act of Revival of the Ukrainian State” was read out, an order on the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the creation of a national government.

The declaration of independence of Ukraine was not part of Germany's plans, so Bandera was arrested, and fifteen leaders of Ukrainian nationalists were shot.

The Ukrainian Legion, in whose ranks there was unrest after the arrest of political leaders, was soon recalled from the front and subsequently performed police functions in the occupied territories.

Stepan Bandera spent a year and a half in prison, after which he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was kept together with other Ukrainian nationalists in privileged conditions. Bandera's members were allowed to meet with each other, and they also received food and money from relatives and the OUN. They often left the camp in order to contact the “conspiracy” OUN, as well as the Friedenthal castle (200 meters from the Zelenbau bunker), which housed a school for OUN agent and sabotage personnel.

Stepan Bandera was one of the main initiators of the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) on October 14, 1942. The goal of the UPA was declared to be the struggle for the independence of Ukraine. In 1943, an agreement was reached between representatives of the German authorities and the OUN that the UPA would protect railways and bridges from Soviet partisans and support the activities of the German occupation authorities. In return, Germany promised to supply UPA units with weapons and ammunition, and in the event of a Nazi victory over the USSR, to allow the creation of a Ukrainian state under German protectorate. UPA fighters actively participated in the punitive operations of Hitler’s troops, including destroying civilians who sympathized with the Soviet army.

In September 1944, Bandera was released. Until the end of the war, he collaborated with the Abwehr intelligence department in preparing OUN sabotage groups.

After the war, Bandera continued his activities in the OUN, whose centralized control was located in West Germany. In 1947, at the next meeting of the OUN, Bandera was appointed its leader and was re-elected to this position twice in 1953 and 1955. He led the terrorist activities of the OUN and UPA on the territory of the USSR. During the Cold War, Ukrainian nationalists were actively used by the intelligence services of Western countries in the fight against the Soviet Union.

It is alleged that Bandera was poisoned by an agent of the USSR KGB on October 15, 1959 in Munich. He was buried on October 20, 1959 at the Munich Waldfriedhof cemetery.

In 1992, Ukraine celebrated the 50th anniversary of the formation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) for the first time, and attempts began to give its participants the status of war veterans. And in 1997-2000, a special government commission (with a permanent working group) was created with the aim of developing an official position regarding the OUN-UPA. The result of her work was the removal from the OUN of responsibility for cooperation with Nazi Germany and the recognition of the UPA as a “third force” and a national liberation movement that fought for the “true” independence of Ukraine.

On January 22, 2010, President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko announced the posthumous award to Stepan Bandera.

On January 29, 2010, Yushchenko, by his decree, recognized members of the UPA as fighters for the independence of Ukraine.

Monuments to the leader of Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera were erected in the Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Streets in cities and villages of Western Ukraine are named in his honor.

The glorification of UPA leader Stepan Bandera causes criticism from many Great Patriotic War veterans and politicians who accuse Bandera’s supporters of collaborating with the Nazis. At the same time, part of Ukrainian society, living mainly in the west of the country, considers Bandera and Shukhevych national heroes.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Bandera was an accomplice of the fascists, an agent of the Abwehr (military intelligence and counterintelligence of Nazi Germany. - Ed.) under the nickname Gray, says the famous Polish historian and political scientist Andrzej Sheptytsky. According to him, Stepan Bandera, as the leader of the OUN-UPA, is directly involved and guilty of massacres, ethnic cleansing, and the extermination of the Polish population of Western Ukraine.

The Hungarian historian Borbala Obrushansky went even further in his thesis of Bandera's betrayal. A citizen of the Netherlands, originally from Hungary, studied the biography of Bandera for about three years. And she came to the following conclusions in her article entitled: “Thrice traitor to two homelands”:

So, Stepan Bandera:

1. He studied to be a priest of the Greek Catholic Church, especially in the Vatican, he betrayed
biblical truths (thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery..)

2. Being a Jew by nationality, he massacred his fellow tribesmen

3. Being a citizen of Poland, they massacred Poles, citizens of their country

According to ideology, he is a fascist; his bloody record includes hundreds of thousands of tortured Ukrainians,
Poles, Jews, Czechs, Slovaks, Belarusians, Russians, etc.)

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, Bandera brutally tortured more than 5 million civilians living in Western Ukraine, and sent more than 5 million Ukrainians to forced labor in Nazi Germany, half of whom did not return to Ukraine.

On the bloody hands of Bandera's brothers-in-arms:
- extermination of Kiev residents in Babi Yar - more than 100,000 people;
- the destruction of a quarter of Belarusians and the Belarusian KHATYN;
- more than 1 million Jews;
- more than 1 million Ukrainians;
- more than 500 thousand Red Army soldiers
- more than 200 thousand Poles,
as well as the destruction of peaceful Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Yugoslavs, French, etc. Bandera’s followers suppressed popular uprisings against the fascists in Warsaw and Prague.

Extended abstracts

1. Stefan Bandera - baptized Jew, Uniate.

A Greek Catholic from the village of Ugryniv Stary near Kalush, born during the Austro-
Hungarian rule in Galicia. His father, Adrian Bandera, is a Greek Catholic from the middle-class family of Mikhail and Rosalia (nee Beletskaya, a Polish Jew by nationality). Bander. Stefan (Stefan) was the second child after his older sister Martha. His last name (which modern nationalists translate as “banner”) in Yiddish means: Bander - “brothel keeper.” And the portrait of Stefan Bander himself leaves no doubt about this:

2. Companion in the “struggle” - Dr. Lev Rebet, editor of the “Ukrainian Independent”, one of the leaders of the “Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Abroad” (OUN(3)) - a Jew.

3. Yaroslav Semenovich Stetsko, a baptized Uniate Jew, (wife and associate - Ganna-Evgenia Iosifovna, who took Yaroslav's party nickname) - Bandera's deputy.

4. Shukhevich Roman Iosifovich - “combat general”, also a Uniate Jew, studied together
with Stefan (in Ukrainian Stepan) in the Vatican. The head of the Jerusalem Yad Vashem memorial complex, Yosef (Tomi) Lapid, pointed out the deep and intense connection between the Nachtigal battalion led by Roman Shukhevych and the German authorities, and also the participation of the Nachtigal battalion under the command of Shukhevych in the pogrom in Lvov in July 1941, which claimed the lives of approximately 4,000 Jews. Lapid also relied on documents available in the archive concerning the Nachtigal battalion and Roman Shukhevych. Copies of these documents were handed over to the Ukrainian delegation.

Paradox? Not at all!

Typical entrepreneurialism, in this case in politics: German Nazism is advancing, it is stronger - you have to be an ally of the strongest - destroy your own - the Jews.

Principle: “The bandit runs and shouts “catch the bandit.” Many ended up in a German concentration camp as Jews in accordance with Germany’s anti-Semitic policy, and not because of “Ukrainian patriotism,” as the Ukrainian authorities are trying to present.

Interesting fact:

In July 1934, on the orders of S. Bandera, the director of the Ukrainian gymnasium in Lvov, I. Babiy, was also killed. This caused a great resonance in the Ukrainian society of Galicia - all legal parties condemned it. Metropolitan Sheptytsky sharply condemned the murder, in a published article he wrote, “there is not a single father or mother who would not curse the leaders who lead youth into the wilderness of crimes,” “Ukrainian terrorists who sit safely outside the borders of the region are using our children to kill parents, and in the areola of the heroes themselves rejoice at such a profitable
live."

Colonel gave a characterization of the fascist and executioner Bandera at the Nuremberg trials
Erwin Stolze, deputy chief of the 2nd department of the Abwehr (Abwehr-2):

“... In October 1939, Lahousen and I involved Bandera in direct work in
Abwere. According to his characterization, Bandera was an energetic agent and at the same time a great
a demagogue, careerist, fanatic and bandit who disregarded all principles of human morality to achieve his goal, always ready to commit any crime. Agent relations with Bandera were maintained at that time by Lahousen, I - Colonel E. Stolze, Major Dühring, Sonderführer Markert and others...”

From the secret report of US Military Counterintelligence Special Agent Vaja V. Kolobmatovich to the commander, US Military Counterintelligence Region III, May 6, 1947. “He [Bandera] often moves through the American [occupation] zone, illegally crossing the American-French dividing line in the Bad Reichenstal area. Crossing the border is always carried out on foot through wooded areas... Cars usually pick him up after crossing into the American zone. During During these transitions, Bandera is guarded by a group of former German SS men attached to the Bandera movement by an alleged German underground organization that now exists in Bavaria.

The German underground, consisting of former leaders of the GJ [Hitler Youth], SS officers and other high-ranking members of the NSDAP, work in close cooperation with Bandera's movement, since he [Bandera] has excellent connections in the form of a network of agents and informants scattered in all four zones occupied Germany, [as well as in] Austria, Czechoslovakia, Russia and Poland. Bandera's movement is increasing in number and becoming more active
due to his financial capabilities. The main source of this financial power is the German Underground, which is believed to have large amounts of money and other valuables accumulated during the Nazi regime... Known as the "Black Hand", this group consists of ruthless killers who capture and eliminate individuals trying to detain Bandera."

About the crimes of the OUN-UPA

To begin with, a short educational program:
Stepan Andreevich Bandera(Ukrainian Stepan Andriyovych Bandera) (January 1, 1909 - October 15, 1959) - one of the leaders of the Ukrainian nationalist movement in Eastern Poland (Galicia), Hero of Ukraine (2010), in 1941-1959 head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN (b)) .

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN)- a nationalist terrorist organization that operated in the western regions of Ukraine in the 20-50s. XX century It emerged in 1929 as the “Ukrainian Military Organization” (UVO), then changed its name. The founder and first leader of the OUN was Yevgen Konovalets, a former colonel of the Austro-Hungarian army. During the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, he actively participated in the nationalist movement in Ukraine together with S. Petliura. At one time he served as military commandant of Kyiv. The ideological platform of the OUN was the concept of radical Ukrainian nationalism, characterized by chauvinism and xenophobia, with a pronounced anti-Russian orientation and focused on the use of extremist means to achieve the goal - the creation of an “independent”, “independent” Ukraine.

After the Red Army entered the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in September 1939, the OUN, in collaboration with German intelligence agencies, began the fight against Soviet power. The preservation of the influence of nationalists was greatly facilitated by the methods by which the communist regime was imposed on Western Ukrainian lands. Ukrainian nationalists warmly welcomed the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR and from the first days of the war provided support to German troops and occupation authorities. Members of the OUN helped the German fascists in the “final solution to the Jewish question,” i.e., the extermination and deportation of Jews in the occupied territories, and served in the occupation administration and police. Even when it became completely clear that Hitler would not provide Ukraine with any semblance of “independence,” the nationalists did not stop collaborating with the Nazis. With their active support, the SS division "Galicia" was formed.

Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)- armed formation of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

It operated from the spring of 1943 in the territories that were part of the General Government (Galicia - from the end of 1943, Kholmshchyna - from the autumn of 1943), the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine (Volyn - from the end of March 1943), and Romanian Transnistria (Transnistria) (Northern Bukovina - from summer 1944), which until 1939-1940 were part of Poland and Romania.

In 1943-44. UPA detachments carried out ethnic cleansing of the Polish population in Western Volyn, Kholm region and Eastern Galicia.

In 1943-1944, UPA units acted against Soviet partisans and units of the Polish underground (both communist and subordinate to the London government, i.e. the Home Army).

And here is an article about the crimes of the UPA (originally published on the website pravda.ru).

The UPA was created on October 14, 1942 by decision of the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). It was headed by Roman Shukhevych, a holder of two knightly orders of Nazi Germany. President Yushchenko declared him a hero of Ukraine, and he is trying to present the UPA itself as a belligerent during the Second World War.
Meanwhile, there is not a single document indicating that UPA detachments fought with large Wehrmacht forces. But there are more than enough documents about the joint actions of Ukrainian nationalists with the Nazis. And even more documents tell about the fanaticism committed by the “national hero” Roman Shukhevych and his brothers in arms.
It is known for sure that the published newspaper “Surma”, bulletins and other nationalist literature were printed in Germany. Some nationalist literature was published illegally in Lviv and other cities of Western Ukraine. Recently, the Russian Foreign Ministry published documents. Here are some of them:
The head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, Pavel Sudoplatov, in a message dated December 5, 1942, testifies: “Ukrainian nationalists, who had previously been underground, met the Germans with bread and salt and provided them with all kinds of assistance. The German occupiers widely used nationalists to organize the so-called “new order” in the occupied regions of the Ukrainian SSR.

From the Protocol of interrogation of Ivan Tikhonovich Kutkovets, an active Bandera member. February 1, 1944:
“Despite the fact that, at the behest of the Germans, Bandera proclaimed an “independent” Ukraine, the Germans delayed the issue of creating a national Ukrainian government... It was not profitable for the Germans to create a Ukrainian national government, they “conquered” Ukraine and considered it an eastern colony of the “Third Empire” and power over They did not want to share Ukraine with Bandera and they removed this rival. In addition, at this time, the Ukrainian police, created by the OUN members, carried out active security service in the rear of the German army to fight partisans, detain Soviet paratroopers and look for Soviet party activists.”
The circular “On the treatment of members of the UPA”, issued on 12.2.44, by the so-called Prützmann combat group, also deserves attention. It makes it clear how the UPA “fought” the Germans a year and a half after its creation:
“Negotiations with the leaders of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army that began in the Derazhnya area are now also continuing in the Verba area. We agreed: members of the UPA will not attack German military units. The UPA currently sends scouts, mostly girls, into enemy-occupied territory and reports the results to a representative of the battle group's intelligence department. Captured Red Army soldiers, as well as captured persons belonging to Soviet gangs, will be delivered to a representative of the intelligence department for interrogation, and the newcomer element will be transferred to the combat group for assignment to various works. In order not to interfere with this necessary cooperation for us, it is ordered:
1. UPA agents who have certificates signed by a certain “Captain Felix”, or who pose as members of the UPA, should be allowed through without hindrance, and weapons should be left with them. Upon request, agents are to be immediately brought to the 1st (Intelligence Branch Representative) Battle Group.
2. When UPA units meet German units for identification, they raise their left outstretched hand to their faces, in this case they will not be attacked, but this can happen if fire is opened from the opposite side...
Signed: Brenner, Major General and SS-Brigadefuehrer."
Another “heroic” stage in the history of Ukrainian nationalists and personally the UPA commander Roman Shukhevych was the fight against Belarusian partisans. Historian S.I. Drobyazko in his book “Under the Enemy’s Banners. Anti-Soviet formations within the German armed forces” writes that in 1941, on the territory of Belarus, the first Ukrainian police battalions were already formed from Red Army prisoners of war.
“Most of the Ukrainian auxiliary police battalions carried out security service on the territory of the Reichskommissariats, others were used in anti-partisan operations - mainly in Belarus, where, in addition to the battalions already created here, a number of units were sent from Ukraine, including 101, 102, 109, 115, 118 , 136th, 137th and 201st battalions.

Their actions, like the actions of other similar units involved in punitive actions, were associated with numerous war crimes against the civilian population. The most famous of which was the participation of a company of the 118th battalion under the command of the cornet V. Meleshko in the destruction of the village of Khatyn on March 22, 1943, when 149 civilians died, half of whom were children,” he writes.
And now - a word for the Banderaites themselves. This is what was published in 1991 in No. 8 of the Vizvolny Shlyakh edition, which was published in London:
“In Belarus, the 201st Ukrainian battalion was not concentrated in one place. His soldiers, in numbers and hundreds, were scattered across different strongholds... After arriving in Belarus, the kuren received the task of guarding bridges on the Berezina and Western Dvina rivers. Departments stationed in populated areas were charged with protecting the German administration. In addition, they had to constantly comb forest areas, identify and destroy partisan bases and camps,” writes Bandera member M. Kalba in this publication.
“Each hundred guarded the square assigned to it. The 3rd hundred of Lieutenant Sidor were in the south of the zone of responsibility of the Ukrainian battalion, the 1st hundred of ROMAN SHUKHEVICH were in the center... Chasing the partisans in unfamiliar territory, the soldiers fell into an enemy ambush and were blown up by mines... The battalion spent nine months in the “partisan front" and gained invaluable combat experience in this struggle. According to approximate data, the legionnaires destroyed more than two thousand Soviet partisans,” he notes.
As they say, no comments. Even the Banderaites themselves directly indicate what the “national hero” Shukhevych was doing in Belarus. One can only guess what kind of Ukraine he fought for against the fraternal Belarusian people.
Finally, in 1943-1944. UPA detachments in Volyn and Galicia exterminated over 100 thousand Poles. The Polish publication “Na Rubieїy” (Nr 35, 1999), published by the Volyn Foundation, describes 135 methods of torture and atrocities that UPA soldiers applied to the Polish civilian population, including children.