This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. (February 2023) |
Roman Shukhevych | |
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![]() Shukhevych in 1944 | |
Nickname(s) | Tur, Taras Chuprynka |
Born | Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine) | 30 June 1907
Died | 5 March 1950 Bilohorshcha, Lviv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Lviv, Ukraine) | (aged 42)
Cause of death | Suicide by gunshot |
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Service/ |
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Years of service | 1928–1950 |
Rank | General |
Battles/wars | |
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Roman-Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych (Ukrainian: Рома́н-Тарас Йо́сипович Шухе́вич, also known by his pseudonym, Tur and Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950) was a Ukrainian nationalist[1] and a military leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which during the Second World War fought against the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent against the Nazi Germany for Ukrainian independence. He collaborated with the Nazis from February 1941 to December 1942 as commanding officer of the Nachtigall Battalion in early 1941,[2] and as a Hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion in late 1941 and 1942.[3]
Shukhevych was one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of tens of thousands of Polish civilians.[3] It is unclear to what extent Shuchevych was responsible for the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, but he certainly condoned them after some time, and also directed the massacres of Poles in Eastern Galicia.[4][5] Historian Per Anders Rudling has accused the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukrainian academics of "ignoring, glossing over, or outright denying" OUN's role in this.[3]
...on the German side and Roman Shukhevych ('Tur', 'Taras Chuprynka') as head of the Ukrainian staff, wore the uniform of the Wehrmacht.
The OUN-UPA-planned ethnic cleansing continued unabated throughout summer 1943. The crescendo came on the night of July 11–12, 1943 when the UPA planned a highly coordinated attack (known among Poles as the 'Peter and Paul action' for the holiday on which it occurred) against Polish villages in three raions: Kovel', Khorokhiv, and Volodymyr-Volyns'kyi. Over one hundred localities were targeted in this action, and some 4,000 Poles were murdered. Finally, the last wave of attacks came in December 1943 before Shukhevych decided to move the cleansing operations to Galicia where tens of thousands more Galician Poles were murdered. Following the killings in Volhynia, the UPA-North group gave the order to 'destroy all traces of the Poles' by 'destroying all Polish churches and all other Polish places of worship'.