Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists

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The Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was a Ukrainian nationalist organisation formed in 1929.[1]

1930s

In the 1930s, the OUN was led by Eugene Konovalets who was in contact with the German Abwehr military intelligence service.[2]

Following the murder of the Polish interior Minister, General Pieracki, in 1934, the Polish government arrested a number of OUN leaders including Stepan Bandera.[3]

From the mid-1930s, the OUN received the patronage of MI6, whose Helskinki station chief, Harry Carr sent OUN agents into the Soviet Union from Finland.[3]

In May 1938, Konovalets was assassinated by Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov. He was replaced as OUN leader by Andrei Melnyk, although a younger and more radical faction formed under Bandera.[3]

In late 1938, the Abwehr, which had developed links with Melnyk, used OUN activists to destabilise Ruthenia, where they were ousted by Hungary the following year.[4]

World War Two

During the Russo-Finnish War in 1939, Harry Carr again attempted to infiltrate OUN agents into the Soviet Union, though the operation was a failure.[5]

At the OUN Congress in 1941, the movement split into the OUN-M under Melnyk and the OUN-B under Bandera.[5]

The Germans developed close links with the OUN-B, training its security service and two military units, codenamed 'Nachtigall' and 'Roland'.[6]

The OUN-B military units took part in the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, and were soon involved in massacres of Jews and Poles.[6]

However, the OUN-B leadership overreached itself by declaring a Ukrainian state in Lvov, a move which led to its suppression on the personal orders of Hitler, despite the misgivings of more pragmatic Wehrmacht officers.[7]

While Bandera was interned in the VIP camp at Sachsenhausen, his brothers died in Auschwitz.[8]

By 1943, the OUN-B had formed its own partisan army, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, fighting the Soviets and Poles more often than the Germans. In Zhitomir in November 1943, the OUN-B formed an 'Anti-Bolshevik Front' of Soviet ethnic minorities, utilising prisoners, deserters and local SS recruits.[9]

In 1944, as the Soviets re-occupied Ukraine, Heinrich Himmler authorised cooperation with the OUN as Operation Sunflower. Stepan Bandera was released from prison.[10]

In early 1945, the leader of the OUN-B faction, Stepan Bandera gave his support to the Nazi-backed Ukrainian National Committee formed by Pavlo Shandruk.[11]

In the same period, the OUN made contact with British intelligence in Berne, Switzerland.[12]

Post War

After World War Two, MI6 used Karl Marcus to recruit SS and Sicherheitsdienst veterans with links to Stepan Bandera's OUN-B faction, veterans of which were in displaced persons camps in Germany.[13]

Bandera reformed the OUN-B in Munich in 1946 under the patronage of British and American intelligence.[14] The 1943 Anti-Bolshevist Front was reformed as the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.[14]

In the summer of 1946, OUN-B members in the displaced persons camps in Germany were involved in Operation Ohio, denouncing alleged Communists to the US Counter-Intelligence Corps and subsequently in torturing those accused.[15]

By mid-1946, the OUN-B leadership had lost contact with nationalist guerrillas still fighting in Ukraine.[16]

Independent Ukraine

In 1993, the OUN-B faction formed a new political party, the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (KUN).[17]

Affiliations

Notes

  1. Roman Kabachiy, Stepan Bandera: a divisive national icon, oDRussia, 2 March 2010.
  2. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.223.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.224.
  4. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, pp.224-225.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.225.
  6. 6.0 6.1 Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.226.
  7. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.227.
  8. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.228.
  9. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.229.
  10. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.230.
  11. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.198.
  12. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.231.
  13. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.106.
  14. 14.0 14.1 Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.233.
  15. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.234.
  16. Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service, Fourth Estate Limited, 2000, p.236.
  17. Taras Kuzio, Historical baggage gets between Ukraine, diaspora, Kyiv Post, 18 April 2002.