On October 28, 1944, Soviet troops completely liberated from the Nazis the territories along which the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic would pass in the post-war period. During the battles for the Ukrainian SSR, the Red Army conducted 11 strategic and 4 front-line offensive operations. According to historians, about three million Soviet soldiers died in the battle for Ukraine.

The value of the USSR

The Ukrainian SSR was proclaimed by the Bolsheviks on March 10, 1919 at the III All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. When it was created, the lands of historical Little Russia were united with the territory of Odessa and Donetsk-Krivorozhsky Soviet republics, previously subordinate to the Petrograd Sovnarkom. The plans of the Bolsheviks were to add to the Ukrainian SSR and the lands of Western Ukraine, which were part of Austria-Hungary until 1918. However, during the war of 1919-1921 between the Soviets and Poland, Galicia and Volhynia were annexed by Warsaw. On December 30, 1922, the Ukrainian SSR signed the Treaty on the Formation of the Soviet Union.

“As part of the USSR, Ukraine developed rapidly, the most important industrial facilities were built on its territory, and chernozems played a huge role in Soviet agriculture,” military historian Yury Knutov told RT in an interview with RT.

Meanwhile, under the rule of Poland, the process of polonization of Western Ukraine took place. On its lands colonists from ethnic Poles moved, the number of Ukrainian educational and cultural institutions was reduced. This was used by the radical politicians who were in exile in Europe, who fought during the Civil War on the side of Simon Petliura.

The Ukrainian military organization they created and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) recruited young people in Western Ukrainian lands to participate in terrorist attacks against the Poles. Back in the late 1920s, the radicals made contact with German intelligence. Cooperation between official Berlin and Ukrainian nationalists became especially tight after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.

September 1, 1939 The Third Reich attacked Poland. On September 17, when most of the Polish troops were defeated, and the state administration ceased to function, the Red Army entered the territory of Western Ukraine. As a result of several rounds of negotiations between Berlin and Moscow, Germany formally agreed to consider Western Ukraine as Soviet territory. According to historians, Hitler went for it, because he still hoped to soon seize these lands along with the rest of Ukraine.

In the summer of 1940, the Soviet government, through diplomatic pressure, forced Romania to liberate the territory of Bessarabia annexed by it. Its lands were divided into the Moldavian SSR and the Izmail region, which became part of Soviet Ukraine.

“As preparations for the attack on the USSR, Hitler’s concrete plans appeared in Ukraine. It was to become the food base of the Reich and a supplier of raw materials for the German military-industrial complex, ”Boris Sokolov, an employee of the scientific and methodological department of the Victory Museum, said in an interview with RT.

Hitler's occupation

On June 22, 1941, with the start of Hitler aggression against the Soviet Union, the troops of the Nazi Army Group “South” invaded the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, reinforced by parts of the allies - in particular, Romania and Hungary. The fighters of the Red Army, the Black Sea Fleet and the NKVD of the USSR offered stiff resistance to the enemy. On the Danube, Soviet soldiers threw the enemy away from the border and kept the bridgehead on the territory of Romania for almost a month. Kiev and Odessa for the desperate resistance to the enemy after the war were awarded the title of "hero cities".

However, the enemy prepared for the war much more seriously, and by the end of autumn 1941, most of the territory of the Ukrainian SSR came under Nazi control. And on July 22, 1942, with the capture of Donbass, the occupation of the republic became complete.

  • The head of the district Shutsman post in the village of Zarog (Poltava region), the guard chief of the Volkmann police order, instructs his subordinates, December 1942.
  • © Deutsches Bundesarchiv

According to Boris Sokolov, on the side of the Nazis there were units from the Ukrainian nationalists recruited by them even before the war. At the time of the invasion, the Abwehr were subordinate to the special forces "Roland" and "Nachtigal" manned by immigrants from Western Ukraine. Later on the basis of them, as well as on the basis of the underground cells of the OUN, the formation of the Nazi auxiliary police began, which took an active part in the mass killings of Jews, Communists and civilians of the Ukrainian SSR, dissatisfied with Hitler's occupation.

“The Nazis administratively subordinated the territory of Western Ukraine to the Polish governor-general, from the central regions formed the so-called Reich Commissariat“ Ukraine ”, the south-western regions were given over to Romania, and the eastern ones were left under military control,” continued Boris Sokolov.

“It was planned to eliminate several tens of millions of Ukrainians, and the remaining ones to be made slaves of the Germans, between whom Hitler wanted to divide the occupied Ukrainian lands,” the historian continued.

Ukrainian Jews suffered massive destruction during the occupation. In June 1941, about 2.7–2.8 million of them lived on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. Most of those who did not have time to evacuate died. The Nazis, with the help of Ukrainian nationalists, killed about 1.5 million representatives of the Jewish population. The site of one of the most massive murders of Jews was the Babiy Yar tract in Kiev - about 150 thousand people were shot there.

“In general, Ukraine lost during the war, according to various estimates, from 6 to 10 million people,” said Yuri Knutov.

According to the historian, the Nazis destroyed over 700 Ukrainian cities and towns and about 28 thousand villages. The occupiers plundered and demolished tens of thousands of healthcare, educational and cultural institutions, industrial enterprises and collective farms. The destruction of the village of Koryukovka in the Chernihiv region, according to experts, was the most massive simultaneous killing of civilians during the years of not only the Great Patriotic War, but also the entire Second World War. Militants of the SS, Ukrainian police and Hungarian troops, destroying the village, killed about 6.7 thousand people.

Liberation of Ukraine

In January 1943, Soviet troops pushed the Nazis from part of the Donbass. And in the summer of that year, during the Battle of Kursk, the liberation of the territory of the Ukrainian SSR from the Nazi invaders began. In September, the Red Army completely cleared the Nazis of the Donbass and began to displace the Nazis over the Dnieper.

  • Forcing the Dnieper River by Soviet soldiers at hand
  • © Semyon Fridland / waralbum.ru

The Germans did not even help that along the Dnieper they built a powerful system of fortifications, which, according to the German command, was to detain the Red Army for many months and create the conditions for the preparation of the German counter-offensive.

In October, Melitopol, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk and Dneprodzerzhinsk were liberated. On November 6, after fierce battles and thanks to the secretive transfer of troops from one bridgehead to another, Soviet troops drove the invaders from Kiev.

At the beginning of 1944, the Red Army defeated the Nazi forces, trying to hold on to Central Ukraine, and in February conquered Lutsk and Rivne.

In March 1944, Soviet troops launched an offensive along the entire line of the front passing through Ukraine - on a strip of 1.1 thousand km in length. Vinnitsa, Zhmerynka, Kamenetz-Podolsky, Chernivtsi, Kherson and Nikolaev were released. On April 10, the Red Army stormed Odessa.

  • The inscription on the hut in the Kiev region: "Liberators of Ukraine, forward, to the treasured banks of the Dnieper!"
  • © Semyon Fridland / waralbum.ru

During the Lviv-Sandomierz operation, the Red Army expelled the Nazis from a significant part of Western Ukraine and in some places crossed the pre-war western border of the Ukrainian SSR.

By the fall, Soviet troops were exhausted by a long offensive, their communications stretched out, they needed a rest.

“However, representatives of the Slovak resistance appealed to the Soviet leadership with a request to support the uprising, which was prepared by representatives of the partisan movement and the underground operating in the army. And the Soviet Union, as has repeatedly happened in our history, decided to fulfill its allied duty at all costs, ”said Academician of the Academy of Military Sciences, reserve colonel Andrei Koshkin, RT.

The offensive through the mountain passes well-fortified by the Nazis proved extremely difficult, and the Nazis quickly enough managed to drive out the Slovak rebels from the settlements they held, forcing them to go underground again. Therefore, the Soviet troops could not fulfill the task of supporting the uprising in Slovakia.

Nevertheless, although with heavy fighting, they overcame the Carpathians and marched in Transcarpathia, which from 1938-1939 was occupied by allied Germany, Hungary. On October 27, 1944, the Red Army drove the German-Hungarian troops from Uzhgorod, and on October 28 from Chop. Subsequently, these cities became part of the Ukrainian SSR. Since then, October 28 is considered the day of the complete liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis.

During the liberation of the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet troops conducted 15 offensive operations in the republic: 11 strategic and 4 front-line operations. According to historians, about 3 million Soviet soldiers died in battles for Ukraine.

“It should be noted that at the time the Red Army entered the territory of the Ukrainian SSR, its backbone was made up of representatives of the Russian people who, without any doubt, gave their lives for the life and freedom of Ukrainians. It was the salvation of an entire nation, which was subject to destruction, according to the Nazi plan "Ost." However, one should not forget about the contribution of the Ukrainian people to the victory over Nazism - many immigrants from Ukraine died both during the defense of the USSR in 1941 and during the liberation of Europe, ”Yury Knutov emphasized.

  • Russian soldiers mark the border of the USSR, March 1944
  • © Victor Temin / Slava Katamidze Collection / Getty Images

According to Andrey Koshkin, Ukrainians have reason to be proud of the place of their people in the fight against Nazism.

“If you do not take individual renegades, such as policemen and UPA militants *, the Ukrainian people fought with dignity against the Nazis, causing serious losses. Trying to forget about it, rewrite history and praise collaborating criminals, as some Kiev politicians do today, is a form of insanity. Moreover, it is the Red Army that Ukraine today should thank for its modern territory. After all, the same Transcarpathia became part of the Ukrainian SSR precisely as a result of the victory of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War, ”Andrey Koshkin summed up.

* “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) is a Ukrainian organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 11/17/2014).