Ryszard Michalak

The Lviv Regional Council has designated 2027 in the Lviv region as the Year of Roman Shukhevych, an architect of the genocide in Volhynia, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and Oleh Olzhych, a leader of the OUN-M. Among those being commemorated, Roman Shukhevych stands out as a particularly dark figure in history. As commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), co-founder of collaborationist units operating alongside Germany, and one of those responsible for crimes committed against Poles, Jews, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians and members of other nationalities in Belarus, Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland, he bears responsibility for some of the gravest atrocities of that period. The decision taken on 20 October 2026 by the Lviv Regional Council is part of a long-standing process of establishing an official cult of Shukhevych and other proponents of radical Ukrainian nationalism. Honouring this criminal must be regarded as a blow to the memory of the victims of the genocide carried out on his orders. It is also surprising that Oleh Olzhych has simultaneously been named a patron of 2027. He headed an organisation whose leadership condemned the crimes committed by Bandera's followers, often paying for their opposition with their lives. 💬"Cut them down to the last man. Burn villages inhabited exclusively by Poles; in mixed villages, eliminate only the Polish population." These were the words written by Roman Shukhevych in an order addressed to his subordinate commanders. Shukhevych was not only one of those responsible for the genocide perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists, but also an architect of the false narrative, perpetuated to this day, that denies the crimes committed between 1943 and 1945. Roman Shukhevych belonged to the younger, most radical generation of Ukrainian nationalists who, from the late 1920s onwards, sought to implement the criminal vision of an ethnically homogeneous Ukraine. In 1929, he became one of the leaders of the combat section of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). He helped devise a strategy of terror intended to destabilise Eastern Lesser Poland and Volhynia. The targets of Ukrainian nationalist extremists included both Ukrainians and Poles, civil servants, teachers and community activists, who sought reconciliation between the two nations. Shukhevych coordinated preparations for the assassination of Tadeusz Hołówko, a Polish politician who, just months before his death, had emphasised that Ukrainians had the "right to regard themselves as co-owners of the country, entitled to full equality of rights with the Polish population and to respect for their national and cultural interests." Roman Shukhevych initiated cooperation between Ukrainian nationalists and Germany, which continued until the end of WW2. During the 1930s, German intelligence began financing the OUN's terrorist activities, viewing them as an opportunity to destabilise Poland. Following Germany's invasion of Poland, Shukhevych became involved, in 1940–1941, in preparing a detailed plan for the establishment of an ethnically homogeneous Ukrainian state. In the document The Struggle and Activities of the OUN During the War, prepared on the eve of the German-Soviet war, Shukhevych and his co-authors, Stepan Lenkavskyi and Yaroslav Stetsko, concluded that the transitional period following the passage of the front would create an opportunity, "amid chaos and confusion," for the "elimination of undesirable Polish, Russian and Jewish activists." This scenario began to be implemented as early as late June 1941. Members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists contributed to the German war effort. In June 1941, Shukhevych became deputy to the German commander of the Nachtigall Battalion. The unit became notorious for crimes against the Jewish population in the summer of 1941. Despite these "services", the Germans did not regard the formation as the nucleus of a future Ukrainian army. Instead, they decided to exploit the fanaticism of Ukrainian nationalists. Nachtigall was reorganised into the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion, a police security unit. Shukhevych and his comrades-in-arms were deployed to Belarus, where entire villages were murdered under the pretext of combating Soviet partisans. One eyewitness account of the pacification of a village describes the brutality of these actions: 💬"His name was Hauptmann Shukhevych. Anna Radwan, whose son they had beaten and wanted to shoot, fell at his feet, kissing his boots and begging for mercy. The Ukrainian Hauptmann kicked her in the face, leaving her covered in blood. [...] The Ukrainians were worse beasts than the Germans and the NKVD men." The villagers whom Shukhevych had condemned to death were saved by the arrival of a German patrol. For Shukhevych and his subordinates, the crimes committed in Belarus served as a form of preparation for implementing their plan to create a Ukraine "as pure as a glass of water." In 1943, Shukhevych and other collaborators continued their activities within the ranks of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. He approved the actions and methods employed by the Bandera faction of the OUN and the UPA against the local Polish population in Volhynia. It should be recalled that approximately 60,000 Poles are estimated to have been murdered in Volhynia, often with extreme brutality. Moreover, from the turn of 1943 and 1944, the "Volhynian scenario", with certain modifications, was extended to Eastern Lesser Poland. Shukhevych justified his order to "expand operations" into Eastern Lesser Poland by citing an alleged expansion of Home Army (Armia Krajowa) bases. He also expanded the structures of local commands. In doing so, he created an illusion of the UPA's organisational strength while simultaneously shifting responsibility for the murders of Poles onto local commanders. These commanders were ostensibly instructed merely to "respond" to the activities of the Home Army and even to those of a purported "Polish police force under SS command", which did not in fact exist. At the same time, Shukhevych ordered talks to be conducted with the Home Army, ostensibly with the aim of reaching a "ceasefire". Shukhevych was aware that, with Germany facing defeat, the genocide perpetrated by the UPA would discredit the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism. As early as the spring of 1944, the leadership of the Bandera faction of the OUN attempted to fabricate evidence concerning the causes and perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing. Shukhevych deliberately and systematically constructed a false narrative denying the scale of the genocide committed by his own subordinates and the objectives pursued by Ukrainian nationalists. His death at the hands of NKVD officers on 5 March 1950, in Bilohorshcha near Lviv, "saved" his reputation among Ukrainian émigrés. By that time, Shukhevych was becoming a symbol of Ukrainian nationalism, almost equal in stature to Stepan Bandera.