On Thursday, for the first time in its history, Ukraine’s Supreme Rada stood up in memory of the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army Roman Shukhevych, who was killed in an operation organized by the National Security Ministry of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 65 years ago, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kirilenko says on Twitter.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was created by the Stepan Bandera faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and fought against the Red Army, Soviet guerillas and the Polish Krajowa and Ludowa armies in Western Ukraine. In the late 1930s, Shukhevych cooperated with German intelligence. In 1941, as part of the Nachtigall Battalion, he was involved in Operation Barbarossa and later in the mass killings of Jews, Poles and Soviet guerillas.
After World War II, Shukhevych led the underground activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in Western Ukraine.