MOSCOW, March 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry has published a batch of documents of the Soviet People’s Commissariat of the Interior (NKVD) dating back to the years from 1942 through to 1945 and related to the operations of far-right Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries during World War II.

The documents contain the eyewitnesses’ reports speaking about cooperation of members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN/UIA) with the Nazis, as well as their involvement in mass purges of the population.

The documents were declassified in 2008. In particular, a report by chief of USSR NKVD’s 4th department Pavel Sudoplatov addressed to deputy chief of USSR NKVD’s 3th department Ilya Ilyushin dated December 5, 1942, says that “making the Kishen-Orel area their resting base, the Germans aided by Ukrainian nationalists cleared this area from everything Soviet”.

“For instance, in the Stary Orlik village in spring 1942, the Germans took away and later shot dead in the forest near the banks of Dnepr river 60 Soviet families; in the Zhdanovka village of Kotovsky district 35 families were taken away, in the Kitay-Gorod village – 45 families, in Nekhvoroshcha village about 200 families shot dead; in Pereshchepino village — some 100 families shot dead, and two persons — ex-assistant to Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya chief and farm foreman — were stretched on the gates of German commandants office. Such barbarities took place in other villages as well. Later, the Germans carried out a large-scale enrolment among locals for police service in other areas, mainly adjacent to Samara forests,” the document.

People of different nationalities became victims of nationalists. In particular, an agent report from the area of Rivne dated August 4, 1943, tells about a mass execution of Poles. “An agent of the NUD group that returned from the mountains of Vladimir-Volynsk, reported that July 18, 1943, he became witness to a mass execution of Polish population of Vladimir-Volynsk carried out by Ukrainian nationalists – Banderovites. During service in catholic churches, the Banderovites killed 11 Roman Catholic priests and up to 2000 Poles on the town’s streets. The German garrison, police and Cossacks numbering 600 people did not take any measures against the execution of Poles, and only after that the German command hung out a notice urging Poles to enroll in the gendarmerie to fight against Banderovites. Many Poles for fear of repressions went to serve for the Germans,” the report says.

OUN/UIA members also had uneasy relations with Ukrainian population. The enrolment of “volunteers” for the Ukrainian army was made by summoning enlisted men to the defense attaché office, where they were proposed to “voluntarily” enroll to the “Ukrainian national” army. In addition, it was told that the latter would only defend the interests of Ukraine. Those who refused to enroll “voluntarily” to the army were regarded by Germans as suspicious. They were arrested and sent to special concentration camps in Kremenchug and Dnepropetrovsk, the documents say.

The whole batch of documents disclosing diverse aspects of Ukrainian nationalists’ activities in the wartime can be found on Russia’s Foreign Ministry webpage in the Archive Service section.