Second Winter Campaign

Second Winter Campaign
	Part of the Soviet–Ukrainian War
Date	October – November 1921
Location	Ukraine
Result	Soviet victory
Belligerents
Ukrainian People's Republic	Soviet Russia ; Soviet Ukraine
Commanders and leaders
Yuriy Tyutyunnyk ; Mikhailo Paliy-Sidoryanskyi [ uk ]; Andriy Hulyi-Hulenko [ uk ]	Grigory Kotovsky
Units involved
Bessarabian group (up to 300 fighters); Volyn group (up to 900 fighters); Podolsk group (342 fighters)	9th Cavalry Division

Last updated May 05, 2024

The Second Winter Campaign was a failed military campaign by the Ukrainian National Army in October and November 1921 against the Bolsheviks. It was the last campaign of the Ukrainian armed forces in post-World War I attempt to achieve independence of Ukraine.

The plan

The plan of the Second Winter Campaign was bold and simple: to move into central Ukraine and unify the various partisan units therein. In late 1917, there were many independent units working in central Ukraine, including the anarchist Nestor Makhno in the central steppes. Together, the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic would then drive Bolshevik forces from Ukraine.

Participating units

There were three main army groups which took part in the campaign. The main group was known as the Volynhian group, and consisted of 800 men. It was under the command of general Yurii Tiutiunnyk, and the chief of staff was colonel Yurii Otmarshtain.^[1] The second group, known as the Podollian group, consisted of 400 men. It was commanded by Lt Col M. Palii and, later, Col S. Chorny. The third group, the Bessarabian group, under the command of general Andrii Huly-Hulenko, was based in Romania.

The campaign

The biggest challenge that the campaign faced was lack of coordination of participating units. The plan itself was very bold: to move from bases in Western Ukraine into bolshevik-held central Ukraine and unify many of the partisan units. At the time, Bolshevik units were themselves poorly coordinated. Also, many partisan bands were working throughout Ukraine independently against Bolsheviks. This was especially common in the Zaporozhia region.

All three groups crossed the Soviet border in different places. The first information about the crossing of the border by Ukrainian troops was received by the command of the right-bank group of the Red Army from Kyiv at noon on October 28. At the same time, rumors spread among the population about the large number of Ukrainian forces and the beginning of a mass anti-Bolshevik uprising. Partisan detachments of atamans Khmara, Lytvynchuk, Sviatenko and Orlyk joined the Second Winter Campaign. Simultaneously with the raid groups, the insurgents of the Zabolotny atamans conducted auxiliary actions – in the area of Balta – Olgopil, Shepel - between Bratslav and Vinnytsia, Lykha - near Lipivtsi, Brovy - in the area of Kremenchuk.^[2]

Bessarabia group

Commander - Guliy-Gulenko. Of the three groups, it was the smallest and weakest. The Bessarabia group was active in Ukraine for only a few days, and then returned to Romania.

Bessarabia group was the first to make her way to the Right Bank of Ukraine. The main task of the group is to demonstrate the "main offensive" in the south of Ukraine, to divert the attention of the bolsheviks. The task of the Bessarabian group was to capture the city of Tiraspol and move to Odessa to gain access to the sea, goal was not achieved.

Podillia group

The Podillia group began the campaign on October 25, 1921, and met with early success. It first engaged and destroyed a soviet cavalry regiment, and used the captured equipment to transform itself into a cavalry unit. It continued on to the village of Vakhnivka, 60 km north of Kyiv, before being forced back by soviet forces. It was forced to retreat west, and crossed the Polish border on November 29.

Volynhia group

The Volynhia group began operations on November 4, 1921, and it also met with early successes. It won the city of Korosten, but was unable to defend it. When news of the retreat of the Podillia group became known, the Volynhia group was also forced to retreat west. However, it was encircled by Hryhorii Kotovsky's cavalry regiment near the village of Bazar.^[3] After a brief battle, most of the regiment was captured.

On November 22, 1921, 359 members of the regiment were executed by firing squad. The remaining prisoners were handed over to soviet authorities. Only 120 soldiers and officers escaped.

Outcome

The Second Winter Campaign was the final battle by the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic against Bolshevik forces in Ukraine. The Second Winter Campaign of the UPR Army was the last attempt by the Ukrainian national-state forces to maintain Ukraine's independence by open military means during the national liberation struggles of 1917 to 1921.

Related Research Articles

Kuban Cossacks, or Kubanians, are Cossacks who live in the Kuban region of Russia. Most of the Kuban Cossacks are descendants of different major groups of Cossacks who were re-settled to the western Northern Caucasus in the late 18th century. The western part of the region was settled by the Black Sea Cossack Host who were originally the Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine, from 1792. The eastern and southeastern part of the host was previously administered by the Khopyour and Kuban regiments of the Caucasus Line Cossack Host and Don Cossacks, who were re-settled from the Don from 1777.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Nikiforova</span> Ukrainian anarchist (1885–1919)

Maria Hryhorivna Nikiforova was a Ukrainian anarchist partisan leader that led the Black Guards during the Ukrainian War of Independence, becoming widely renowned as an atamansha. A self-described terrorist from the age of 16, she was imprisoned for her activities in Russia before managing to escape to western Europe. With the outbreak of World War I, she took up the defencist line and joined the French Foreign Legion on the Macedonian front before returning to Ukraine with the outbreak of the 1917 Revolution.

The Khotyn Uprising was a Ukrainian-led insurrection in the far-northern tip of Bessarabia region, nestled between Bukovina and Podolia. It occurred on January 7–February 1, 1919, less than a year after Bessarabia's annexation by the Romanian Kingdom. The city it was centered on is now known as Khotyn (Хотин), and is located in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine; in 1919, it was the capital of Hotin County, on the unofficial border between Romania and the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). The revolt was carried out by armed locals, mainly Ukrainian peasants, assisted by Cossack deserters from the Ukrainian People's Army and groups of Moldovans, with some support from local Bolsheviks and White Russians. It forms part of the Ukrainian War of Independence, though whether or not the UNR covertly supported it, beyond formally reneging it, is a matter of dispute. The role of Bolsheviks, which has been traditionally highlighted in Romanian and Soviet historiography alike, is similarly debated. The Khotyn Uprising is therefore ambiguously linked to the Russian Civil War and the Ukrainian–Soviet War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nykyfor Hryhoriv</span> Ukrainian military leader (1884–1919)

Nykyfor Oleksandrovych Hryhoriv was a Ukrainian military leader noted for repeatedly switching sides during the Ukrainian War of Independence and Soviet-Ukrainian war. He is today considered one of the most influential rebel leaders of the Otamanshchyna phenomenon.

The Southern Front was a military theatre of the Russian Civil War.

Operation Mińsk was a military offensive of the Polish Army during the Polish–Soviet War. It resulted in the capture of Minsk from the Red Army around 8 August 1919. The victory allowed the Polish troops to advance further into Russian-controlled Lithuania and Belarus and thus to present the Bolsheviks with a military fait accompli. The main Polish attack was toward Maladzyechna, Minsk, and Polotsk along the railroad lines. On 6 August, the Polish Army took over Slutsk and Minsk was taken two days later. The Polish units fought under command of General Stanisław Szeptycki. Polish control over the railway lines prevented the Russians from bringing in reinforcements. By the end of August, the Polish forces had taken Barysaw and Babruysk.

Sfatul Țării was a council of political, public, cultural, and professional organizations in the Governorate of Bessarabia in Tsarist Russia. This became a legislative body established the Moldavian Democratic Republic as part of the Russian Federative Republic in December 1917. and then union with Romania in April [O.S. March] 1918.

The Ukrainian People's Army, also known as the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) or by the derogatory term Petliurivtsi, was the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (1917–1921). They were often quickly reorganized units of the former Imperial Russian Army or newly formed volunteer detachments that later joined the national armed forces. The army lacked a certain degree of uniformity, adequate leadership to keep discipline and morale. Unlike the Ukrainian Galician Army, the Ukrainian People's Army did not manage to evolve a solid organizational structure, and consisted mostly of volunteer units, not regulars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuriy Tyutyunnyk</span> Ukrainian general

Yuriy (Yurko) Yosypovych Tyutyunnyk was a general of the Ukrainian People's Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) during the Ukrainian–Soviet War.

The Red Cossacks was a military formation of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government of Ukraine. Red Cossacks was a collective name for one of the biggest cavalry formations of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) and was part of the Ukrainian, Southern, and Southwestern fronts during the Russian Civil War and later was stationed in the Ukrainian SSR.

The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, also known as Makhnovtsi, named after their leader Nestor Makhno, was an anarchist army formed largely of Ukrainian peasants and workers during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. They protected the operation of "free soviets" and libertarian communes by the Makhnovshchina, an attempt to form a stateless anarcho-communist society from 1918 to 1921 during the Ukrainian War of Independence.

The Ukrainian–Soviet War is the term commonly used in post-Soviet Ukraine for the events taking place between 1917 and 1921, nowadays regarded essentially as a war between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Bolsheviks. The war ensued soon after the October Revolution when Lenin dispatched Antonov's expeditionary group to Ukraine and Southern Russia.

The First Krechowce Uhlan Regiment was a mounted unit of the Polish Army, active in the Second Polish Republic. Its traditions were continued during World War II, by a regiment of the same name, which was part of Polish Armed Forces in the West. 1st Krechowce Uhlan Regiment was formed in 1915, as a unit of the Imperial Russian Army. It fought in World War I, Polish–Soviet War and the Invasion of Poland, as part of Suwalska Cavalry Brigade. Until 1939, the regiment was stationed in Augustów. It ceased to exist in 1947. First commandant of the regiment was a Tsarist officer of Polish ethnicity, Colonel Bolesław Mościcki, who was killed in 1918 near Luninets. Last commandant was Colonel Leon Strzelecki.

Anatolie Popa was a Bessarabian-born military commander active during World War I and the Russian Revolution and Civil War, one of the organisers of the Moldavian armed resistance against the advancing Romanian troops in January 1918.

Kholodny Yar Republic was a self-proclaimed state formation, partisan movement, which ran on part of the lands of the former Ukrainian People's Republic, in the Chyhyryn district of the Kyiv province, in the area of the Kholodny Yar forest tract. The village of Melnyky was its capital. It had a 15,000-strong army composed of peasants and soldiers from the UNR army, which was defeated by the White Army in Podolia earlier.

The Romanian military intervention in Bessarabia took place between 19 January and 8 March 1918, as part of the broader Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. It pitted the Kingdom of Romania, Russian Republic, Ukrainian People's Republic and anti-Bolshevik factions of the Moldavian Democratic Republic on one side, against the Bolshevik controlled Rumcherod and Odesa Soviet Republic, as well as pro-Bolshevik factions within the Moldavian DR. The intervention began when the Romanian army and its allies crossed into Bessarabia and launched an attack on Chișinău and Ungheni, capturing the latter.

Kostiantyn Yuriyovych Pestushko was a Ukrainian military leader, commander of the rebel Steppe Division, Otaman of the Kholodny Yar Republic.

The 3rd Cavalry Division was a military unit in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of the Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Ukrainian Death Triangle refers to a historical situation of Ukrainian national forces in 1919, when the Ukrainian People's Army, or UPA, found itself in the general area south of Kyiv surrounded by Bolshevik, White Guard and Polish troops. In Ukrainian, this is also sometimes called the Quadrangle of Death or Rectangle of Death, in connection with the also hostile Kingdom of Romania.

References

↑ [ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 "The Ukrainian Navy and the Crimean Issue in 1917-18"].{{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)^{[ dead link ]}
↑ Василенко В. (2008). "З історії спецслужб. — «З архівів ВУЧК–ГПУ–НКВД–КГБ» № 1/2 (30/31)" [From the history of special services. - "From the archives of VUCHK-GPU-NKVD-KGB" No. 1/2 (30/31)](PDF). p. 152.
↑ "Bloody Massacre in Bazar". ukrainianweek.com.

Encyclopedia of Ukraine

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] [ukrainianweek.com/History/105648 "The Ukrainian Navy and the Crimean Issue in 1917-18"].{{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)^{[ dead link ]}

[2] Василенко В. (2008). "З історії спецслужб. — «З архівів ВУЧК–ГПУ–НКВД–КГБ» № 1/2 (30/31)" [From the history of special services. - "From the archives of VUCHK-GPU-NKVD-KGB" No. 1/2 (30/31)](PDF). p. 152.

[3] "Bloody Massacre in Bazar". ukrainianweek.com.

[1]

[2]

[3]