Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

Following the overthrow of the Ukrainian State of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii and the reestablishment of the UNR in November–December 1918, a new Soviet invasion began, in the name of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of Ukraine (founded on 20 November 1918), and on 16 January 1919, the Ukrainian National Republic Directory declared war on the RSFSR. However, Red Army forces captured Kiev on 4–6 February 1919, forcing the Ukrainian National Republic Directory to flee to Vinnytsia (Vinnitsa). Hostilities continued throughout the following year, as the Ukrainian Army united with the Ukrainian Galician Army of the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic (WUPR), although elements of the latter went over to the Bolsheviks (to form the Red Ukrainian Galician Army). The Ukrainian side was also weakened by attacks in its rear during 1919, from both the White Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) and Poland, by internal turmoil caused by the activities of otomans such as Nykyfor Hryhoriiv and Danylo Zeleny, and by the various campaigns of the Insurrectionary Revolutionary Army of Nestor Makhno. However, in the summer of 1919, the UNR was strengthened by the arrival of Iurii Tiutiunnyk with troops formerly commanded by the now dead (executed by Makhno) Hryhoriiv, who had pushed his way through the Reds’ southern flank. The Ukrainian Army then launched an offensive that pushed the Soviet forces back to the Horodok–Iarmolyntsi–Sharhorod–Dunaivtsi–Nova Ushytsia–Vapniarka line, before being joined by the Ukrainian Galician Army, which in retreat from the Poles in its own Ukrainian–Polish War, had crossed the Zbruch River on 16–17 July 1919. Their arrival brought the number of Ukrainian troops in the field to nearly 85,000 regulars and 15,000 partisans.

The subsequent Ukrainian campaign to retake Kiev proceeded with victories in Vinnitsa (12 August 1919); Khmilnik, Ianiv, Kalynivka, and Starokostiantinov (all 14 August 1919); Berdychev (19 August 1919); and Zhitomir (21 August). On 31 August 1919, Ukrainian troops triumphantly entered Kiev, only to discover that White forces of the AFSR had arrived at the same time. Hostilities between the two forces were narrowly averted when the combined Ukrainian army withdrew from the city. The Red command then took advantage of the Ukrainians’ embroilment with the Whites to move forces from the Ekaterinoslav region to Zhitomir. The leadership of the UNR and the WUPR split over how to deal with the Whites, and their army suffered a typhus epidemic. The Ukrainian Galician Army (led by General Myron Tarnavsky) finally made a separate peace with the Whites on 6 November 1919, leaving the UNR isolated. Meanwhile, the military situation had worsened, as Red forces made substantial gains in areas of right-bank Ukraine (as the Whites were driven out), while the Poles moved into the western reaches of Ukraine. By the end of November 1919, the government and army of the UNR found themselves hemmed in by Soviet, Polish, and White troops. Consequently, at a conference on 4 December 1919, the command of the Ukrainian Army decided to suspend regular military operations and go over to partisan warfare. This took the form of the first of the UNR’s heroic but debilitating Winter Campaigns, waged by forces under the command of Mykhailo Omel′ianovych-Pavlenko in the Elizavetgrad (now Kirovohrad) region, against the 14th Red Army from 6 December 1919 to 6 May 1920.

Ukrainian fortunes rose again, however, following the signing of the Treaty of Warsaw (20–24 April 1920) and the beginning of the Soviet–Polish War, which allied the UNR with Poland (albeit at the cost of abandoning the WUPR). A Ukrainian division under General M. D. Bezruchko was therefore among the forces that drove the Red Army from Kiev on 6–8 May 1920, but it had to retreat from the city on 10–12 June 1920, in the face of a counteroffensive by S. M. Budennyi’s 1st Cavalry Army that drove Ukrainian forces westward to L′viv. When Poland came to terms with Soviet Russia—in an armistice on 18 October 1920 that would eventually lead to the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921), under which Warsaw recognized the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic—what was left of the Ukrainian Army kept fighting. Hopelessly outnumbered, however, on 21 November 1920, Petliura’s 23,000 men were forced to retreat across the Zbruch River into Poland, where they were promptly disarmed and interned.