1. Prehistory

2. See also

3. Notes

The special groups of the NKVD for fighting against nationalists ({{lang-ru|Специальные группы НКВД по борьбе с националистами}})^[1] were units set up by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union to combat national liberation movements, mainly in territories annexed by the USSR before the German-Soviet war due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in particular they fought against the OUN and UPA in Ukraine (mostly Western), the Forest Brothers, in the Baltic states and against the Belarusian Black Cats.^[2] They were also known as the Agent-Combat Groups (ABG), legend groups, false UPA detachments and the NKVD units dressed as UPA fighters.

After the NKVD reorganisation in 1946, the special groups kept on operating under the management of its successors, both the Ministry of Internal Affairs) (MVD) and Ministry of State Security (NKGB) of the Soviet Union.

The special groups of the NKVD were operating in the Ukrainian SSR for ten years, since 1944 up to 1953.^[3] During that time, thousands of people were captured, arrested and killed by them.^[4][5]

Prehistory

Shortly before the Soviet-German war, significant territorial changes occurred on the Western Ukrainian ethnic lands. In March 1939 Carpatho-Ukraine declared its independence from Czechoslovakia but it was almost immediately occupied by the Kingdom of Hungary. East Galicia and Western Volyn were annexed by the USSR from Poland in October 1939, then the Soviet Union annexed Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia from the Kingdom of Romania in July 1940, due to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

In 1944 the Red Army moving to the west reconquered the territory of Western Ukraine that was occupied by Nazi Germany and its allies in 1941. The Soviet authorities faced considerable opposition from the local population during the restoration of the Soviet regime in these territories. At that time, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the conspiratorial network of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) were operating actively in Western Ukraine. In March 1944, in response to the situation, the NKVD Operational Headquarters was set up in Rivne to combat the Ukrainian national liberation movement.^[6]

See also

• Little green men (Ukrainian crisis)

Notes

• Sippar
• Sipper water bottle
• SIPphone
• Sipphone
• Sippie Wallace
• Sipping bird
• Sipple syndrome
• Sipporah
• Sippy bird
• Si prefix
• Si prefixes
• SI Prefixes
• SI prefixes
• SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, Iraq 1973–1990
• SIPRNet
• SIPRNET
• Siproeta stelenes
• Sipsawngpanna
• Sipsey
• Sipsey, AL
• Sipsey, Alabama
• Sipsey fork
• Sipsey Fork
• Sipsey Fork of the Black Warrior River
• Sipsey River