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A combat unit of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Galicia, organized in October 1943 near Dolyna in the Carpathian Mountains, in the 4th UPA Military District (MD – Stanyslaviv region) of UPA-West. It was initially commanded by Lt. Dmytro Karpenko "Yastrub" (former Red Army Leutenant). In November 1943, the Greywolves was assigned to the 3rd MD (Ternopil region) and sent northwest to the 2nd MD (Lviv region) to fight against the Polish Home Army in the Rava-Ruska area. The Greywolves operated in that area from April through August 1944, and then returned to the 3rd MD. On 30 September 1944, the Greywolves played a key role in a battle with a motorized NKVD battalion near Univ, Peremyshliany county. For the remainder of 1944, the company participated in almost continuous armed combat, culminating on 17 December 1944 in a successful attack on Novi Strilyshcha. Lt. Kosach committed suicide in March 1946 when his bunker was discovered by Soviet security forces, and the last skirmish attributed to the Greywolves occurred on 15 July 1946. During the summer of 1947, the company was officially demobilized. It was one of the few UPA units that integrated soldiers from various parts of Ukraine. Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1989). University of Toronto Press (1984-93)
In 1947 many of the members of the Greywolves company participated in the Great Raid of the UPA to the West. Led by Mykhailo Duda “Hromenko”, Volodymyr Shchyhelsky “Burlaka”, and Roman Hrobelsky “Brodych”, UPA companies marched through the Zakerzonnia region (eastern sections of the Western Ukrainian ethnographic lands, “beyond the Curzon Line”, that were annexed by Poland pursuant to the Soviet-Polish border agreements of 1944–45) and Czechoslovakia in order to reach Bavaria in Western Germany. Hromenko’s company reached its destination without dispersing, while the other companies advanced by splitting into small groups. Covering a distance of more than 1,500 km, the freedom fighters made their way from behind the Iron Curtain to the West, bringing the truth about the Ukrainians’ liberation struggle to light in the West. Their arrival prompted an international sensation, and Western European and American newspapers began writing about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. The UPA’s last successful raid into a neighbouring country was an insurgent action in Romania. During a two-week period, an insurgent group succeeded in carrying out important propagandistic work among the Romanians by circulating appeals in leaflet form. After completing their assignment, the UPA soldiers managed to return home without any losses by manoeuvring around the specially deployed Soviet forces. Although the UPA’s raids did not lead to the creation of a coherent anti-Soviet front, to a significant degree they fostered local anti-Communist movements and helped inform the free world about the Ukrainians’ valiant struggle for liberation against Stalinist totalitarianism. Source |
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