An Ethnic Russian UPA Vet Tells His Story

In this Channel 1+1 report, Volodymyr Chermoshentsev, an ethnic Russian, recalls his past: He fought in the UPA.



After the Bolsheviks killed his father, amid the man-made famine in his native Povolzhye village in 1933, he and his mother and aunt found the situation even worse in Ukraine, settling in Crimea.

Captured by the Germans in 1942, he escaped captivity only to be captured again and then freed by the UPA, which he joined.

Because, naturally, he spoke Russian, the UPA initially treated him with suspicion but finally appointed him an aide to a UPA commanding officer.

The UPA mainly fought the NKVD, not the Red Army, Chermoshentsev says.
Captured and tortured by the NKVD, he managed to escape to the Crimea, to his mother, and later got 10 years for stealing grapes and dodging the draft. Had the Soviet authorities learned about his UPA involvement, they would have probably executed him.

After Ukraine became independent, Chermoshentsev’s story became the plot of a UPA book of memoirs.

Volodymyr Chermoshentsev: I took an oath to love Ukraine, the Ukrainian people. I’m even proud of being called a Banderite — yes I am — a Banderite, not a nobody, not a somebody-for-somebody, but for Ukraine.

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Original source: http://tsn.ua