Commissar of Security Affairs of the USSR Sergei Savchenko. In October 1944, the Soviets managed to reconstruct the network of Soviet security bodies, i.e., the NKVD/NKGB, to which the NKVD Internal Troops were operationally subordinate.
It was to some degree natural for the NKVD Internal Troops to bear the main responsibility for carrying out operations targeting guerrilla fighters. By 25 March 1944, the 9th Ordzhonikidze Division and the 10th Sukhumi Division of the NKVD Internal Troops arrived in Volhynia and Podolia. They had just finished the deportations of the Chechen and the Kalmyk populations. Apart from that, eight Motor Rifle Brigades of the NKVD Internal Troops7 were ordered to go to Volhynia, alongside the 18th cavalry regiment and a special armored battalion from the 1st Feliks Dzerzhinskii Division. According to official statistics, each brigade was supposed to be composed of five battalions with a total of 4,050 soldiers,8 however, in fact the NKVD units were numerically smaller than this. According to Anatoliy Kentiy, Ukrainian historian and expert on the history of the UPA, as at 9 October 1944, 26,304 soldiers of the NKVD Internal Troops were involved in the fight against the underground movement in Western Ukraine.9 In October 1945, the NKVD Internal Troops were reorganized to form the 62nd, 65th, 81st, and 82nd divisions of the NKVD Internal Troops. According to official plans, each division was to be composed of four regiments, each comprising 1,450 soldiers; however, in fact hardly any of these units had as many soldiers. As at 1 February 1946, 22,907 soldiers of the NKVD Internal Troops were involved in the fight against the underground movement in Western Ukraine.10
Immediately after the front had moved through this area, the NKVD troops launched “chekist-military” operations which guerrilla fighters referred to as the “red broom.” Major forces encircled big wooded areas alongside the villages situated there, and combed them one by one. During these operations all armed guerrilla fighter groups were destroyed and all men aged sixteen to sixty were detained and checked. Operations of this type brought considerable results, especially in the initial period.
The Soviets decided to carry out one of the first such operations following the ambush in the Kremenets Forest in which General Vatutin was fatally wounded. The action carried out on 21–27 April involved four brigades of NKVD troops, a cavalry regiment, an armored sub-unit (15 tanks) and light air force. The Soviet forces were composed of a total of more than fifteen thousand individuals.11 More than four thousand guerrilla fighters from the UPA-North and UPA-South command groups were encircled, however, only between two and a half thousand and three thousand of them carried any weapon; the remainder were fighters who had recently been forcibly recruited. Alongside these fighters, at least around a thousand civilians were encircled. The heaviest fighting happened on 23 and 24 April when the Soviets started to comb the forests simultaneously from all sides. On 24 April, near Hurby (now a small village in Rivne oblast’), guerrilla fighters managed to repulse three consecutive attacks by the NKVD. However, due to the fact that the situation was difficult, the UPA decided to break out of the encirclement at night, leaving the entire heavy equipment, the wounded fighters, and the civilians behind. On the morning of 25 April, following a brief clash, UPA units, split into three groups, broke out of the encirclement and separated themselves from the enemy. Despite this, on 25–27 April the Soviets continued to comb the forests near Kremenets (Ternopil’ oblast’) and to spot small groups of remaining fighters hiding in the forest. If we were to believe Soviet reports, as a result of this operation 2,018 individuals were killed and another 1,570 arrested. The following pieces of equipment were seized, among other things: a U-2 plane, seven guns (mainly 45 mm guns), fifteen mortars (2–120 mm), forty-two light machine guns, thirty-one sub-machine guns, and 298 rifles. In their clashes with the guerrilla fighters, the NKVD Internal Troops lost eleven soldiers who were killed and another forty-six who were wounded. A different account of the events can be deduced from figures provided by the guerrilla fighters. They reported 136 fighters killed and another seventy-five wounded; apart from that the NKVD reportedly murdered around a hundred civilians.12 The figures provided by the NKVD regarding the losses suffered by the enemy should be contrasted with the number of items of weaponry seized: it is worth noting that these would not be sufficient to arm the individuals killed, not to mention the prisoners of war.
By August 1944, the dragnet operations covered the entire Volhynia, and subsequently, as the Red Army moved on, they covered consecutive regions of Eastern Galicia. On 7 August 1944, having received intelligence information from “active participants in the UPA,” the Soviets found out that a major UPA group was operating in the Kariv Forest and in Piddubtsi (now in Volyns’ka oblast’)—it was composed of up to 1,400 individuals including around four hundred who were well-armed and dressed in German uniforms. At dawn on 29 August, a specially formed operational group of at least seven hundred NKVD soldiers (from the Internal Troops and the Border Troops), additionally backed by Red Army units, encircled the Kariv Forest.13 Heavy fighting lasted all day. When fighting was discontinued overnight, the guerrilla fighters used the opportunity, splitting into small groups and “permeating” through the Soviet lines. In the morning, the dragnet operation was resumed, but only very small groups of guerrilla fighters remained in the encircled area; these were eliminated one by one. The Soviets estimated the Ukrainian losses at 625 individuals killed. They themselves admitted to having lost as many as thirty-two soldiers killed and another forty-eight wounded, with one soldier missing.14 The estimates provided by the guerrilla fighters were totally different. According to figures provided by the UPA, a mere ten guerrilla fighters were killed and around twenty wounded. Two UPA fighters were taken prisoner.15
In November 1944, the Soviets decided to modify the principles of their anti-guerrilla operations and to adopt a new method, the so-called “blocking” method (blokada), against the guerrillas. From then on, the entire area covered by a dragnet operation was to be divided into ten to fifteen sections, each containing two to three villages. Each of these sections was to be “taken care of” by a company of NKVD troops responsible for fighting the underground (comprising 80–120 men). The operation was to be launched in all locations simultaneously. First, all residents were to be gathered in one place and anyone who might have “wronged the Soviet authorities” was categorically requested to identify themselves. Next, the NKVD soldiers were to thoroughly search all houses and outbuildings one by one. They were instructed to look for any potential entries to shelters and hide-outs. A single farmyard could even be searched several times. The soldiers were accompanied by party activists, who organized propaganda meetings and collected outstanding in-kind contributions. Show trials and executions carried out on the spot were to boost the propaganda message. A dragnet operation of this type was to last uninterruptedly for five to seven days.16
Between 29 December 1944 and 4 January 1945, most likely the first such operation according to the new scheme was carried out by the 19th Brigade of the NKVD Internal Troops, which “cleansed” the Rohatyn area in Stanislav oblast’. The success of the experimental use of the blocking method in Ukraine encouraged the Soviets to use it in other republics of the USSR as well, including the Baltic states. Official recommendations regarding the use of this method came from Lieutenant General Moisei Sladkevich, deputy commander of the NKVD Internal Troops. His order no. 19/10-00114 issued on 17 February 1945 contained detailed instructions as to how such operations should proceed.17
At the beginning of 1945, Soviet dragnet operations reached the Carpathian Mountains. Between 18 January 1945 and 10 February 1945, in Stanislav oblast’ 1,678 “criminals” were killed and 1,716 were captured, 4,820 emerged from the underground, having
