Immediately following the war and the defeat of the Central Powers, Russia annuls the treaty and restarts the invasion of Ukraine, because fucking Russia, as Ukrainians declare independence as the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Meanwhile, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary leaves Poland independent for the first time since the late 18th century, and they want the rest of what they think they’re owed. On the same day in November, 1918, Poland stakes its claim on Eastern Galicia–A region carved out by the Austrian Empire that was ethnically predominantly Ukrainian, with a strong Pole minority–Ukrainians in the region declare independence as the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, and the Polish-Ukrainian War begins. After 8 months of back and forth momentum swings, Poland’s mechanized and armor divisions ultimately overpower the WURP, and Eastern Galicia is annexed.

MEANWHILE, France jumps in the game for no apparent reason with an anti-communist coalition combined with the White Russians, landing in Odessa and Sevastopol. They’re degraded by the White Russians and hated by the Ukrainians. They get their asses whooped by the Bolsheviks, and France fails to supply enough supplies or manpower to further sustain military conflict. So, they run away. France, ladies and gentlemen. The Soviets are pissed and redouble their efforts to take Ukraine until the White Russians could recover and start launching attacks elsewhere. EVEN MORE MEANWHILE, Russia decides you can never have quite enough concurrent wars, and begins the Polish-Soviet War in response to the actions taken in Eastern Galicia.

Similar to the deal with the Central Powers, the URP is on the brink again, and sign the Treaty of Warsaw with Poland, creating a united front against the Soviets at the cost of most of Ukraine’s sovereignty. After defeating the Soviets in the Battle of Warsaw in October of 1921, Poland unilaterally signs the Peace of Riga, winning the entirety of Eastern Galicia with its millions of Ukrainians and its relatively tiny Polish population. With Poland out of the picture, the Soviets easily rout the remaining URP forces, solidifying the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. By the end of 1922, the civil war between the Bolsheviks and the White Russians would end, and the Soviets would have a stranglehold on everything east of Poland.

Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia felt rightfully betrayed following the Peace of Riga as the Treaty of Warsaw prohibited unilateral peace agreements. It goes about as well as you’d expect. Poland enforced assimilation and repression to deal with the massive Ukrainian population, eventually outlawing their language. When the Great Depression reached Europe, resources going to the Ukrainian parts of the country dried up. As anti-Polish sentiment grew in the predominantly Ukrainian areas, ethnic hatred and violence against Poles in the region flared up, and the Ukrainians would begin re-establishing ties with Weimar Republic (Pre-Nazi Germany) and the Soviets. By 1930, separatist groups were growing in size and started using typical terrorist tactics against Poles and the Ukrainians that were willing to live peacefully alongside them. Poland’s response was the Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia. This is your typical cultural suppression movement. Homes and property searched and destroyed, schools closed, residents beaten and arrested on false charges, witch hunts, etc. The police would start by surrounding a Ukrainian village and call out the elder, ordering him to have his people remain in their homes during the inspection. They would then begin the systematic shakedowns. People who resisted were publicly flogged. If the village resisted, they would be faced with heavier taxation and forced soldier quartering.

So, what was happening in the Ukraine SSR? Well, if you’ve ever argued with a pepe on Twitter you’ve probably heard a reference to this one. From 1932 to 1933, Soviet Ukraine was devastated by Holodomor (death by hunger). The man-made Ukraine Famine inflicted upon the Ukrainians by the Soviets would claim the lives of some 3,000,000+ residents. Some estimates of casualties that include the long-term effects of starvation on a country have the estimates at nearly 10,000,000, putting it on par with the actual fucking Holocaust. All farms in the Ukraine SSR were considered collectivist farms, which was enforced by armed Soviet military stationed near each farming community. Fences and barbed wire and armed guards protected the fields. Struggling to feed Russians, Soviets confiscated ~12 million tons of crops from Ukrainian farms, while slowly cutting rations for the Ukrainians themselves down to nothing, starting in the rural areas, and finally in the population centers. Perhaps even more horrifically, the Soviet system for transporting goods was horribly ineffective, meaning tons of food rotted during transport, and more still rotted in the fields while starving women and children looked on in despair. Any attempt to procure the food for yourself was guaranteed execution.

Cannibalism was widespread during this time, as thousands were convicted of the act. Black markets selling human body parts sprung up across the country. Soviet flyers were distributed throughout the country pleading with parents to not eat their dead children. Possessing seeds was punishable by death. Soviet guards feeding Ukrainians or showing any discontent with the genocide were executed. So why were Soviet citizens and guards so willing to let this continue? Agitprop. Lots and lots of agitprop. As previously mentioned, the Soviets were terrible at this. Their people were underfed, and people in other Soviet territories were also starving. The response–seemingly the only response Soviets were capable of–was to canvas the USSR with propaganda claiming the Ukrainian farmers were stealing and hoarding the crops, calling the theft the real cannibalism taking place in Soviet Union. In the United States and eastern Europe, pro-Communist groups denied it was taking place. Attempts to bring attention to it by Ukrainian expats and sympathizers were met with violent counter-protests. To this day, the United States does not recognize it as an act of genocide. (See: Armenian Genocide, Rape of Nanking, Native American Genocide)

. . .

World War II starts on September 1, 1939, as the Nazis begin the blitzkrieg against Poland. The Wehrmacht spends the next month pounding the Polish into submission. The Soviets join the fray on September 17, the day after signing a treaty ending the Japanese Border War. Poland is fucked, caught between two massive enemies, neither of which they could defeat separately, let alone on two fronts. On October 6, the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty is signed, dividing Poland between the two, and returning Eastern Galicia to soviet rule. During this time, Ternopil Oblast (mentioned way the fuck back in the second paragraph) is established. Ukrainians in the area, having gone through the Ukrainian Pacification, welcome the Soviets as liberators. This fantasy dissolves almost immediately as the Soviets begin a witch hunt for traitors as revenge against Ukrainians who fought with Poland and defected after the Peace of Riga. Anyone they decide is a traitor gets the fun-filled and short-lived experience of being exiled to Siberia, regardless of whether they’re Ukrainian or Polish.

Fast-forward two years (Look at all these fucking words. Fucking right we’re jumping ahead.) and Germany is ready to unleash hell on the Soviet Union. They launch Operation Barbarossa, the largest military operation in human history at 3:15 am on June 22, 1941. The attack begins by launching air raids against cities in Soviet-controlled Poland as roughly three million German soldiers attack the border, with fifth columnists from Lithuania and Ukraine joining their ranks. Eight days later, the Nazi army has pushed the Soviets all the way back into Kiev. Within two months, Kiev falls and the Soviets retreat back to Russia, and Reichskommissariat Ukraine begins in earnest.

The history of Ukraine during the holocaust is horrific for a number of reasons. Firstly, holocaust, obviously. Three million residents were murdered in Reichskommissariat Ukraine, of which about 950,000 were Jewish, with another 500-700k Jews brought in from other areas. Secondly, decades of endless war and atrocity and hatred created an insane amount of division even among ethnic Ukrainians. Loyalties and agendas were radically different. Many Ukrainians voluntarily joined the Nazi forces. Roughly 100,000 Ukrainians volunteered to be police under the komissariat. Many would serve as members of Jewish death squads, presumably not knowing that Hitler’s blueprint for Ukraine involved the extermination of 65% of ethnic Ukrainians as part of his Lebensraum vision. These groups would be used in some of the most horrific atrocities of the war. They were actively involved in the Babi Yar ravine massacre in September 1941, where almost 34,000 Jews were systematically executed over the course of 2 days. It’s hard to know exactly how many were truly willing. No shortage of people joined at gunpoint or under threat of going to the camps themselves. Also likely is that many joined as an attempt to protect their families.

Back in Ternopil Oblast, the Nazis established the Tarnopol Ghetto, which was a fucking horror show. There they would house and handle the nearly 20k Jews that lived in Ternopil Oblast at the start of Operation Barbarossa. Within the first week, 2,000 of them were dead. In August 1942, they initiated the ghetto liquidation procedures in coordination with the Belzec extermination camp to the northwest. The first liquidation occurred when 3k-4k Jews were loaded into cattle cars on a train bound for Belzec. The train never left the station. With no food or water, the doors to the cattle cars were locked, and the train remained stationary. For two days, men, women, and children died a slow, agonizing death, screaming for release or mercy. They received neither. Eventually, a second train arrived with prisoners from other regions nearby. They were connected, and transported to Belzec. Nearly 7,000 died before ever seeing the camp. A second holocaust train arrived in November, taking 2,500 Jews to Belzec to be murdered. Multiple other extermination events took place until the ghetto had been completely liquidated by June 1943, including a shooting massacre in Petrykowo, where roughly 2,500 Jews were gunned down by German and Ukrainian police. As if these atrocities weren’t horrific enough, independent Ukrainian death squads organized by nationalists would murder 1,600 Polish Christians in 1944 before the Soviets had a chance to retake the region.