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Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainian Ukrainska Povstanska Armiya, UPA) was a guerilla army formed on October 14, 1942, in Volhynia. The UPA was the military branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. The main goal of the UPA was an independent Ukraine. Its leader was Roman Shukhevych.
The UPA strove to remove Poles from the areas it regarded as indigenously Ukrainian. In the opinion of some historians, the goal pursued by the Ukrainian guerrillas was to destroy the Polish ethnic group in these areas. Some estimates of the death toll have been as high as 100,000 (see Massacre of Poles in Volhynia for more details).
On the other hand, it is seen as a response to the actions of the inter-war Polish government, which tried to limit the number of Ukrainian institutions in the same areas, often regarded as indigenously Polish. The actions of extremist wings of both parties could be categorized legally as genocide.
The UPA fought against the following military forces present in the area: Polish Armia Krajowa, Soviet Red Army and German Wehrmacht alike, although OUN was allied with Germans until Jun 30, 1941. After the World War II ended, the partisan units of UPA continued the fight against the Soviet Union and communist Poland until early 1950's, especially in the mountainous regions of the Carpathians.
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