Special Folder
Top Secret
Copy No. 1
5 August 1944
According to the NKVD-NKGB of the Ukrainian SSR, recently, in connection with the advance of the Red Army units to the West and the departure of individual units of the NKVD troops stationed in the areas of the Rivne region, the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) underground and the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) gangs have intensified their activities.
The movement of OUN gangs from Poland and the Lviv region to the regions of Volyn, Tarnopol and Rivne regions has been noted.
Several gangs, numbering up to 1,000 people, crossed the Western Bug River into the Volyn region.
Over the past two weeks, there has been an increase in the number of murders of Soviet and party activists, family members of Red Army soldiers, and former bandits who turned themselves in to the NKVD. There have been cases of OUN gangs violently capturing conscripts at recruiting stations and en route.
From July 28-30, UPA gangs operating in the Volyn region captured and drove into the forest several groups of conscripts, totaling 1,130 people.
Deputy People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Comrade KRUGLOV, was sent to the site to take measures to suppress the actions of the OUN gangs.
NKVD troops units are being deployed to the stricken areas.
In order to prevent the infiltration of OUN gangs from Polish territory into the Lviv, Volyn, and Rivne regions, measures are being taken to establish border detachments along the border line between the USSR and Poland.
Throughout the security and military operations to eliminate OUN gangs (February-July), 17,550 bandits were killed and 17,480 were captured alive.
3,795 people turned themselves in to the NKVD.
4,743 active members of the OUN and UPA were arrested.
Weapons and ammunition were seized: 14 cannons, 85 mortars, 600 heavy, mounted, and light machine guns, 436 revolvers, 6,567 grenades, 600,000 cartridges, 6,060 mines, 6,110 shells, and 20 radio stations were confiscated. 158 food warehouses were seized.
As a result of the work carried out to detain persons evading conscription and mobilization into the Red Army, 270,600 people were sent to regional military commissariats.
During the operations, 700 operational personnel, officers and soldiers of the NKVD and Red Army were killed and 562 were wounded.
People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L. BERIA
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