Ukrainian Nationalists Commemorate Controversial Paramilitary

Supporters of Ukrainian nationalist groups marched on October 14 in downtown Kyiv to mark the anniversary of the establishment of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in 1942, officially marked in the country as the Day of Ukraine's Defenders. The UPA was a paramilitary group fighting both against the Soviets and the Germans in World War II. The UPA was founded in western Ukraine during the Nazi occupation of the country in World War II and fought against both the Nazis and the Soviet Red Army. Its fighters carried out vicious acts of ethnic cleansing in which tens of thousands of ethnic Poles in the region were killed.