Roman Sushko

He was born at Remeniv (now in the Lviv Raion of Ukraine, but then in Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire). He served in the Ukrainian fusilier corps within the Austro-Hungarian Army but was captured by the Russians in 1916. From 1918 onwards he was one of the organisers of Sich Riflemen in the army of the People's Republic of Ukraine, commanding a division.^[2] He took part in the repression of the 1918 Kiev Arsenal January Uprising and helped organise the newly-independent Ukrainian People's Army as part of its staff. Interned by Polish troops in 1919, he returned to his division next year and in 1921 took part in the Second Winter Campaign as a subordinate of Yuriy Tyutyunnyk.^[2]

After the war Sushko became one of the co-founders of the Ukrainian Military Organization, and from 1927 to 1930 served as its regional commander and took part in the establishment of the OUN.^[2] He spent several terms in Polish prisons and in the 1930s emigrated to Vienna. Early in the German and Russian invasions of Poland in 1939 he led the Ukrainian Legion,^[2] created by Stepan Bandera, at Stryi. After the Red Army annexed Galicia the Legion placed itself at the Germans' disposal and took part in no further combat operations.

In late 1939 he moved to Kraków to head the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (OUN) in German-occupied Poland and merge the OUN with the National Ukrainian Committee (UCC). He opposed the split between the Bandera and Melnyk factions of the OUN in 1940. After Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 he stayed in Lviv, where he was murdered in early 1944, possibly by Bandera-led partisans^[3] or the Gestapo.^[1] A street in the Zaliznytsia district of the city is named after him.

Life

Family

References

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