A traveling photo-documentary exhibition prepared by the Lviv History Museum in 2022 presents the history of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was a paramilitary and political formation of the Ukrainian Freedom Struggle Movement, having as its strategic goal the restoration of the state of Ukraine.

The first UPA units began to form in late 1942 in Volhynia and Polesia as resistance to the brutal German occupation policy. In the spring and summer of 1943, a unified military and political leadership of the resistance movement and the functional structure of the army were established. By the end of 1944 the territorial structure of the UPA was completed. The army was active in three ‘regions’, also known as General Military Districts (GMA): the UPA North, the UPA West, the UPA South; the fourth ‘region’, the UPA East, was not eventually formed.

Compared to other underground movements in Nazi-occupied Europe, the UPA was unique in that it had no foreign aid and relied solely on the active support of civilians. In pursuit of the idea of fighting for a free sovereign state, the UPA had to fight on two fronts – against the regimes of Hitler and Stalin.

The total area covered by the insurgents’ movement in 1944 was 150,000 square kilometres, with a population of around 15 million people.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army was active until mid-1950’s. More than 250,000 people fought in the ranks of the UPA. More than half a million people suffered repressions from the criminal authorities of the USSR for participating in or supporting the rebel movement.