Soviet Red Army Liberation of Eastern Ukrainian Donbás Region

Ukrainian farmers meet the new masters of Eastern Ukraine

Soviet-backed communist partisans with a German POW

Kramatorsk in Ukrainian Donetsk Oblast liberated by the Soviets

The Nazi occupation instilled terror and hatred in nearly all strata of the Ukrainian population. Still, the return of the Soviet Red Army was perceived quite ambiguously in Ukraine. The return was accompanied by purges of collaborationists. The residents of the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region were the first to experience the fury and hatred of the “liberators” towards those “who had served the Germans”. The NKVD and the Soviet-backed communist partisans carried out mass arrests the day after the Red Army entered the area in spring 1943. The repressive blow targeted those who had served in the police, worked in German administration or economic services, as well as girls who had been translators or had some other contacts with German soldiers. Women who were pregnant or had children with Germans were immediately killed together with their children. All forms of assistance to the enemy were treated as “treason to the Motherland” without further legal devising. Special boxes were hung on walls in which citizens were supposed to deposit their denunciations of those who had "served the Germans". In fact, everyone who had not actively fought against the Germans could be viewed as “guilty” by Joseph Stalin's regime. Later on, everyone who had remained in the occupied territory was declared suspicious. Another important factor that made the Ukrainian population pessimistic about being liberated from the German occupation was the Soviet military mobilization. Following the Red Army's return to Ukraine, it became more a rule than an exception to send poorly armed soldiers with little or no military training into battle. Ukrainian émigré writer Mykhailo Doroshenko described in his memoirs how the Red Army had driven people without weapons into action. They were ordered to obtain weapons for themselves as they engaged in battle with the enemy. In fact, reports show that even the Germans could not understand why the Ukrainian population was treated this way. Credit: the author Vladyslav Hrynevych. Top image: Soviet-backed partisans and residents of a liberated village in Ukraine. The Kolkhoz members were hard pressed to rebuild their work force by the forced collectivization. Credit: Konstantin Fiev. Middle image: according to the caption, an interrogation of a German POW by Red partisans. In addition to fighting the Axis, Red partisans fought against organizations which sought to establish independent non-communist states in Eastern Europe. Both top photos were taken in February 1943 for the Pravda by the propaganda photojournalist Yakov Ryumkin. Credit: Georgiy Stanislavskiy. Fair use. Bottom image: workers of the Kramatorsk Machine-Building Factory wrench the signboard of the German Friedrich Krupp A.G. steel company as the region has been recaptured a second time by the Red Army in 1943. Credit: Olga Shirnina. USSR propaganda photo by I. Yushko. Fair use.