They marched with flags, torches, and flares, filling the sky with smoke and flames at dusk on Oct. 14.
Ukrainian nationalists and their supporters held a march through central Kyiv to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA.
Founded in 1942, this Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary waged guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Red Army and, at times, Nazi Germany during the Second World War, in a struggle for Ukrainian independence.
At its peak, the paramilitary organization had more than 40,000 fighters. It even carried on its guerilla campaign after the war’s end, until the early 1950s.
UPA remains popular today, particularly among nationalist and far-right organizations like National Corpus and C14, which both took part in the Oct. 14 march. However, its glorification has also faced criticism due to role that historians say the paramilitary played in violence against Jews and Poles.
