AN UKRANIAN GENERAL:

Pavlo Shandruk
By Nino Oktorino

Born in Kremenets, Volhynia, on February 28, 1889, Pavlo Shandruk joined with Czar Army
after completed his studies at the Nizhyn Institute. In 1917, as a Russian lieutenant colonel, he
had lead one of the early tank detachments of the Russian Imperial Army. In 1920, after the
outbreak of the Russian Revolution, he commanded a Ukrainian brigade in the Ukrainian struggle
for liberation. In 1921, after the Ukrainian National republic collapse, he had fled to Poland
where Marshall Jozef Pilsudski gave him an appointment in the Polish army.

While most of the Ukrainian officers in the Polish army were regarded by Ukrainian nationalist as
collaborators with Poland, Shandruk was an exception. In his dealings with Poles, Shandruk had
always advocated an independent Ukrainian nation-state. During Hitler invasion to Poland in
September 1939, Shandruk, now a colonel, led a Polish regiment which succeed to rescue a
Polish brigade from annihilation. Taken as a prisoner by Germans and held in a prison camp near
Breslau, he was later released due to his injuries. He later lives in Skierniewice and working at a
humble job in a movie theater.

In 1944, when the SS tried to reshaped the anti-Communist Ukrainian organizations, which were
rife with dissension, under theirs umbrella, they got an advice from a Ukrainian leader that
Shandruk was a right man to lead them. In February 1945, with some conditions, Shandruk
accepted the SS offering to lead the Ukrainian National Committee and simultaneously became
the commander of the newly-formed Ukrainian National Army (or UNA) into which all
Ukrainian units which had fought on the German side were collected. But, he refused the SS other
offering to become an SS-Gruppenführer.

In his capacity as the leader of the Ukrainian National Committee and Ukrainian National Army,
Shandruk declined invitation of General Andrei Vlasov to join the K.O.N.R. although the Russian
general offering him the post of his first deputy in both political and military matters. Shandruk
appreciated that the Ukraine would have little hope of independence if he made his armed forces
subservient to a Russian.

In April 1945, Shandruk joined his men of the Ukrainian National Army in Austria. He lead the
1st UNA Division, former 14th SS ‘Galicia’ Division, fought theirs way over Tauern Pass into
Radstadt pocket and surrendered to the US and British force in the area. While his men were put
behind POW cages, Shandruk tried to make contact with higher British and American authorities.
With help of Polish General Anders, he persuaded the British and Americans that his force were
made up of Galicians, that is, Polish citizens whose homes had been occupied in 1939 by the
invasion of Soviet armies and the incorporation of eastern Poland into the Soviet Union. His
tenacity, cleverness, and diplomatic agility succeed keeping his division status away from
extradition to Soviet Union because they were accepted as Polish pre-war citizens (without any
check whether they had Polish citizenship or not). This provoked fierce protests from Moscow.

After live for some times in Germany, Shandruk emigrated to the USA. Decorated with Polish
Virtuti Militari order for his performance in Polish Army during the September Campaign, he
wrote a number works about military history in Ukrainian, Polish and English.

Pavlo Shandruk died on February 15, 1979, in Trenton, New Jersey.