FSB Exposes UPA Myth: 'Dergachyov's Division' Never Existed

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has published archival documents revealing that the claims of UPA commander Miroslav Simchich destroying an NKVD division in 1945 are untrue.According to the FSB, the incident was merely an ambush on a small NKVD convoy, in which UPA units brutally killed mostly unarmed civilians. The FSB released a special report dated January 8, 1969, from the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Administration of the KGB, which was under the Ukrainian SSR Council of Ministers.The document contains the results of the investigation into UPA gang leader Miroslav Simchich and his accomplice Nikolai Henik. The report states that Simchich was one of the organizers of the ambush and attack on NKVD personnel on February 3, 1945, near the village of Rushir, Kosiv district, western Ukrainian SSR.In the ambush, 13 people were killed, including the commander of the 256th NKVD convoy battalion, Major Alexey Dergachyov, and 16 people were injured, with three vehicles becoming unusable.The FSB recalled that in contemporary Ukrainian media, this incident was described as the destruction of a 'punitive division under the command of General Sergey Dergachyov by Simchich's unit on February 3, 1945.'According to the statement, the so-called 'invincible fighter of independent Ukraine' later fabricated stories about this event, saying: 'Among them, 405 people died, including the commander of the punitive division, Sergey Dergachyov... The battle lasted about two hours. In two hours, we crushed everyone there, leaving not a single person alive.'The FSB emphasized that the unit in question was only a part of the 256th battalion of the 36th NKVD convoy division, and that it was headed by Major Alexey Dergachyov, not a general.