Ukrainian nationalists were persecuted and imprisoned in the USSR but had many allies in circles of power.
The end of the Second World War and the defeat of Ukrainian Nazi-collaborators did not put an end to the nationalist movement in the Soviet republic. On the contrary, realizing the futility of underground armed struggle, the “patriots” took the opposite approach. Thus, political leaders in Kiev became unwitting accomplices, who actively continued the work begun in the 1920s to “Ukrainianize” territories inhabited by a mainly Russian population.
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