Neutralization of the Opposition

Mass arrests of UPA fighters, OUN members, and those suspected of aiding them, followed by dispatch to the GULAG camps, upon which the regime placed "the isolation of 'unreliable elements'" as one of its key tasks^[1]. During Operation "Vistula," for civilians suspected of assisting the underground there was provision for "the introduction of courts-martial and concentration camps, in particular at Jaworzno"^[2]. By 1951 Ukrainians had become the second-largest nation of the GULAG: according to the agency's own statistics, the "National composition of GULAG prisoners (as of January 1, 1951)" counted 506,221 Ukrainians out of some 2.5 million prisoners - about 20%^[3].