The biggest clash of the UPA-West and the German-Hungarian troops took place around the Lopata Mountains at the junction between the Drohobych and Stanyslaviv (Ivano-Frankivsk) regions. These events are also reported on in great detail in the written reports of the Polish underground. From 6 to 16 July 1944, there was intense fighting from artillery shelling which moved through the melee of battles. But the insurgents were victorious under the command of Vasyl Andrusiak, “Rizun”. The occupants lost about 200 soldiers and retreated, while only 50 Ukrainians were killed.

Under the blows of the Red Army, the Wehrmacht left Ukraine. By early September, there were mostly only minor clashes and disarmament of German units by the UPA.

There were episodes in the history of the Ukrainian insurgent movement when some commanders tried to hold illegal talks with German command where they offered “neutrality in exchange for weapons” or “food in exchange for weapons.” We also know of several cases when based on these talks, around 80–100 small arms were handed over to the insurgents. But such arrangements were not welcomed by the command of the Ukrainian underground. In some cases, they were even punished. In March 1944, Porfyrij Antoniuk (“Sosenko”) was shot for these illegal negotiations based on a sentence given by an UPA court-martial. Also in April 1944, the UPA executed Mykola Oliynyk (“Orel”).

Afterward, talks with the German occupational authorities were held with the OUN(B) leadership. The occupiers were interested in stopping OUN and UPA anti-German activities in order to throw more of their forces against the Soviet attack. The OUN sought to secure the release of political prisoners from concentration camps (Stepan Bandera, Yaroslav Stetsko and many others) and obtain weapons for the UPA, which they always lacked. The meetings between the OUN leadership and German authorities took place in March, April, June and July 1944. The result was that the insurgents received hundreds of weapons and in September-October 1944, the Nazis released Bandera and other Ukrainian nationalists, who, however, were left under Gestapo supervision.

In return, the OUN(B) reduced the intensity of their anti- German operations (mainly in Volhynia) but did not stop them altogether. As reported by German Major Muller, an officer in Army Group “South”, “at that time, as some national-Ukrainian bands put themselves upon the orders of the German Wehrmacht or performed their tasks, others made mad battles against the Wehrmacht with fanatical hatred.” Examples of such “mad battles” were in the Chornyj Forest or along the Lopata Mountains in Galicia which are mentioned earlier.

The activities of the UPA were recognized as anti-German by the insurgents and by the German occupational leaders like Schoene, von dem Bach and Prutzmann and the Soviet partisan commander, Vershigora. Researchers estimate the losses suffered by the Germans and their allies due to the UPA were about 12,000 soldiers. In the armed confrontation with the occupiers, the Ukrainian underground and insurgent units lost between 10–12,000 people.

In order to put an end to this myth of history, one must cite one of the many German documents that the former Education and Science Minister, Dmytro Tabachnyk, “did not know” about. This is the telegram from Prutzmann from 25 August 1943: “The General Command of the Army Group ‘South’. In relation to the fact that the SS Reichsfuhrer gave strong detachment units, they assigned me military units for the front, I have to limit the remnants of these units in order to suppress the Ukrainian national uprising in Volhynia. In northern Ukraine, large uncontrollable areas have arisen, that in the near future should expect an increase of pressure from these southern gangs.”