ATTEMPTS TO USE CAPTIVE UKRAINIANS AT THE RASTATT CAMP (GERMANY) TO UNDERMINE THE RUSSIAN ARMY IN UKRAINE DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Abstract

The article discloses attempts by the German authorities to use certain captive Ukrainians from the Russian army to destabilize its arson during World War I. Due to the lack of relevant archival sources, it is not possible to determine the degree of informative nature of agent messages recruited by the German Ukrainian activists, as well as the extent of their importance in planning strategic or tactical military operations at the front by the German command. The author of the article assumes that the most successful Ukrainian “turns” from captivity acted in the cause of revolutionizing Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire. It should also be noted that by agreeing to cooperate with the German military authorities, not all captive Ukrainians were guided by ideological motives. Some of them were driven by the desire to use this opportunity to accelerate their return home, and they were not a priori planning to collect and transmit intelligence to the Germans and to carry out the work of revolutionary content. Finally, a small proportion of Ukrainians who were sent home by the efforts of the Union of Liberation of Ukraine and the German authorities, joined the disintegration of imperial institutes at Ukrainian lands, and also took an active part in the Ukrainian state-building in 1917–1920.