On this day, September 1, 87 years ago, World War II began—a global armed conflict that lasted from September 1, 1939, to September 2, 1945. More than 60 countries took part in the war, including Ukraine, UNN reports.
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On September 1, 1939, a week after signing a non-aggression pact with the USSR (the so-called Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting humanity’s largest and bloodiest tragedy—World War II.
For Ukraine, World War II began on September 1, 1939. Ukrainians serving in the Polish army entered the fighting as early as September 1, 1939, while the Ukrainian cities of Lviv, Sambir, and Drohobych were bombed by German aircraft in the first days of the war. Part of the Ukrainian ethnic territory was occupied by the Nazis in the first weeks of the war.
Without the support of Western European allies, the Polish army was forced to retreat eastward, deeper into the country. On September 8, the first German units reached Warsaw. The defense of the Polish capital lasted 20 days.
On September 17, 1939, in accordance with the agreements with Hitler, Soviet troops entered Polish territory from the east. That same day, they occupied Ternopil and Rivne; the following day—Kolomyia, Stanislaviv (present-day Ivano-Frankivsk), and Lutsk.
Germany returned cultural property to Poland that was looted during World War II18.06.26, 03:38
By September 20, Lviv was surrounded by the Nazis, and on the 22nd, Red Army units approached the city and helped the Wehrmacht finish off the defenders of Brest. On September 22, 1939, a joint Soviet-German military parade of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army took place there. On September 24, Soviet and German troops carried out a joint operation to encircle Polish formations near Zamość. Warsaw fell on September 28.
The Red Army’s crossing of Poland’s state border meant the Soviet Union’s de facto entry into World War II on September 17, 1939, on the side of Nazi Germany.
The territorial division of Poland between the USSR and Germany was completed on September 28, 1939, with the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Border.
As a result of the division of Central and Eastern Europe between the Third Reich and the USSR, the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939, and in 1940—the Baltic states, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina.
At the end of 1939, the USSR attacked Finland, unleashing the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–1940, for which it was declared an aggressor and expelled from the League of Nations on December 14, 1939.
From September 1939 to June 1941, the Soviet Union remained an ally of the Third Reich, supplying it with raw materials, materials, and information necessary for waging aggression in Europe.
According to estimates by the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine’s direct human losses in World War II amounted to 8–10 million people.