Ukrainian War of Independence - Polish Involvement, 1920

Polish Involvement, 1920

Again facing imminent defeat, the UNR turned to its former adversary, Poland; and in April 1920, Józef Piłsudski and Symon Petliura signed a military agreement in Warsaw to fight the Bolsheviks. Just like the former alliance with Germany, this move partially sacrificed Ukrainian sovereignty: Petliura recognised the Polish annexation of Galicia and agreed to Ukraine's role in Piłsudski's dream of a Polish-centered hegemony in Eastern Europe.

Immediately after the alliance was signed, Polish forces joined the Ukrainian army in the Kiev Offensive to capture central and southern Ukraine from Bolshevik control. Initially successful, the offensive reached Kiev on May 7, 1920. However, the Polish-Ukrainian campaign was a Pyrrhic victory: in late May, the Red Army led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky staged a large counter-offensive south of Zhytomyr which pushed the Polish army almost completely out of Ukraine, except for Lviv in Galicia. In yet another reversal, in August 1920 the Red Army was defeated near Warsaw and forced to retreat. The White forces, now under General Wrangel, took advantage of the situation and started a new offensive in southern Ukraine. Under the combined circumstances of their military defeat in Poland, the renewed White offensive, and disastrous economic conditions throughout the Russian SFSR – these together forced the Bolsheviks to seek a truce with Poland.