Petro Filonenko

Petro (Yevstafii) Filonenko was born on December 12, 1896, in the village of Yemilchyn, Zvyahil povit (now Novohrad-Volynskyi district, Zhytomyr region). He studied at the Radomysl Economic School, then served in the tsarist army, fighting on the fronts of the First World War.

During the Hetmanate, he worked as a member of the Military Court and in the Mobilization Department of the Commandant’s Office in Novohrad-Volynskyi, where he was engaged in the mobilization of young men into the Ukrainian Army. Soon he created a partisan unit and began fighting bolshevik invaders, actively acting in the area of Korosten-Ovruch-Novohrad-Volynskyi, and received the rank of Sotnyk.

During one of the battles, he was captured by Bolsheviks, who tortured him severely – his eye was gouged out and his arm was crippled. He ran away from custody. Later, at the head of a newly formed unit, he joined Marko Bezruchko’s 6th Sich Rifle Infantry Division, with which he took part in the UPR Army’s First Winter Campaign. In Podillia and Volyn, he was often used as a reconnaissance man, as he knew the surrounding area and the local people very well. At that time, he acted under the leadership of the Intelligence Department of Yurko Tiutiunnyk’s Partisan Insurgent Staff. The Department was headed by Colonel Oleksandr Kuzminskyi.

In 1924 P. Filonenko returned to Poland. Soon he was involved in the work of the Second Section of the General Staff of the Ministry of Military Affairs of the State Center of the UPR in exile. He was acting as an intelligence officer first under the command of Mykola Chebotariv and then – of Vsevolod Zmiienko.

In 1939, he became an organizer of anti-Bolshevik insurgent groups in the Ovruch area. Later he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and the position of Otaman of the Second District, which covered the territory of Volyn. He fought in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army until 1945. After World War II, he emigrated to the United States, where he passed away on August 1, 1960, and was buried in the town of South-Bound-Brook.