>What the fuck is up with this country in the 20th century?
Before 1917 they weren't even a thing, Austrians called them Low Russians (Ruthenians), Russians seen them as Russians.
But in 1917 Central Powers occupied Ukraine and established it as their puppet state.
But then Central Powers lost, and Bolsheviks were rushing to the east.
In meanwhile, Ukrs declared independence from Austria-Hungary, on a territory full of ethnic Poles, this triggered Polish-"West Ukrainian" war, which was won by Poland.
Then Ukraine allied of Poland because it was spooked by communists.
In the year 1920 Soviets went so far that they were under Warsaw, but were pushed back by Poles.
Poles in the end signed a peace treaty, because they didn't have enough men to liberate full territory of Ukraine.
Poland received Volhynia and remained East Galicia, Soviets took the rest of Ukraine.
Chochols went full butthurt and nationalistic, so Soviet solution to the problem was to starve milions of them to death, while Polish solution was limited to close the orthodox churches and schools.
In 1939 Bolsheviks backstabbed Poland while it was fighting with the Germans, and annected the remaining ethnic ukrainian lands. Chochols treated them as liberators, but after some time they noticed that they life became worse under Soviet rule.
In 1941 Germany invaded Soviet Union, and chochols were once again welcoming them as liberators, and even received their own government for several days. But then Germans noticed that they are shit and scrapped it. Chochols were sometimes sent to concentration camps, and thus the great """heroes""" of ukraine created a terrorist group which main goal was tho kill the remaining Polish civilians in Ukraine. They were fighting theoretically with Germans and Soviets, but actually they were always getting smashed by the both.