Ukrainian People's Army
The Rada had a limited armed force at its disposal (the Ukrainian People's Army) and was hard-pressed by the Kharkov government which received men and resources from the Russian Soviet Republic. As a result, the Bolsheviks quickly overran Poltava, Aleksandrovsk (now Zaporizhzhia), and Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro) by January 1918. Across Ukraine, local Bolsheviks also formed the Odessa and Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republics; and in the south Nestor Makhno formed the Free Territory – an anarchist region – then allied his forces with the Bolsheviks. Aided by the earlier Kiev Arsenal Uprising, the Red Guards entered the capital on February 9, 1918. This forced the Central Rada to evacuate to Zhytomyr. In the meantime, the Romanians took over Bessarabia. Most remaining Russian Army units either allied with the Bolsheviks or joined the Ukrainian People's Army. A notable exception was Colonel Mikhail Drozdovsky, who marched his White Volunteer Army unit across the whole of Novorossiya to the River Don, defeating Makhno's forces in the process.