page_title: Poltava
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Poltava / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Самолёты в Полтавском авиамузее This is a photo of a monument in Ukraine, number: 53-101-0188
context_page_description: Poltava is a city located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the capital city of the Poltava Oblast and of the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava is administratively incorporated as a city of oblast significance and does not belong to the raion. It has a population of 289,000.
context_section_description: During the events of 1917–1920, Poltava was under the rule of a number of governments, including the Central Rada, Hetmanate, Ukrainian People's Republic, White Movement and Bolsheviks. After becoming a part of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Poltava experienced accelerated industrial growth, and its population increased to 130,000 by 1939.
  In World War II, the Nazi Wehrmacht occupied Poltava from late October 1941 until 23 September 1943, when it was retaken during the Chernigov-Poltava Strategic Offensive of the battle of the Dnieper. During the Nazi occupation the Jewish population (9.9% of the total population in 1939) was imprisoned in a ghetto before being murdered during mass executions perpetrated by an Einsatzgruppe and buried in mass graves in the area. By the summer of 1944 the United States Army Air Forces conducted a number of shuttle bombing raids against Nazi Germany under the name of Operation Frantic. Poltava Air Base, as well as Myrhorod Air Base, were used as eastern locations for landing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers involved in those operations.
  The post-war restoration of Poltava continued in the 1950s and 1960s. The city became an important centre of military education in the Soviet Union, where missile and communications officers were prepared, and was also home to a Soviet Air Force division of heavy bombers.
  In 2018, the "Grieving Mother" monument, a memorial in Poltava to 8,000 of the city's Jews murdered by the Nazis, was desecrated on Hitler's birthday with the slogan "Heil Hitler" and a swastika.
caption: Poltava Museum of Long-Range and Strategic Aviation
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