Andriy Melnyk Andriy Melnyk ( ) ( December 12 , 1890 – November 1 , 1964 ) was a Ukrainian military and political leader . Life . Born near Drohobych , Galicia , into a peasant family . Between 1912 and 1914 he studied at the Higher School of Agriculture in Vienna . With the outbreak of the First World War , Melnyk served as an officer in the Austro - Hungarian army as a volunteer with the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen for which he commanded a company . Due to his kind demeanor , he was referred to affectionately as " Lord Melnyk " by fellow Ukrainian and Austrian officers , who felt that he embodied the English concept of a gentleman , which at that time had been an ideal in Central Europe . Melnyk was taken prisoner by the Russians in 1916 . In captivity , Melnyk became a close associate of Yevhen Konovalets and joined the Ukrainian independence movement . During the Soviet - Ukrainian War Melnyk supported Symon Petliura and was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Ukrainian People ' s Republic army . Together with Konovalets , Melnyk and several others founded the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( OUN ) in 1929 . Between 1924 and 1928 Melnyk was imprisoned for terrorist activities by the Polish government . During the 1930s , however , his career was much quieter than that of his colleagues . He basically retired from politics , refrained from terrorist activities and worked as an engineer and as the director of forests on the huge estates of the Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church , Andrey Sheptytsky . More friendly to the Church than any of his associates ( the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was generally anti - clerical ) , Melnyk even became the chairman of Orlo , the Galician Catholic youth organization that was regarded as anti - Nationalist by many OUN members . After the assassination of OUN leader Konovalets in 1938 , the principal OUN leadership abroad could not choose a leader from amongst themselves and therefore asked Melnyk to become leader of OUN in 1939 . He was chosen by the leadership in part because of the hope for more moderate and pragmatic leadership and by the desire to repair strained ties with the Catholic Church . The group that had chosen Melnyk as their leader admired aspects of Benito Mussolini ' s fascism but condemned Nazism . In 1940 a more radical faction of the OUN led by Stepan Bandera and based in Ukraine broke away from the OUN led by Melnyk in exile . The two rival organizations became known as " Melnykites " and " Banderites " . After 1938 Melnyk was allegedly recruited by the German Abwehr and after the German invasion of the Soviet Union he declared his own independent Ukrainian government in Rivne , competing with Bandera supporters for influence in western Ukraine . Initially , Melnyk ' s more conservative and moderate supporters enjoyed support against Bandera ' s radicals from both the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and German military authorities . However , his position was contradictory . A conservative Catholic who maintained the officer ' s personal code of honor , Melnyk was at odds with aspects of the ideology of his own organization . His reluctance to assert dominance and engage in a ruthless pursuit of power disadvantaged him versus his younger and more violent rivals in the Bandera camp . Many of Melnyk ' s close associates were killed by Bandera ' s Ukrainian Insurgent Army between 1941 and 1944 and Bandera ' s movement came to completely dominate the Ukrainian nationalist political milieu in most of western Ukraine . In 1944 Melnyk was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo during a crackdown against the Ukrainian independence movement . After the war , Melnyk escaped to the West and lived in Luxembourg , West Germany , and Canada . He remained politically active and headed a number of Ukrainian émigré organizations . He died in Clervaux , Luxembourg , at the age of 74 . In late 2006 , the Lviv city administration announced the future transfer of the tombs of Andriy Melnyk , Yevhen Konovalets , Stepan Bandera and other key leaders of the OUN and UPA to a new area of Lychakivskiy Cemetery specifically dedicated to the Ukrainian national liberation struggle .