🌀CARPATHIAN KRUTY…
✔A French radio station located in Strasbourg was astonished and stressed the following on March 6, 1939, “Europe underestimated the Carpathian Ukrainians. Although they do not have sufficient number of weapons and ammunition, they defend their statehood in the Carpathians heroically against a huge Hungarian invasion. Their struggle demonstrated their state-building ability, ardent love for the Motherland, and desperate zeal”.

The newly independent state of Carpathian Ukraine was proclaimed on March 15, 1939. Although independent Carpathian Ukraine existed only a few days, the Ukrainians showed that they could and would defend their own state to the end.

The Krasne Pole is a plain on the right bank of the Tisza River near the town of Khust, the capital of Carpathian Ukraine. The main battle between defenders of Carpathian Ukraine and the army of Hungary took place there. Only two hundred soldiers armed with light machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, and pistols battled against regular units of the army of Hungary.
A decisive battle occurred there on March 15, 1939. The superiority of the Hungarians in manpower and the use of heavy weapons and aircraft forced the defenders of Ukrainian statehood to retreat to Khust. Hungarian troops entered Khust at 4 p.m.

The news regarding the battle on the Krasne Pole caused a great resonance. Democratic states began regarding Hungary as an aggressor against the young Ukrainian state. According to the data provided by Hungarian historians, 230 Sich soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers of the Czechoslovak army and volunteers, mostly seminarians and members of the Plast Organization, being the Scouting organization in Ukraine, were killed in the battle on the Krasne Pole. The losses of the Hungarians amounted to 160 dead and about 400 wounded.

More than 80 years have passed, but rhetoric of Hungary about Ukraine does not seem to have changed…