After the arrests of the main core of the UNF, their work was continued. Mykola Kraynyk, back in 1961, created the Ukrainian General National Organization (UZNO), which conducted propaganda activities based on the principles of the OUN-UPA. Under the influence of Kvetsko, Diak, and Krasivsky’s UNF, in 1964, the members of UZNO decided to change the name of the organization to the Ukrainian National Front, which has been given the conventional name UNF-2 in history. The second national front, according to M. Kraynyk’s memoirs, had an extensive structure with branches and individual members in many regions of Ukraine.
UNF-2 was active in the Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Zakarpattia, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, and in Crimea. M. Kraynyk, I. Mandryk, V. Zvarych, Myroslava Chekh, R. Alfovytsky, V. Bybyk, M. Zablotsky, Vasyl and Bohdan Senkiv, B. Zvarych, T. Dyndyn, H. Kutsenko, H. Feldman* and many, many others. The organization also included people who were serving sentences and in exile. Thus, UNF-2 was also active in Karaganda, in the Ashgabat and Mari regions, and in the Mordovian camps. Unlike the UNF, UNF-2 did not have a complete program, a clear organization, or a single periodical publication. In this case, the national front lived up to its name, performing a unifying function for various dissident circles and groups in different regions of Ukraine and beyond. UNF-2 existed at liberty until 1979.
During its activity, two issues of the journal “Prozrinnya” (“Epiphany”), and two issues of the “Ukrainian Herald”* were released, and a great deal of *samizdat* literature, both contemporary and OUN-related, was distributed. The main activity of UNF-2 consisted of propaganda and attracting as many people as possible. In the autumn of 1979, Mykola Kraynyk was arrested. The Ivano-Frankivsk regional court, under Art. 62 part 1 and 64 of the Criminal Code of the UkrSSR, sentenced him to 7 years in a strict-regime corrective labor colony and 3 years of exile. On September 17, 1979, Ivan Mandryk was suddenly sent on a business trip to Ivano-Frankivsk, where he was brutally murdered. His relatives were told it was a suicide, but the version of his relatives and friends seems to be the true one—a political murder; Ivan Mandryk was tortured to death on the orders of the KGB. A criminal case was fabricated against Vasyl Zvarych. He received 2.5 years for “hooliganism.” Thus, the central cell of UNF-2 was crushed.
* This includes members of the UNF who joined while imprisoned, after 1979.
* Unrelated to the “Ukrainian Herald” founded by V. Chornovil.