Konstantin Pestushko

As a private, he fought in the Caucasus campaign, where he was injured. He was awarded two Crosses of St. George for bravery. After graduating from the school of warrant officers in Gori, he was sent to the Western Front. He rose to the rank of second lieutenant, and took command of a company. In the summer of 1917, he volunteered for the Death Shock Battalion, where the October Revolution found him. At the end of 1917, having barely escaped reprisals by the revolutionary Bolshevik soldiers, he returned to his homeland.[3]

In 1918 he was mobilized into the army of the Ukrainian State. He served in Bila Tserkva, in the Mankovskyi regiment as an officer. After the anti-hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi coup, from December 1918 – in the Ukrainian People's Republic army. In February–March 1919, the Ukrainian Soviet Army, advancing from the east, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Ukrainian People's Army: many units and formations of the UPA went over to the side of the enemy or self-demobilized. Pestushko left the service and returned to his native village. In June 1919, shortly after the Bolsheviks suppressed Nykyfor Hryhoriv's uprising, it was captured by the White Army.

Fearing mobilization into the Volunteer Army, Kostiantyn Pestushko left for Oleksandrivsk to see his friends at the school. There, at the head of a small partisan detachment, he began military operations against the White Guards. To protect his family, he acted under the pseudonym "Stepovyi-Blakytnyi".

In October 1919, having united several small partisan detachments of otamans Skirda and Panas Keleberda with a total strength of up to 500 people, he established contacts with the Makhnovists, received weapons from them, formed and led the Middle Dnieper group of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine. He acted as a member of the Makhnovist uprising against the military dictatorship of Anton Denikin. After he had increased the forces of the Middle Dnieper group to 3000 fighters, he renamed it to the Republican Forces and began to act independently.[3]

After the Denikinites were expelled from Ukraine, in January 1920, Pestushko returned to his native village of Hannivka and was elected Chairman of the Volost Military Revolutionary Committee there, created by the Bolsheviks who had restored their power in Ukraine. He was in this position for about three months – until May 10, 1920. Over the course of the Bolsheviks' mobilization into the Red Army, he convinced the mobilized peasants of the Verkhnodniprovskyi district to unite in an insurgent detachment and act against the Reds in Kryvyi Rih. On May 12, after a seven-hour battle, Kryvyi Rih was liberated from the Bolsheviks.[2]

In the spring and autumn of 1920, Kost Blakytnyi was one of the leaders of the anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Ukraine. He created and led the insurgent Steppe Division, which numbered from 12 to 18 thousand fighters and fought against the Bolshevik regime using partisan methods under the slogan "For the independence of Ukraine" (Ukrainian: За Самостійну Україну).[2]

He acted in the Kherson, Katerynoslav and Kyiv provinces, in particular – in the Chyhyrynskyi district.[3] He commanded the First Alexandrian Rebel Army. After his rebel formations united with the Kholodnoyarsk armed forces, on September 24, 1920, at a rebel conference in the town of Medvedivka, he was elected Ataman of Kholodny Yar.[2] Although, in October 1920, having gone to the Yekaterinoslav province at the head of the Steppe Division, he resigned his position as Ataman.

In the fall of 1920, his insurgent movement covered the entire Kherson province and part of the Yekaterinoslav province. The activities of the Ekaterinoslavsky Insurgent Committee, headed by Pestushko, against the Bolsheviks were quite successful.

The Cheka developed a special operation to neutralize Kost Stepovoy. On April 29, 1921, the Cheka arrested more than 50 people involved in the rebel headquarters of Pestushko. Kostiantyn Yuriyovych Pestushko died on May 9, 1921, in Hannivka during a battle with a unit of the Kryvyi Rih security officers. He was buried in his native village.[3]