Battle of Kruty

The Battle of Kruty took place on January 29 or 30, 1918 , near Kruty railway station , about 130 kilometres northeast of Kyiv, Ukraine, which at the time was part of Nezhinsky Uyezd of Chernigov Governorate.

As Bolshevik forces of about 4,000 men, commanded by Mikhail Muravyov, advanced toward Kyiv, a small Ukrainian unit of 400 soldiers of the Bakhmach garrison , commanded by initially by Captain F.Tymchenko, withdrew from Bakhmach to a small railroad station Kruty midway towards Nizhyn. The small unit consisted mainly of the Student Battalion of Sich Riflemen, a unit of the Khmelnytsky Cadet School, and a Free Cossacks company. Just before the assault Tymchenko was replaced by D.Nosenko, while Tymchenko left for Nizhyn in attempt to recruit the locally quartered Shevchenko Regiment on the Ukrainian side. Nonetheless on January 30, 1918 the regiment sided with the Soviet regime, the news of which forced the Ukrainian garrison of Kruty hastily to withdraw. Over half of the 400 men were killed during the battle, which lasted up to five hours. In the Soviet historiography the battle is mistakenly dated on January 29, 1918 and confused with the Plysky rail station skirmish ). The Haidamaka Kish of Symon Petlyura that rushed to reinforce the Kruty garrison and was delayed due to the Darnytsia railworkers sabotage stopped in close vicinity and eventually turned back to Kyiv due to the Bolshevik's Arsenal Uprising that occurred on the same day.

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