Arsenal

Arsenal. Amunition factory and center of an armed Bolshevik uprising in Kyiv against the Ukrainian government of the Central Rada. On 29 January 1918 the Russian and Jewish workers of Arsenal, led by Andrei Ivanov, captured some strategic points of the city, such as the Arsenal, Pecherske, and Podil districts, the freight station, and Old City in their attempt to encircle the Central Rada. The rebels were confronted by units of the Free Cossacks under the command of Mykhailo Kovenko, the newly formed Galician-Bukovynian Battalion of the Sich Riflemen led by Yevhen Konovalets, and units of the Haidamaka Battalion of Slobidska Ukraine under the command of Symon Petliura and M. Shynkar. After fierce fighting the uprising was supressed by 4 February 1918, and some of the rebels were captured. On 8 February when the Red Army under the command of Mikhail Muravev advanced on Kyiv, the Central Rada and the Ukrainian troops abandoned the city and retreated to Zhytomyr.