Ustym Yakymovych Karmaliuk (also Karmelyuk, ) (March 10, 1787 – October 22, 1835) was a Ukrainian outlaw who fought against the Russian administration and became a folk hero to the commoners of Ukraine. He is often referred to as the "Ukrainian Robin Hood" and "the last haydamak". Early life Following the Second Partition of Poland in 1792, a vast territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was ceded to the Russian Empire including the eastern Podillia. Karmaliuk was born a serf in the settlement of Holovchyntsi in Letychiv County (powiat latyczówski) (in some sources, Lityn County) of the Podolian Voivodeship in 1787. There is little known about his early life except that he possessed some literacy and was fluent in Russian, Polish and Yiddish, besides his native Ukrainian language, as attested by the police documents of the time. He was taken by his owner at the age of 17 to work as a servant in the manor, but was notoriously insolent. As a result, his owner decided to forcibly send him into Russian military service, in order to remove him from others whom he was inciting to rebellion. Established revolutionary Army service and desertions Karmaliuk was enlisted to serve in the Imperial Russian Army in Kamianets-Podilskyi. He was forcibly inducted into the Russian Imperial Army, and served in the Napoleonic Wars of 1812 in an Uhlan regiment, but eventually escaped and organized rebel bands who attacked merchants and landowners, while distributing the booty between the poor. He was captured in 1814, and was sentenced in Kamianets-Podilskyi to run a gauntlet of 500 blows, a typical military punishment. He was then sent to serve out the 25-year term of penal service in a military unit in the Crimea, but he fled again, returning to northern Podolia. Rebellion In Podolia, he once again organized rebel bands in Olhopil, Letychiv, and Lityn regions, attracting a wide support base among Ukrainians, Jews and even Poles. The rebellions intensified over the years, and then had spread not only to other parts of Podolia, but also to the neighboring provinces of Volynia, Kyivshchyna, and Bessarabia. Karmaliuk escaped from the castle where he was held captive, but was captured yet again in 1817-18. The second time, he was sentenced to 25 blows with the knout in front of the town hall and sent to far-away Siberia. In 1822, Karmaliuk was arrested yet again and jailed for the third time