Nykyfor Oleksandrovych Hryhoriv (or Grigoryev, real surname Servetnyk; 1884–1919) was a Ukrainian partisan leader noted for repeatedly switching sides during the Ukrainian War of Independence and Soviet Ukrainian war. Biography Nykyfor Oleksandrovych Servetnyk was born in 1884 in the small village of , in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire. He studied at a feldsher school, but interrupted his studies to volunteer for the Imperial Russian Army and fight in the Russo-Japanese War. After demobilization, he worked in Oleksandriia as an excise officer. During World War I, he was initially a praporshchik in the 56th Zhytomyr Infantry Regiment, eventually rising to the rank of staff captain and being awarded with the Order of St. George. During this time, he changed his surname to the nom de guerre Hryhoriv. Revolution After the February Revolution and the overthrow of the tsar, Hryhoriv was active in the military committees. He then deserted from the army and returned to Oleksandriia. At the end of 1917, he created a volunteer regiment of the Ukrainian People's Army, for which he received the rank of lieutenant colonel from Symon Petliura. Petliura also instructed him to create more units in Yelysavethrad. Hryhoriv initially supported the seizure of power by Pavlo Skoropadskyi and the establishment of the Ukrainian State, under the protection of the Central Powers. But he later founded a peasant detachment to fight against the new regime and re-established contact with Petliura. In November 1918, when the Imperial German and Austria armies were withdrawing from Ukraine, an anti-Skoropadskyi uprising broke out in the Dnieper basin. The Directory headed by Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Semen Petlura came to power. The troops under the command of Hryhoriv captured and Oleksandriia, after which he declared himself the otaman of the insurgent forces of "the land of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Taurida", although he actually only controlled Kherson. Hryhoriv's 6,000-strong force rejoined the Ukrainian People's Army as a separate division under the command of otaman Oleksandr Hrekov, but his command over these units was only limited. In the ranks of the Red Army Following the 1919 Soviet invasion of Ukraine, the Directorate lost control over much of Ukraine and Hryhoriv decided to join the side of the victorious Bolsheviks, as Petliura had not allowed him to attack the Allied intervention forces landing in Odesa. On 2 February 1919, more than a month after the proclamation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in