led to the establishment of a subordinate Ukrainian SSR. On January 25, the latter's Premier, Christian Rakovsky, had effectively declared war on Romania by stating a Ukrainian Bolshevik claim to both Bessarabia and Bukovina. By contrast, UNR Directors openly rejected "territorial maximalism", in hopes to obtain weapons from Bucharest; these were promised, but never actually arrived. In March 1919, the Directorate moved to Husiatyn, and failed to maintain a grip on Podolia. The area came to be governed by the Ukrainian Socialist-Revolutionary Party (allegedly answering to Mykhailo Hrushevsky), though military control was resumed after a counter-coup. In Dunaivtsi Raion, veterans of the Khotyn Uprising formed a Bessarabian Brigade, which restated its alliance with Russia and commitment to Bolshevism. It nevertheless refused to do battle against the UNR, and was disarmed by envoys from Husiatyn in early April. As many as 50,000 peasants from around Khotyn, and some 4,000 to 10,000 armed rebels, crossed the Dniester, settling in either UNR or Soviet territories. Meanwhile, those refugees who still rejected communism appealed for support from the Entente Powers: on February 4, their "general assembly" in Zhvanets pleaded with the Entente to demand the immediate withdrawal of Romanian troops from Hotin County. Other circles in the Ukraine also embraced the cause. On February 12, the British legation in Odessa received a letter of protest from a self-proclaimed delegation of Bessarabians, which included S. M. Wolkenstein and H. M. Kudik as Khotyn delegates. This text affirmed commitment not the UNR, but to Russia, depicting Romania as an "invader", and its culture as "Asian". The Red Army, under Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, advanced southwards and conquered most of Podolia by April. The region was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR; this new regime quickly restored the Bessarabian Brigade, but purged it of political suspects. During the early days of May, Antonov considered plans for immediately "freeing Bessarabia" by invading through Khotyn. He was finally dissuaded from ordering it by Romanian successes on the Hungarian Front, and by supply inadequacies. Ukrainian–Romanian skirmishes continued over several months, just as the Peace Conference began analyzing the eastern borders of Greater Romania. Atachi's inhabitants remained exceptionally hostile to Romanian rule, and Soviet soldiers felt encouraged to fire on Romanian positions during May 30; suspicions arose in Romanian circles that an "international battalion" was being trained to invade Bessarabia from Mohyliv. Romanians were still pained by echoes of Davidoglu's action, and knew that