I agree that it would be just as bad or likely worse especially in the first years where the Germans are demanding food which would cause prolonged famine and where military opposition to the regime would exist, which would lead to harsh repirsals against civillians which were common of the civil war era. After the Germans stopped requiring food or when they lowered the amounts they expected the government would be able to assert more control over the rural areas since the main reason to oppose the government would be gone.
We would certainly see massacres and public executions in the early years but after this was done the number of killings would go down by a lot. Yes, there would definitely be secret police kidnapping opposition and gulag like prisons but this was no different to what happened under the Soviets before the Holodomor. Then once we get to the 1933-1945 period the situation of Ukrainians would be a lot better than OTL, since while the hetmanate would be a an authoritarian monarchy it would not get close to the amounts of killings done by the Holodomor, hunger plan and the holocaust. 16% of Ukraine died in WW2 alone now if you add the holodomor to that the numbers are extremly high, the hetmanate would have no idealogical reason to do something like that, since while they were oppressive and puppets to Germany they'd still be a Ukrainian nationalist government.
So I will go ahead and acknowledge that the specifics of the Holodomor are unlikely. The average Ukrainian villager has probably dodged that particular bullet.
However, the potential for Ukraine to be, and remain, a basket case are considerably greater than I think you are considering. The Hetmanate effectively represented the traditional elites of the Russian Empire days (aristocrats, Orthodox clergy, land owners ect.). Its Cabinet was largely made up of Tsarists, Russian speakers and Slavophiles. It’s officers were largely Imperial Russian officers with little connection or care for the Ukrainian state that were basically just riding out the hard times there.
In the mean time, in the urban core you have the Ukrainian nationalists left over from the Rada (and who would form the Directory after overthrowing Skoropadsky IOTL). They see the Hetman as being a collaborator and a traitor on one hand, An Imperial Russophile and autocrat on another, and hate him for both. He basically represents the pre-war elites that the Rada was formed to tear down. Among other things these guys managed to assassinante the German General in charge of CP troops in Ukraine. Their vision of Ukraine is varied but generally seemed to be a national communist regime.
You also have increasing numbers of White and Bolshevik troublemakers looking to further their cause.
In the countryside you have even more of a mess. Each village is effectively under local sovereignty of village councils or soviets (the term used and the side supported actually mean very little, the organization is largely the same regardless). The peasants are not a homogeneous voice but almost all of them desire a legitimization of the land seizures they have already undertaken in the initial revolutions. This is basically antithetical to Skoropadskyi’s regime since his support largely comes from those that the peasants took the land from.
Connected to these local institutions are the atomany. Basically bandit warlords who are either connected to and supported by or can enforce their will on certain village territory. There are a large and ever changing number of them. Some are purely local and act almost as local militia leaders. Some are out and out bandits with a thin film of local legitimacy . Some are vaguely aligned with either the Bolsheviks or the Anarchists and protect local soviets while persecuting those seen as kulaks or outsiders. Some are variously connected to or bought off by either the nationalists or the Hetmanate.
The Black movement is active at this time. Effectively being a collection of atomany, they have considerable support from the peasants in their areas, support local soviets without a central authority over them, and are willing to fight Nationalists, Hetmanate troops, CP soldiers, Whites, Cossacks, other local groups, and even the Bolsheviks (though they would later join with them for a time).
There are also displaced or oppressed groups of “kulaks” who have taken to banditry or joined together for mutual protection. Things were so bad that even some of the zealously pacifist Mennonites formed defensive militias (a move that was generally seen, now and then, as a failure of faith on the part of those joining). There were at least 5000 of them armed at one point. Other local groups of affected peasants would form their own militias.
You also have the Don Cossacks. Quite a number of them were operating in eastern Ukraine or would cross over from the Don Host areas. They were largely affiliated with the White movement but were possessed of their own priorities and would happily fight all comers if they were in their way.
Basically, the Herman did not have either the force or the legitimacy to stabilize his rule in all of these areas. Even keeping control of the urban areas from the Nationalists would be a struggle.
Which means that either Ukraine remains a divided and failed state for some time after the war (likely decades without intervention) or somebody puts a lot of blood and treasure into stabilizing it and keeping it under control.That will probably have to be Germany. Or the Bolsheviks if Germany decides it doesn’t care. If it’s the former then they will need to basically beat the bulk of the populous into giving up a measure of the land they have seized for themselves, which could give a body count not far off the OTL. If it’s the later the exact same situation could come about as OTL.
Plenty of potential for things to be equally terrible as OTL, is what I am saying. And that ignores the death and destruction that could come from renewed Soviet or White Russian invasion or German attempts to make Ukraine a German colony as some more extreme plans called for at the time.
