The history of modern Russian military intelligence begins on November 5, 1918, when the Registration Directorate of the Field Headquarters of the Red Army (RUPShKA) was established by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the successor of which is now the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (GRU GSH).
About the fate of the most famous military intelligence officers of our country. Richard Sorge

Certificate issued by the OGPU to Richard Sorge for the right to carry and store the Mauser pistol.

One of the outstanding intelligence officers of the 20th century was born in 1895 near Baku in a large family of German engineer Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge and Russian citizen Nina Kobeleva. A few years after Richard's birth, the family moved to Germany, where he grew up. Sorge took part in the First World War both on the western and eastern fronts, was repeatedly wounded. The horrors of the war affected not only his health, but also contributed to a radical break in his worldview. From an enthusiastic German patriot, Sorge turned into a convinced Marxist. In the mid-1920s, after the German Communist Party was banned, he moved to the USSR, where, after marrying and receiving Soviet citizenship, he began working in the apparatus of the Comintern.
In 1929, Richard moved to the Fourth Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters (military intelligence). In the 1930s, he was sent first to China (Shanghai), and then to Japan, where he arrived as a German correspondent.It was the Japanese period of Sorge that made him famous. It is generally accepted that in his numerous cipher messages, he warned Moscow about the imminent German attack on the USSR, and after that he brutalized Stalin that Japan would remain neutral towards our country. This allowed the Soviet Union, at a critical moment for it, to transfer new Siberian divisions to Moscow.
However, Sorge himself was exposed in October 1941 and captured by the Japanese police. The investigation into his case lasted almost three years. On November 7, 1944, a Soviet intelligence officer was hanged in Tokyo's Sugamo Prison, and 20 years later, on November 5, 1964, Richard Sorge was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union.

Nikolai Kuznetsov

Nikanor (original name) Kuznetsov was born in 1911 into a large peasant family in the Urals. Having studied as an agronomist in Tyumen, in the late 1920s he returned home. Kuznetsov showed outstanding linguistic abilities early on, he almost independently learned six dialects German language. Then he worked in logging, was twice expelled from the Komsomol, then took an active part in collectivization, after which, apparently, he came to the attention of the state security agencies. Since 1938, after spending several months in a Sverdlovsk prison, Kuznetsov became the detective of the central apparatus of the NKVD. Under the guise of a German engineer at one of the Moscow aircraft factories, he unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the diplomatic environment of Moscow.

Nikolai Kuznetsov in the uniform of a German officer.

After the start of the Great Patriotic War In January 1942, Kuznetsov was enrolled in the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, which, under the leadership of Pavel Sudoplatov, was engaged in reconnaissance and sabotage work behind the front line in the rear of the German troops. Since October 1942, Kuznetsov, under the name of a German officer Paul Siebert, with documents of an employee of the secret German police, conducted intelligence activities in Western Ukraine, in particular, in the city of Rivne, the administrative center of the Reichskommissariat.

The scout regularly communicated with officers of the Wehrmacht, special services, senior officials of the occupation authorities and sent the necessary information to the partisan detachment. For a year and a half, Kuznetsov personally destroyed 11 generals and high-ranking officials of the occupation administration of Nazi Germany, but, despite repeated attempts, he failed to eliminate Erich Koch, the Reichskommissar of Ukraine, known for his cruelty.
In March 1944, while trying to cross the front line near the village of Boratin, Lviv region, Kuznetsov's group ran into soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). During the battle with Ukrainian nationalists, Kuznetsov was killed (according to one version, he blew himself up with a grenade). He was buried in Lviv at the memorial cemetery "Hill of Glory".

Jan Chernyak

Yankel (original name) Chernyak was born in Chernivtsi in 1909, then still on the territory of Austria-Hungary. His father was a poor Jewish merchant, and his mother was Hungarian. During the First World War, his entire family perished in Jewish pogroms, and Yankel was brought up in an orphanage. He studied very well, even at school he mastered German, Romanian, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech and French, which he spoke without any accent by the age of twenty. After studying in Prague and Berlin, Cherniak received an engineering degree. In 1930, at the height of the economic crisis, he joined the German Communist Party, where he was recruited by Soviet intelligence, which operated under the guise of the Comintern. When Chernyak was drafted into the army, he was appointed as a clerk in an artillery regiment stationed in Romania.At first, he passed on information about the weapons systems of European armies to Soviet military intelligence, and four years later he became the main Soviet resident in this country. After the failure, he was evacuated to Moscow, where he entered the intelligence school of the Fourth (intelligence) Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. Only then did he learn Russian. Since 1935, Chernyak traveled to Switzerland as a TASS correspondent (operational pseudonym "Jen"). Regularly visiting Nazi Germany, in the second half of the 1930s, he managed to deploy a powerful intelligence network there, which received the code name "Krona". Subsequently, the German counterintelligence failed to uncover any of its agents. And now, out of 35 of its members, only two names are known (and there are still disputes about this) - this is Hitler's favorite actress Olga Chekhova (wife of the writer Anton Chekhov's nephew) and Goebbels' lover, the star of the film "The Girl of My Dreams", Marika Rekk .

Jan Chernyak.

In 1941, Chernyak's agents managed to obtain a copy of the Barbarossa plan, and in 1943, an operational plan for the German offensive near Kursk. Chernyak transferred to the USSR valuable technical information about the latest weapons of the German army. Since 1942, he also sent information to Moscow on atomic research in England, and in the spring of 1945 he was transferred to America, where he was planned to be included in the work on the US atomic project, but because of the betrayal of the cryptographer, Chernyak had to urgently return to the USSR. After that, he was almost not involved in operational work, he received the position of assistant to the GRU General Staff, and then a translator at TASS. Then he was transferred to a teaching job, and in 1969 he was quietly retired and forgotten.
Only in 1994 by Presidential Decree Russian Federation"for the courage and heroism shown in the performance of a special task" Chernyak was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. The decree was passed while the intelligence officer was in a coma in the hospital, and the award was presented to his wife. Two months later, on February 19, 1995, he died, never knowing that the Motherland remembered him.

Anatoly Gurevich

One of the future leaders of the "Red Chapel" was born in the family of a Kharkov pharmacist in 1913. Ten years later, the Gurevich family moved to Petrograd. After studying at school, Anatoly entered the Znamya Truda No. 2 plant as a metal marker apprentice, where he soon grew to be the head of the factory civil defense.

Then he entered the Intourist Institute and began to intensively study foreign languages. When, in 1936, Spain began Civil War, Gurevich went there as a volunteer, where he served as an interpreter for the senior Soviet adviser Grigory Stern.
In Spain, he was given documents in the name of Lieutenant of the Republican Navy Antonio Gonzalez. After returning to the USSR, Gurevich was sent to study at an intelligence school, after which, as a citizen of Uruguay, Vincent Sierra, he was sent to Brussels under the command of the GRU resident Leopold Trepper.

Anatoly Gurevich. Photo: from the family archive

Soon Trepper, because of his pronounced Jewish appearance, had to urgently leave Brussels, and the intelligence network - the "Red Chapel" - was headed by Anatoly Gurevich, who was given the pseudonym "Kent". In March 1940, he reported to Moscow about the impending attack by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union. In November 1942, the Germans arrested "Kent", he was personally interrogated by Gestapo chief Müller. During interrogations, he was not tortured or beaten. Gurevich was offered to participate in the radio game, and he agreed, because he knew how to communicate that his ciphers were under control. But the Chekists were so unprofessional that they did not even notice the prearranged signals. Gurevich did not betray anyone, the Gestapo did not even know his real name. In 1945, immediately after his arrival from Europe, Gurevich was arrested by SMERSH. At the Lubyanka, he was tortured and interrogated for 16 months. The head of SMERSH, General Abakumov, also participated in torture and interrogations. A special meeting at the Ministry of State Security of the USSR "for treason" sentenced Gurevich to 20 years in prison. Relatives were told that he "disappeared under circumstances that did not entitle him to benefits." Only in 1948 did Gurevich's father find out that his son was alive. The next 10 years of his life "Kent" spent in the Vorkuta and Mordovian camps.After his release, despite Gurevich's many years of appeals, he was regularly denied a review of the case and the restoration of his honest name. He lived in poverty in a small Leningrad apartment, and spent his tiny pension mainly on medicines. In July 1991, justice prevailed - the slandered and forgotten Soviet intelligence officer was completely rehabilitated. Gurevich died in St. Petersburg in January 2009.

The exploits of fighters and commanders, soldiers and officers of the Red Army, committed by them during the Great Patriotic War, are known to many, but the combat pages of the NKVD, the people's commissariat, turned by Russophobic propaganda into a bunch of executioners and sadists, these days often remain in the shadows.

Part 1. Lion hunter

The fate of Pavel Sudoplatov, a scout and saboteur, may well form the basis of an excellent movie. What? Judge for yourself.

Born in 1907 in a poor and large Melitopol family, inspired by Bukharin's book "The ABC of the Revolution", as a 12-year-old boy, Pavel dropped out of school and left his home, escaping along with an equestrian detachment passing through the city. The Red Army soldiers in those places fought with Ukrainian nationalists - the detachments of Petliura and Konovalets (with whom his life would later collide again).

The graduate of the regiment participated in the battles, was captured, fled, was homeless in Odessa, and after the capture of the city by the Reds, by 1921, he again found himself in the ranks of the Red Army. In the same 21st, as one of the few who can read and write, he falls into the detachment of the Special Department (previously ambushed and suffered heavy losses) as a cipher clerk. So the 14-year-old Pavel began his service in the state security organs, and at 15 he already went to the border troops. Further, Sudoplatov's career went up: from the 23rd year in the Komsomol work, from the 25th - in the Melitopol GPU, from the 28th - a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and an employee of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR. In the same period of his life, Sudoplatov married a girl from Gomel, Emma Kaganova (in fact, her name was Shulamith Krimker).

In 1932, Pavel was transferred to Moscow, and the following year he was sent to work in the Foreign Department of the GPU, where Sudoplatov, who was fluent in Ukrainian, was assigned to work against Ukrainian nationalists. There, the courier and illegal agent also quickly advanced in the service, the assignments became more and more serious - the intelligence officer was entrusted with the preparation of sabotage, intelligence operations, and the creation of intelligence networks. Pavel was classified, his reports were signed with the pseudonym "Andrey", and only his immediate leaders and immediate family knew about him.

Regularly traveling abroad, in 1935 he was able to infiltrate the environment of the leaders of the OUN in Berlin. Konovalets, already known to us, headed the Ukrainian nationalists. His plans included the capture of a number of regions of the Ukrainian SSR and the creation of an "independent" Ukraine, moreover, under the leadership of the Third Reich. The nationalists prepared combat detachments and terrorist groups.

Konovalets

"Befriended" with Konovalets Sudoplatov in 1938 received an order to eliminate the main nationalist. To do this, they made a bomb, disguised as a box of chocolates beloved by Konovalets. When the nationalist was finished, a split occurred in the ranks of the OUN - Bandera and Melnik (Konovalets's successor) fought among themselves, and Sudoplatov, under the guise of a Polish volunteer, went to Spain. There, in the ranks of the international partisan detachment, he met Ramon Mercader del Rio.

Returning to Moscow, Pavel met with Beria, to whom he reported on the results of the liquidation of the OUN leader and continued to work in the NKVD. challenge to Stalin.

The leader instructed Sudoplatov to prepare an operation to eliminate Trotsky, who had settled in Mexico, Beria had to report personally, and Pavel himself was appointed deputy intelligence chief, giving the broadest authority to recruit a group of militants.

To help himself, Sudoplatov took an experienced saboteur Naum Eitingon. Nickname in the Cheka - Leonid. It was he who recruited people familiar from the war in Spain who could infiltrate Trotsky's entourage. Lev Davidovich, by the way, by that time had developed a violent activity: he tried with might and main to split and incite the world communist movement against Stalin, collaborated with the Abwehr and helped organize a rebellion against the republican government in Barcelona.

Taki Trotsky

The operation to eliminate Trotsky was called the "Duck", although Sudoplatov himself called it the "Lion Hunt". Eitingon created 2 groups - "Horse" and "Mother". The first was led by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of the founders of the Spanish Communist Party, and the second by the former anarchist Caridad Mercader. Both groups were unaware of each other's existence.

The first assassination attempt, led by Siqueiros, turned out to be unsuccessful - the fighters who recruited a security guard named Hart (US citizen), in military and police uniforms, broke into the courtyard of Trotsky's house and opened fire on the bedroom. They shelled the room for 15 minutes, but neither Trotsky nor his wife were hurt. The only result of the assassination attempt was a scratch on the leg of Trotsky's grandson, who was sleeping in the next room, and the only victim was a recruited guard who was killed for conspiracy. Trotsky himself never found out about Hart's role in the assassination, so a memorial plaque appeared on the guard's house: "In memory of Robert Sheldon Hart, 1915-1940, killed by Stalin."

Siqueiros

Sudoplatov analyzed the operation: the reason for the failure was called poor preparation. The members of the Siqueiros group who fought in Spain had neither experience in special operations, nor experience in searching and cleaning buildings. In general, Beria was furious, Eitingon announced his readiness to be punished, and Stalin ordered the use of the second group. Trotsky, too, wasted no time in fortifying the house and strengthening the guards. Members of the Horse group were arrested, but Siqueiros, although he admitted his guilt, stated that the attack had one purpose: to exert psychological pressure and force Trotsky to leave Mexico.

In the second group, an important role was assigned to the son of her leader, Ramon Mercader, already familiar to Sudoplatov. Back in 1938, he met in Paris the sister of an employee of Trotsky's secretariat, a resident of New York, Sylvia Ageloff. Relations began between them, the matter was approaching marriage ... It is worth noting here that Mercader posed as the Belgian Jacques Montrard, a wealthy heir, the son of the Belgian consul in Tehran. In 1939, under the name of Frank Jackson, with a fake Canadian passport, he arrived in New York. He told Sylvia that in this way he “mows down” from the army. A little later, Ramon moved to Mexico, where he was waiting for his bride. She came to her lover, thanks to her sister got a job in Trotsky's secretariat, and Mercader, playing the role of a staunch Trotskyist, got access to the estate of the future victim ...

On August 20, 1940, Mercader remained in Trotsky's office, inviting him to read his article. Deep in reading, he did not notice how the saboteur took out an ice pick from under his cloak. The blow fell on the back of the head, but Trotsky not only did not die immediately, but also managed to utter a cry ... Mercader was arrested and declared personal hostility to be the motive for the murder. He managed to hide his name for 6 years, and Ramon was released only in 1960. Then, during a visit to the USSR, Mercader received the Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Sudoplatov, in addition to leading the assassination of Trotsky, continued to engage in intelligence - he traveled under the guise of an "adviser to Molotov" to Latvia, participated in the operation to annex Western Ukraine ...

Part 2. In defense of the Fatherland

Among the awards of Pavel Sudoplatov is the Order of Suvorov II degree. It was awarded to the commanders of corps, divisions and brigades, their deputies and chiefs of staff:

For organizing a battle to defeat an enemy corps or division, achieved with lesser forces, as a result of a sudden and decisive attack based on the full interaction of fire weapons, equipment and manpower;

For breaking through a modern defensive line of the enemy, developing a breakthrough and organizing relentless pursuit, encirclement and destruction of the enemy;

For organizing a battle while surrounded by numerically superior enemy forces, exiting this encirclement and maintaining the combat capability of their units, their weapons and equipment;

For a deep raid behind enemy lines carried out by an armored formation, as a result of which a sensitive blow was inflicted on the enemy, ensuring the successful completion of an army operation.

Commander's award, so to speak. Sudoplatov, it seems, was not a commander. Or?..

On June 16, 41, Pavel Anatolyevich received a call: “Beria, having called me to his place, gave the order to organize a special group from among the intelligence officers under his direct subordination. She was supposed to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage actions in case of war. AT this moment our first task was to create a strike group from among experienced saboteurs capable of resisting any attempt to use provocative incidents on the border as a pretext for starting a war, ”Sudoplatov wrote in his book Intelligence and the Kremlin.

Nahum Eitingon

Naum Eitingon became Sudoplatov's deputy, his task was to provide communication between the fighters of the group and the military command. Both security officers developed plans for the destruction of fuel depots that supplied the German motorized tank units, which had already begun to concentrate at our borders, but a conversation with General Pavlov, commander of the Western Special Military District, which took place on June 20, showed a terrible thing: the general was little interested in the situation on the border and he confidently declared that even if the Germans suddenly attacked, there would be no problems. On June 22, when equipment not even prepared for battle fell into the hands of the treacherously attacking Germans and their European allies, it turned out that Pavlov's assessments were very far from reality. By the way, on June 18, a directive was sent to the troops to bring them to full combat readiness, which this very general, as well as his subordinates, was tritely ignored. You already know the price of such arbitrariness ...

But the border guards subordinate to the NKVD, as you know, held out to the last. Like many commanders and soldiers of the Red Army, cut off from command.

On the very first day of the War, the relevance of sabotage work in the German rear, into which the Soviet territory was rapidly turning, increased a thousandfold. Sudoplatov began to manage this work, but the documentation appeared later - only on July 5, when the Special Group was officially created, on the basis of the First (Intelligence) Directorate of the NKVD. In addition to sabotage, the group had to deal with the opening of enemy intelligence networks, the extraction of intelligence, radio games and misinformation of the enemy.

“We needed a huge number of people, thousands and thousands. No states of the NKGB could stand it. So the idea arose to create a special military unit, which would have to deal exclusively with reconnaissance and sabotage work, ”the scout recalled. Where to get footage? Experienced Chekists recalled from retirement, from prisons, a recruitment of volunteers began. More than 800 athletes got into the group - without exaggeration, the whole color of Soviet sports: football players, runners, weightlifters, boxers, shooters ... Among them, for example, the Znamensky brothers runners or the famous boxer Nikolai Korolev. As a result, the group included ... 25 thousand people! This is how a separate motorized rifle brigade for special purposes (OMSBON) appeared - a real special forces of the NKVD.

From Sudoplatov's book "Special Operations": "Under our command we had more than twenty-five thousand soldiers and commanders, of which two thousand were foreigners - Germans, Austrians, Spaniards, Americans, Chinese, Vietnamese, Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians and Romanians."

Some statistics of the combat work of the Brigade:

derailed 1415 enemy echelons;

more than 120 garrisons, commandant's offices and headquarters were defeated;

more than 90 km of rail tracks were blown up;

about 700 km of telephone and telegraph cable were destroyed;

335 railway and highway bridges were blown up and burned down;

344 industrial enterprises and warehouses were destroyed;

liquidated 87 high-ranking German officials;

exposed and neutralized 2045 enemy intelligence groups;

in more than a thousand open battles with punishers, parts of the Wehrmacht and the SS, more than 150 thousand fascists were destroyed;

27 people were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

The fighters of the brigade accounted for the legendary operations "Concert", "Rail War", "Citadel" ... Not a single Soviet military formation was so effective.

Partisan commander Dmitry Medvedev

It is worth noting that Sudoplatov himself did not "sit out" in Moscow. So, in the summer of the 42nd, a scout gathered a group of climbers in a day and went with them to the Caucasus: to defend the passes and carry out sabotage. The Germans never got the Caucasian oil, and when the group retreated, Pavel Anatolyevich was in the cover detachment ...

But we will return to the Order of Suvorov.

Naturally, German intelligence did not sit still and, of course, actively tried to obtain the most accurate and truthful information about the plans of the Soviet command. Naturally, there was a need to prevent this. Operation "Monastery" was developed, in which the main role belonged to the intelligence officer Alexander Demyanov, and the leadership was Sudoplatov. Coming from the nobility, Demyanov already had contacts with the Germans, and he was taught radio and encryption by none other than Abel himself ...

Alexander Demyanov on the right

In general, at the end of the 41st, Demyanov crossed the front line and spoke about the underground church-monarchist anti-Soviet organization Throne, of which he was a representative, and even was sent just to communicate with the German command. The intelligence officer withstood constant interrogations, checks, the Germans even decided to "shoot" him. German intelligence decided to use the "anti-Soviet" and sent him to study at the Abwehr school, assigned the pseudonym "Max", and already in March 42 sent him to the territory of the USSR. After 2 weeks, the first "disinformation" went to Germany ... In addition to the constant misinformation of the Germans, the operation had other, "side" effects - German agents, saboteurs and liaisons were arrested - about 60 people. At the "Monastery" they also "earned" several million Soviet rubles received from the Germans!

How important was Operation Monastery? Sudoplatov wrote: “On November 4, 1942, “Heine” (“Max”) informed the Abwehr that the Red Army would strike on November 15 not near Stalingrad, but in the North Caucasus and near Rzhev. The Germans expected a blow near Rzhev and repelled it. The encirclement and capture of a group of German troops under the command of Field Marshal Paulus near Stalingrad turned out to be a complete surprise for them, which, ultimately, opened the way for the Red Army to defeat Nazi Germany in May 1945."

It was after Stalingrad that Suvorov, together with Eitingon, received the Order of Suvorov. Well, why not a commander?

And the Germans greatly appreciated Demyanov and even awarded him the Iron Cross ... The Soviet command did not leave the intelligence officer without awards either: he was awarded the Order of the Red Star for Stalingrad ...

Information from "Max" came to the Abwehr until the summer of 1944, when Demyanov was "transferred" from the General Staff to the railway troops, and instead of the "Monastery" operation "Borodino" began. Both radio games were never discovered by German intelligence. The degree of secrecy was such that even Zhukov did not know about the radio game, and in 1943 Churchill warned Stalin about a “mole” working for the Germans in the Soviet General Staff.

Not only against the Germans...

The amount of work placed on the shoulders of Sudoplatov was simply enormous. In 1944, he was assigned to obtain information on the Manhattan Project, the development of the American atomic bomb. The work was organized so successfully that Stalin received the test results almost before Roosevelt ...

RDS-1

The information obtained by Sudoplatov's agents made it possible to greatly speed up the interrupted by the war work on the creation of our nuclear "club".

The contribution of Pavel Anatolyevich to our Victory, as well as to the further security of the USSR, cannot be overestimated, but Khrushchev managed to answer the intelligence officer with terrible ingratitude.

Part 3. "Gratitude"

Again against the nationalists

It so happened that the fate of Sudoplatov made a kind of loop and Pavel Anatolyevich was again instructed to fight the Ukrainian nationalists, who were enough after the Great Patriotic War in Western Ukraine. Having gone through the war on the side of the enemy, they did not at all strive to become normal Soviet citizens. And in general...

Only peaceful Ukrainians at the hands of nationalists killed about half a million. And more than 400 thousand Soviet prisoners of war, 220 thousand Poles and 850 thousand Jews. Well, about 5 thousand of their own, not enough Svidomo, were killed. All this was done with the blessing of the Uniate Church, which absolved all the sins of Bandera and prayed in honor of the "invincible German army and its chief leader, Adolf Hitler." It makes no sense to paint the “charitable” deeds of these child-killers, rapists who enthusiastically “fought” with civilians. Suffice it to mention that Khatyn is their handiwork. And it's far from the only thing. By the way, some of the UPA units were led by Uniate priests.

Here is such a "struggle" for "independence".

And after the War, Bandera did not calm down: they robbed, raped, killed ... For example, in the village of Svatovo, near Lvov, 4 young teachers were tortured and killed. Only because they were from the Donbass. I don't know what exactly they did to these girls, but the fate of another teacher, Raisa Borzilo, is well known. She was accused of promoting Soviet power, at first threatened, and then they moved from words to deeds: on December 1, 1945, a young Komsomol member (and she was born in 1924) was seized. The last hours of her life were spent in complete darkness: the girl's eyes were burned out, her tongue was cut off, a five-pointed star was carved on her body, mockingly, then they put a wire loop around her neck and, still alive, tied her to a horse, went for a ride across the field.

Is there no fascism in Ukraine?

And now let's remember May 2, 2014 in Odessa, terror against Russians in Donbass, weddings and other celebrations in German uniforms.

After the Great Patriotic War, about 80 thousand more civilians were killed by Bandera.

Naturally, it was necessary to fight these well-organized and armed non-humans. They were led by Roman Shukhevych, now glorified in Ukraine, aka "General Taras Chuprinka." Here are his words: “The OUN must act in such a way that everyone who recognizes Soviet power, were destroyed. Do not intimidate, but physically destroy! There is no need to be afraid that people will curse us for cruelty. Let half of the 40 million Ukrainian population remain - there is nothing wrong with that ... ". This character, recruited very, very distinguished himself during the war with his atrocities, cruelty, love of torture. He was also one of the authors and executors of the "method" of massacres: the population of the villages was herded into one place, after which mass extermination began. Then the dead fell into pits, covered with earth, and bonfires were lit on mass graves. In just two days, on August 29 and 30 on August 43, Shukhevych's Bandera killed 15 thousand women, old people and children ... By the way, "Chuprinka" was recruited by the Germans back in the 26th year ...

child killer and rapist, hero of Ukraine, Shukhevych

The Chekists took up the fight against the nationalists who remained in the rear of the Red Army in 1944. The activity was aimed at searching for the leaders and destroying the militants, but there were clearly not enough forces, and the number of caches and some kind of support from the locals helped the Bandera people to continue doing black things. Uniate priests also helped them.

In 1949, Stalin instructed Sudoplatov to put an end to nationalist lawlessness: “Comrade Stalin, according to him, is extremely dissatisfied with the work of the security agencies in combating banditry in Western Ukraine. In this regard, I was ordered to focus on the search for the leaders of the Bandera underground and their liquidation. It was said in an unquestioning tone." Sudoplatov went to Lvov.

good bandera - dead bandera

The undercover work began again, the collection of information again. Developed Uniate priests. They were looking for ways to contact Shukhevych's confidants, his mistresses. As a result, they managed to detain Chuprynka's contact Darina Gusyak, who gave false information during interrogation and constantly complained about feeling unwell. She was sent to the infirmary, where there was a “beaten” woman smeared with brilliant green. This woman turned out to be the agent "Rose" - a former nationalist, caught and recruited by the Chekists. She was able to ingratiate herself with Gusyak and she told where to look for Shukhevych.

By the way, Gusyak survived to this day, still talks about terrible torture who worked on her "curse the Muscovites" in order to get information. The new Ukrainian authorities do not forget about the old woman and even reward her.

Prisoner #8

On March 5, 1953 Joseph Stalin died. On June 26, Beria is arrested on charges of treason. Maybe that's when they get killed. On August 21, 1953, on charges of conspiracy, Lieutenant-General Pavel Sudoplatov was arrested in his own office. He was accused of wanting to overthrow the Soviet government and "restore capitalism", accused of creating a special group to destroy the objectionable.

In fact, Khrushchev simply eliminated competitors and witnesses. According to the memoirs of Pavel Anatolyevich, a very curious episode took place: after the annexation of Western Ukraine, Nikita Sergeevich insisted on the resettlement of young people in Siberia and the Far East. Sudoplatov opposed and Stalin listened to his opinion. There were also documents signed by Khrushchev and the head of state security of the Ukrainian SSR Savchenko, speaking of the need for mass repressions in Ukraine.

To avoid interrogations and interfere with the investigation, Sudoplatov decided to resort to a trick that his mentor Sergei Shpigelglas had once taught him: he stopped answering questions and began to starve, eventually falling into prostration. Doctors were forced to declare him unfit for interrogation and place him in a hospital.

Sudoplatov's wife, Emma Kaganova, was able to figure out how to pass information to her husband. The nurse she recruited brought books wrapped in newspapers or old letters. From the newspapers, the intelligence officer learned that Beria and six more of his associates were shot, from a letter with the text “the old man was exposed at a general meeting of collective farmers, accountants do not feel well, the conditions at the company are still the same, but there is enough money to continue everything and further” he learned about the exposure of Stalin's personality cult.

When the news came about the resignation of Molotov and Kaganovich (1957), Sudoplatov decided that it was time to act and decided to stop the simulation of madness. In 1958, a trial took place and the general was sentenced to 15 years, sent to the Vladimir Central. The scout was released on August 21, 1968, blind in one eye, crippled and survived several heart attacks.

Even in prison, he wrote letters, where he developed methods of countering enemy sabotage groups, after imprisonment he worked as a translator, under his old operational pseudonym "Andrey", remaining faithful to the Motherland and not blaming the state for his troubles.

By the way, after the overthrow of Khrushchev, Brezhnev was asked to reconsider the case, but he refused.

Why exactly he managed to survive, Sudoplatov himself did not know. Being the eighth number on the list of those arrested for the "Beria conspiracy", he did not share the fate - execution - with the first seven.

A child of his tough and cruel time, he turned out to be much nobler and more honest than those who rushed to power, who arrested and tortured him, did not change his oath, and even behind bars tried to benefit the Motherland.

The scout was rehabilitated only in 1992, and he died in 1996. The awards and title were returned to Pavel Anatolyevich only a year later.

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The activities of illegal intelligence officers, for objective and understandable reasons, have always been surrounded by a dense veil of secrecy. If you tell everyone and everyone about illegal immigrants and their methods of work, then what kind of illegal immigrants are they? Moreover, illegal intelligence, according to the unanimous opinion of historians of special services, is the holy of holies of intelligence activities in any country in the world, and therefore candidates for work in it are selected especially carefully, relying on people with special qualities.

HARD SELECTION

“We are looking for and finding candidates ourselves, sorting through hundreds and hundreds of people. The work is really piecemeal. To become an illegal immigrant, a person must have many qualities: courage, purposefulness, strong will, the ability to quickly predict various situations, resistance to stress, excellent ability to master foreign languages, good adaptation to completely new living conditions, knowledge of one or more professions that make it possible earn a living,” we read in the introduction to the book in question, the words former first Deputy Chief of Foreign Intelligence, Lieutenant-General Vadim Kirpichenko, who for a number of years had been the head of the illegal division of domestic foreign intelligence.

At the same time, preparing an illegal intelligence officer, as well as providing him with reliable documents and then taking him abroad, as the intelligence officers say, to perform special tasks, is a matter of exceptional complexity.

“The training of an illegal intelligence officer is very laborious and takes several years. It is aimed at forming professional skills and abilities on the basis of the existing personal qualities of an employee,” Vladimir Antonov quotes the words of another well-known head of domestic illegal intelligence, Major General Yuri Drozdov, who was directly involved in the development and implementation of the William Fisher (Rudolf Abel). - Of course, it includes mastering foreign languages, psychological training of a scout, which, in particular, allows him to act as a representative of a particular nationality, a bearer of certain national and cultural characteristics. Of course, this also includes operational training, which includes developing the skills to receive and analyze intelligence information, maintain contact with the Center, and other aspects. An illegal intelligence agent is a person capable of obtaining intelligence information, including through analytical means.”

However, the complexity of training an illegal intelligence agent is more than compensated for by the immeasurable practical benefits that he brings to his country, especially during a period of political or military confrontation. That is why domestic foreign intelligence has always given increased attention to conducting intelligence activities from illegal positions.

“For almost a century now, this legendary unit has been making a special, its own, sometimes invaluable contribution to ensuring state security, to protecting the interests of the Fatherland,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking last year at a gala event at the headquarters of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on the occasion of 95th anniversary of the creation of its illegal administration. - Our country had to go through many trials, and always illegal intelligence officers were, as they say, "on the front line." More than once, it was their decisive actions, the information obtained, the subtly carried out operations that literally changed the course of history, made it possible to protect our people from threats, to preserve peace.

However, due to the nature of the work this department which is bearing fruit in providing national security Russia, we do not always learn about what certain illegal intelligence agents have done for our country. We can safely say that we do not even know the vast majority of them. And this is justified - otherwise what kind of illegal immigrant is this, which everyone knows about. The more valuable are rare articles, books and films about these heroes - fighters of the invisible front. One of these works is a unique book by one of the longtime authors of NVO, a veteran of the state security agencies, retired colonel Vladimir Sergeevich Antonov, about the legendary Soviet illegal intelligence officer Konon Trofimovich Molodoy, which was recently published in the Life of Remarkable People series.

The biography of the future legend of the Soviet foreign intelligence is a real cut of the history of our country in the 20th century, full of grandiose accomplishments and irreparable tragedies. Konon Trofimovich was born on January 17, 1922 in Moscow in a family of scientists: father - Trofim Kononovich - teacher at Moscow State University and Moscow Higher Technical School, head of the department of scientific periodicals of the State Publishing House, and mother - Evdokia Konstantinovna - general surgeon, during the Great Patriotic War - leading surgeon evacuation hospital, and after the Victory - professor at the Central Research Institute of Prosthetics, author of many scientific papers.

The first period of the life of the future illegal intelligence officer largely passed like that of his other peers. The exception was perhaps a trip to the United States to his mother's sister, where he lived from 1932 to 1938. By the way, the episode with the departure to the United States, in which the omnipotent Heinrich Yagoda, who then held the post of deputy chairman of the OGPU, took an active part, is one of the mysteries that have not been fully revealed in the life of Konon the Young. Upon returning to Moscow, he studied, graduated from school and was drafted into the army in October 1940. So, probably, life would have gone on, as they say, of an ordinary Soviet guy (although, no doubt, very gifted): he would have returned from the army, graduated from a civilian university and would probably have become a famous scientist or a first-class specialist in some branches of science. But then the war broke out...

Konon the Young ended up in the Western Military District, in the reconnaissance artillery battalion, and in the first months of the war he took part in many difficult battles, including Smolensk and the battles near Vyazma and Rzhev. “I was in the very first link of army intelligence, which operates directly on the front line,” the future illegal intelligence officer later pointed out in the book “My profession is a scout.” - Take the "language", reconnoiter the location of the firing points - such tasks were set for the soldiers of the unit in which I served.

At the same time, Konon Trofimovich went from private to officer, assistant chief of staff in the unit. And how he carried out the tasks entrusted to him and led his subordinates is evidenced by a photograph of the young lieutenant Molodoy. It shows that the hero’s chest is decorated with the Order of the Red Star, two Orders of the Patriotic War of I and II degrees and two medals (by the way, many of the photographs given in Vladimir Antonov’s book are published for the first time).

Having gone into the army as a boy, Konon the Young returned home after the Victory as a wise front-line soldier, matured and matured. “Perhaps it was during the war years that he developed a taste for intelligence, adventurism, without which a person cannot choose this profession,” Trofim Molody later recalled about his father.

FROM SCOUT TO SCOUT

After the war - demobilization, study at the Moscow Institute foreign trade, and since December 1951 - work in the state security agencies, in foreign intelligence. Three years later, he is already in Canada, where he was illegally taken out, and from there, with documents in the name of Canadian businessman Gordon Lonsdale, he moves to the UK, where he heads the illegal residency. Then - many years of fruitful work, but in 1961 - the arrest, which became possible due to the betrayal of a high-ranking employee of the Polish foreign intelligence, Colonel Mikhail Golenevsky, and a sentence of 25 years in prison. However, in 1964, Conon the Young was exchanged for the British intelligence officer Greville Wien and then worked in the central apparatus of foreign intelligence.

Learn more about all stages of life and professional activity Konon the Young reader and can learn from the presented book by Vladimir Antonov.

At the same time, it should be especially noted that there are two very voluminous appendices in the book, in which brief information about the chiefs of Soviet foreign intelligence during the period of Konon the Young's work in it, as well as information about his fighting friends and associates. Among the latter are the legends of domestic foreign intelligence Ashot Akopyan, George Blake, Iosif Grigulevich, Vasily Dozhdalev, Leonid Kvasnikov, Leonid Kolosov, Nikolai Korznikov, Alexander Korotkov, Vitaly Pavlov, Semyon Semenov, Yuri Sokolov and William Fisher. Behind each of these names are years of hard work in the field of foreign intelligence, associated with the solution of the most difficult tasks in the interests of the national security of our state.

The well-known Russian writer Teodor Gladkov, in his book The King of Illegals, dedicated to the famous Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Korotkov, who unofficially received the title of “King of illegal immigrants,” wrote: “If you ask ten random passers-by on the street what they think of the intelligence officer, nine will be named as an example illegal ... And this is not accidental, but natural. Since it is in the illegal immigrant that all the general and specific features inherent in the intelligence profession are concentrated to the greatest extent.

One of these legendary illegal intelligence officers is Colonel Konon Trofimovich Molody, about whose bright and rich in unique events life and work (within the limits of what is permitted, of course, since many episodes of the intelligence officer’s biography will remain classified as “secret” for a long time) we can read in the new book by Vladimir Antonov, one of the best authors of NVO, who tells on the pages of our weekly about well-known or little-known to a wide range of readers Russian foreign intelligence officers who gave all their strength for the good of the Motherland.

World War II began for the anti-aircraft gunner, non-commissioned officer Alexei Botyan on September 1, 1939. He was born on February 10, 1917, back in Russian Empire, but in March 1921 his small homeland - the village of Chertovichi, Vilna province - went to Poland. So the Belarusian Botyan became a Polish citizen.

His calculation managed to shoot down three German " Junkers when Poland ceased to exist as a geopolitical entity. The native village of Botyan became Soviet territory, Alexei also became a citizen of the USSR.

In 1940 on a modest teacher elementary school drew the attention of the NKVD. Speaking Polish as a native, a former non-commissioned officer "pilsudchik"... no, he is not shot as an enemy of the working people, but quite the opposite: he is accepted into an intelligence school, and in July 1941 he is enrolled in the OMSBON of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. So for Alexei Botyan began new war, which ended only in 1983 - retirement.

Many details of this war, for the exploits in which he was presented three times to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, are still secret. But individual well-known episodes say a lot about this person.

For the first time he was in the German rear in November 1941 near Moscow, becoming the commander of a reconnaissance and sabotage group. In 1942, he was sent to the rear of the enemy, to the regions of Western Ukraine and Belarus.

Under his leadership, a major sabotage is being carried out: on September 9, 1943, the Nazi gebitskommissariat was blown up in Ovruch, Zhytomyr region, and 80 Nazi officers were killed in the explosion, including the gebitskommissar Wenzel and the head of the local anti-partisan center Siebert. 140 kilograms of explosives, along with meals, were dragged to Yakov Kaplyuka, the supply manager of the Gebietskommissariat, by his wife Maria. To insure against searches at the entrance, she always took with her the two smallest of her four children.

After this operation, the Kaplyuki were taken out into the forest, and Botyan was first introduced to the Hero - but received the Order of the Red Banner.

At the beginning of 1944, the detachment received an order to move to Poland.

It must be recalled: if on Ukrainian soil the Soviet partisans had problems with Bandera, which had to be solved sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by weapons, then three different anti-Nazi forces acted on Polish soil: the Krayova Army (“ akovtsy", formally subordinate to the emigrant government), the People's Army (" alovtsy”, supported by the Soviet Union) and the rather independent Khlopsky Battalions - that is, peasant ones. The ability to find a common language with everyone was required for the successful solution of the tasks at hand, and Botyan succeeded superbly.

On May 1, 1944, a group of 28 people headed by Botyan is heading to the outskirts of Krakow. On the way on the night of May 14-15, together with the AL unit, Botyan's detachment takes part in the capture of the city of Ilzha and frees a large group of arrested underground workers.

On January 10, 1945, in a blown up headquarters car, one of the Soviet reconnaissance groups operating in the Krakow region found a briefcase with secret documents on mining objects in Krakow and the neighboring town of Nowy Sanch. Botyan's group captured a cartographic engineer, a Czech by nationality, who reported that the Germans were storing a strategic stock of explosives in the Royal (Jagiellonian) castle in Nowy Sącz.

The scouts went to the warehouse of Major Ogarek of the Wehrmacht. After talking with Botyan, he hired another Pole, who carried an hour mine embedded in boots into the warehouse. On January 18, the warehouse exploded; more than 400 Nazis died and were wounded. On January 20, Konev's troops entered practically the whole of Krakow, and Botyan went to the second presentation to the Hero. (Subsequently, Botyan became one of the prototypes " Major Whirlwind from the novel of the same name by Yulian Semyonov and a TV movie based on his script.)

After the war, Alexei Botyan becomes the Czech Leo Dvorak (he did not know the Czech language; he had to master it vigorously " immersion method", fortunately, his legend explained the poor possession of" relatives» language) and graduated from a higher technical school in Czechoslovakia. There, by the way, he met a girl who became his faithful life partner - not yet knowing about the multi-layered life of Pan Dvorak.

The post-war activity of the intelligence officer is covered with an understandable fog. According to open information from the SVR and avaricious (“ permitted”) according to Botyan’s stories, he performed special tasks in Germany and other countries, worked in the central office of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, participated in the creation of a group special purpose KGB of the USSR Pennant". And after his resignation, already as a civilian specialist, he helped prepare for another six years " young professionals».

Aleksey Botyan was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner, the Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, high Polish and Czechoslovak awards. In post-Soviet Russia, he was awarded the Order of Courage, and in 2007 President Putin presented him with a gold star of the Hero of Russia.

Simultaneous game session with cadets of the Vympel Military Patriotic Club, 20.02.2010.

Alexey Botyan still surprises everyone who knows him with his cheerfulness and optimism. He plays chess superbly, works out on an exercise bike, remembers the details of his eventful life to the smallest detail (but, of course, does not talk about what cannot be told). He is proud of the fact that for the entire time of "work" he was only once scratched on the temple by an enemy bullet - without even leaving a scar.

Yesterday the Scout Hero turned ninety-five.

Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan was born on February 17, 1924 in Rostov-on-Don in the family of Andrey Vasilyevich Vartanyan, an Iranian citizen, director of an oil mill.

In 1930, when Gevork was six years old, the family left for Iran. His father was connected with the Soviet foreign intelligence and left the USSR on her instructions. Under the guise of commercial activities, Andrei Vasilievich conducted active intelligence work. It was under the influence of his father that Gevork became a scout.

Gevork Vartanyan connected his fate with Soviet intelligence at the age of 16, when in February 1940 he established direct contact with the NKVD station in Tehran. On behalf of the resident, Gevork led a special group to identify fascist agents and German intelligence agents in Tehran and other Iranian cities. In just two years, his group identified about 400 people, one way or another connected with German intelligence.

In 1942, "Amir" (the operational pseudonym of Gevork Vartanyan) had to carry out a special reconnaissance mission. Despite the fact that Great Britain was an ally of the USSR in anti-Hitler coalition, this did not prevent the British from conducting subversive work against the USSR. The British created an intelligence school in Tehran, which recruited young people with knowledge of the Russian language for their subsequent transfer with intelligence missions to the territory of the Soviet republics Central Asia and Transcaucasia. On the instructions of the Center, "Amir" infiltrated the intelligence school and completed a full course of study there. The Tehran residency received detailed information about the school itself and its cadets. Abandoned on the territory of the USSR "graduates" of the school were neutralized or re-recruited and worked "under the hood" of the Soviet counterintelligence.

"Amir" took an active part in ensuring the security of the leaders of the "Big Three" during the work of the Tehran Conference in November-December 1943. In 1951 he was brought to the USSR and graduated from the faculty foreign languages Yerevan University.

This was followed by many years of work as an illegal intelligence agent in extreme conditions and difficult situations in various countries of the world. Always next to Gevork Andreevich was his wife Gohar, who had come a long way in intelligence with him, an illegal intelligence officer, holder of the Order of the Red Banner and many other awards.

The Vartanyans' business trip abroad lasted more than 30 years.

The scouts returned from their last trip in the fall of 1986. A few months later, Goar Levonovna retired, and Gevork Andreevich continued to serve until 1992. Gevork Andreyevich Vartanyan's services in intelligence activities were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, many orders and medals, as well as the highest departmental awards.

Despite the fact that Colonel Vartanyan was retired, he continued to work actively in the Foreign Intelligence Service: he met with young employees of various foreign intelligence units, to whom he passed on his rich operational experience.

To the 80th anniversary of the legendary Soviet spy In the Moscow Art Gallery of A. Shilov, People's Artist of the USSR Alexander Shilov presented a portrait of the Hero of the Soviet Union Gevork Vartanyan.

Check out the second series.
The main characters of the film "True Story. Tehran-43" are a married couple, illegal intelligence officers Gevork and Gohar Vartanyan. In the film, the intelligence officers themselves tell about the events in Tehran in 1943. The plot of the film is based on a unique intelligence operation carried out by the Soviet foreign intelligence and prevented the assassination of the leaders of the three powers, members of the anti-Hitler coalition - Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Tehran conference in 1943. By genre, the film "True Story. Tehran-43" - docudrama. The film contains large episodes played by actors, and there is a chronicle and a documentary part, where the Vartanyans comment on the events of those distant days. Sixteen-year-old Gevork Vartanyan receives from I. I. Agayants, a resident of Soviet intelligence in Tehran, the task of creating a small detachment of 6-7 people from his friends and voluntary assistants to identify German agents in Tehran. Gevorg Vartanyan is gathering his team. Among them is a sixteen-year-old Armenian girl Gohar. Between Gevork and Gohar, friendship first arises, and then love. From 1940 to 1945, Vartanyan's group discovered more than 400 German agents in Iran. Service in Iran, which lasted from 1940 to 1951, became the most important stage of life for Vartanyan and his wife. This is the only "page" of their undercover activity, about which one can speak openly so far.