UNVEILED HISTORY

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“Editor” Vasyl Mudryi and His “Dilo”

The list of those whom the NKVD wanted to recruit in the 1930s included Vasyl Mudryi, the then Head of the Ukrainian National Democratic Union, the most powerful western Ukrainian parliamentary party, and the Editor-in-Chief of the oldest Ukrainian Galician newspaper, “Dilo”. The declassified documents from the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, which supplement the already known facts about the eventful life and work of Vasyl Mudryi (March 19, 1893 – March 19, 1966), tell us why the chekists wanted to have talented journalists, speakers, and members of foreign parliaments in their specific propaganda arsenal.
3/19/2024
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To Track Down Roman Shukhevych. The mgb’s Unsuccessful Attempt

In the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, documents were found about a little-known operation of the ussr mgb related to the attempt to find out the whereabouts of the UPA Commander-in-Chief Roman Shukhevych in 1948-1949. In order to achieve this goal, the chekists involved the state security agencies of the Polish People's Republic, made a series of arrests in Poland and in the Ukrainian ssr, and resorted to their usual practice of persuading couriers sent by the OUN leadership to Ukraine on a special mission to the rebel leader to cooperate.
3/5/2024
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Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine. Support from Overseas

After the Second World War, some representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA came to the conclusion that the world’s attention to the Ukrainian issue was decreasing, and therefore the support for the liberation struggle for Ukraine’s independence was decreasing. In order to somehow change the situation, the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine (ODFFU) was created. Immediately, this information came to the attention of the mgb of the ussr and became the reason for a new operational cultivation. The greatest concern, as evidenced by declassified documents, was the program provisions of the Organization, which emphasized the threat posed by moscow's policy not only to the Ukrainian nation, but to the entire civilized world. The first mentions of the new émigré organization are found in the mgb’s case against Yevhen Liakhovych, which is kept in the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine. In a document from moscow, addressed to the chief of the first directorate (foreign intelligence) of the mgb of the Ukrainian ssr Mykola Pohribnyi, it was reported that in the United States there was a meeting of Ukrainian nationalists who announced the formation of the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine.
3/1/2024
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Danylo Skoropadskyi. The “Knave” in the ussr mgb’s Deck of Cards

February 13 marks 120 years since the birth of Danylo Skoropadskyi. Archival documents of soviet special services paid much less attention to him than to his father – Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi. At the same time, declassified documents show that having headed the Hetmanite movement, he also caused a lot of trouble to the chekists.
2/13/2024
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Osyp Boidunyk. A Constant Participant in the OUN Congresses

It is the 95th anniversary since the proclamation of the OUN at the First Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, held in Vienna on January 28 – February 3, 1929. Osyp Boidunyk was a participant in that historical event, and then in all further Congresses of the OUN, which took place during his lifetime. In declassified documents of the Intelligence’s archives, he is mentioned under the codename “Yaryi”. Almost all the participants of the first Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists (there were 30 of them) including two guests, were in operational cultivation by the ogpu of the ussr. The greatest attention was paid to Yevhen Konovalets, Dmytro Andriyevskyi, Mykola Kapustianskyi, Stepan Lenkavskyi, Mykola Stsiborskyi. The chekists were interested in the OUN programs, structure, leadership’s composition, goals, network, who was responsible for what direction of work, characteristics of the members, relations between them, on what to play to cause personal conflicts, to split, to compromise. Therefore, they opened dossiers in which all the necessary information was accumulated.
1/29/2024
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Intelligence in the Structure of the UPA Security Service

In the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, materials have been found that testify about the national liberation movement leaders’ thorough approach to the organization and implementation of intelligence activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the Second World War. Today, these documents, despite the fact that they were compiled in the depths of the nkgb and presented as negative and tendentious information about the insurgent movement of that time, are a kind of source for further research into the history of Ukrainian Intelligence. Functioning of intelligence units in the structure of the UPA is a separate important page in the history of Ukrainian Intelligence. On the basis of the materials found in the archives and already studied, we can talk about its originality and features inherent only to it. The new documents complement and concretize the existing research.
1/23/2024
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How the nkvd of the ussr “Lost” Volodymyr Symyrenko

December 29 marks the 132nd anniversary of the birth of Volodymyr Symyrenko, an outstanding Ukrainian gardener and plant breeder who became a victim of Stalin's terror. He was accused of sabotage and anti-soviet activities. A number of articles and books have been written about his three arrests and two death sentences based on the materials of investigative cases. At the same time, some documents from the foreign department of the nkvd of the Ukrainian ssr, found in the archives of the Intelligence, shed light on the hitherto unknown story of how in the early 1930s the moscow and Kyiv chekists had “lost” a prisoner and had been searching the country for him for a year and two months.
12/29/2023
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Volodymyr Vynnychenko. “For What Ukraine?”

In the archival funds of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, there is a file-form on one of the leading figures of the Central Rada, the first head of the Ukrainian government (General Secretariat) and Directorate of the Ukrainian National People's Republic, Volodymyr Vynnychenko. The materials collected in it show that the kremlin leadership and the gpu/nkvd/kgb bodies constantly kept him in their sights and tried to use the change in his political views, mistakes and ambitions for their own purposes, in particular to discredit and finally bury the idea of restoring Ukraine's independence. Declassified documents show how it was done during the life of the famous politician and writer and even after his death.
12/15/2023
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Harbingers of the Holodomor. The Year 1929

In the archives of the Intelligence, a document of the gpu of the ukrainian ssr, dated 1929, was found, entitled “On the next tasks in working with the active Ukrainian counter-revolution” and with a note at the top – “Keep on a par with the cipher”. Three years before the start of the large-scale famine in Ukraine, it traces how stalin's special services recorded “an invisible surge of anti-soviet activity in villages”, the revival of insurgent committees, infiltration of UPR intelligence officers from abroad into all regions to incite villagers to resistance. At the same time, the chekists themselves had been escalating the situation and portraying it as extremely threatening to the existence of the soviet government, in order to soon launch the flywheel of the repressive machine at full capacity and finally tame the Ukrainian freedom-loving spirit.
11/23/2023
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Josyf Slipyi. Under “Monakh”’s Operational Surveillance in the Vatican

The gesture of moscow's “goodwill” associated with the release from the camp of a prominent church figure, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) Josyf Slipyi and granting him permission to travel abroad, as it turned out, had its explanation and continuation. Declassified documents from the Branch State Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine show that the kremlin set certain conditions and then tried to closely monitor his every step and deed through kgb agents.
11/17/2023