Legend of illegal intelligence. Legends of Soviet intelligence

One of the outstanding military intelligence officers is Ursula Kuczynski. A person of unusual destiny, she worked with coolness and skill. Throughout her intelligence activities, she did not make a single serious mistake and never aroused suspicion among counterintelligence. The Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, unlike many foreign intelligence services, did not consider the main thing in the work of female agents to be the use of beauty and sexual attractiveness to obtain the required information. In a number of cases, they were residents, radio operators, couriers, recruited using traditional methods, managed agents, and performed other complex tasks. Ursula was born in 1907 in Germany into the family of an economist of Jewish origin. She graduated from the Lyceum and trade school in Berlin. She worked in a bookstore, at the same time was engaged in trade union work, and after joining the Communist Party of Germany - also in party work. Due to the economic crisis in the country, she and her husband, the architect Rudolf Hamburger, moved to China. In Shanghai, both found well-paid jobs. Sorge's Man In 1930, Richard Sorge, a resident of Soviet military intelligence, met Ursula. Initially, Kuczynski was the owner of the safe house where Sorge met with his sources. Convinced of her reliability, he began to give her individual assignments, which after a while became more complex. Ursula processed the data obtained by the station agents, translated some important documents from English into German and photographed them. Ramsay taught her the rules of secrecy, and the woman began meeting with Chinese working for Soviet intelligence to obtain information about the confrontation between the Communists and the Kuomintang, and about the course of hostilities in a number of provinces of the country. This work did not stop even after the birth of his son in 1931. Sorge reported Ursula as a promising employee to the Center and recommended sending her to Moscow to take a course at an intelligence school. He also suggested the operational pseudonym Sonya, which Kuczynski used throughout her long service in the Intelligence Directorate. Training at a special intelligence school lasted six months. Kuczynski agreed to this, although she was not allowed to take her son with her - he could acquire a Russian accent, and she was being prepared for illegal work. In addition to the basics of intelligence work and the rules of secrecy, Sonya mastered the skills of a radio operator and learned how to independently assemble transmitters and receivers from individual components and parts sold in radio stores abroad.

After successfully completing intelligence school, Kuczynski was again sent to China, to Manchuria, occupied by Japan, which was fighting the liberation movement led by the CCP. The task of Sonya and the second intelligence officer sent with her to Mukden was to provide assistance to partisan detachments, as well as to collect intelligence information about the situation in the region and Japan’s intentions towards the USSR. The work was extremely difficult and dangerous. In addition to the Chinese and Japanese, there were many Russian White emigrants in the city. During the day, the streets were patrolled by police and Japanese soldiers, and at night only bandits, drug addicts and prostitutes could be found. Under these conditions, Sonya had to hold secret meetings with partisan contacts and sources. So, one day she went to the appearance scheduled for two evenings in a row on the outskirts of the city at the entrance to the cemetery. Helping the partisans make homemade explosives was that Sonya and her partner regularly visited pharmacies and specialty stores in Mukden, buying various chemicals there. This is how they extracted sulfur, hydrochloric acid, and nitrogen fertilizers, from which the partisans made bombs. Each transfer of such components to messengers was associated with the risk of not only being detected by Japanese counterintelligence, but also of being harmed by dangerous substances. Twice a week, Kuczynski contacted the Center from her apartment in Mukden using a radio transmitter she had assembled herself. Information was sent to the Intelligence Directorate about the situation in Manchuria, the combat activities of partisan detachments, the state of affairs in them, the characteristics of leaders and commanders. In total, Sonya conducted more than 240 radio sessions. But in the spring of 1935, Ursula and her partner were forced to urgently leave China, since the arrest of one of their group’s contacts by the Japanese threatened to fail. Kuczynski was pregnant again, but she had no intention of giving up her activities. She believed: “Where the diapers hang, hardly anyone expects to meet a scout.” Sonya's work in China was highly appreciated in Moscow, and she soon received a new assignment. In the second half of 1935, Ursula and her first husband Rudolf Hamburger, who had also been trained at the military intelligence school, arrived in Warsaw. The main task is to provide radio communications to the military intelligence resident in Poland, as well as to assist a group of agents located in Danzig. Sonya again assembled a radio station with her own hands from parts purchased in local stores. The intelligence officer gave birth to a daughter, Kuczynski continued to work with two young children. After some time, she moved to Danzig, where six underground workers from among the German workers working for Soviet military intelligence were in touch with her. They collected information about the functioning of the port, the construction of submarines for the Polish Navy, the sending of military cargo to warring Spain to support anti-revolutionary forces, as well as about Nazi activities in the city. Ursula actually led this group. Its people managed to organize several acts of sabotage in the port in order to disrupt military supplies to the Franco regime.

At the same time, Sonya personally provided radio communication with the Center. She lived in an apartment building and regularly sent messages from herself. It so happened that a high-ranking official of the Nazi Party settled on the floor above, with whose wife Kuczynski established friendly relations. This helped avoid failure and arrest. One day, a talkative neighbor confidentially told Ursula that, according to her husband, there was a secret spy transmitter operating in their house, the broadcasts of which were detected by the German counterintelligence agencies. In this regard, next Friday the entire neighborhood will be cordoned off and thoroughly searched by police and Gestapo forces to find the enemy spy. The center, having learned about this from Sonya's report, ordered her to immediately leave Danzig. Soon she, her husband and two children, safely left Poland. Before this, the intelligence officer received a telegram in which the Director (head of the Intelligence Directorate) congratulated her on being awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Upon returning to Moscow, Ursula was summoned to the Kremlin, where Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin presented her with a well-deserved award. However, she could not wear it, so she deposited the order with the department. New assignment In 1938, Kuczynski began a new military intelligence assignment. This time she was sent to Switzerland as an illegal resident. Sonya had to organize the receipt of the data required by the Center from Nazi Germany. Ursula and her two children settled in a mountainous region, became legalized, and established direct radio contact with the Center (she still operated the radio herself). Acting proactively and purposefully, Sonya established a wide circle of contacts she needed, among whom was an Englishman who held a high position in the apparatus of the League of Nations. From him it was possible to obtain important information that was immediately sent to Moscow. In order to achieve the tasks set by the Center, Kuczynski decided to rely on the British, who had the opportunity to move freely throughout European countries. She contacted veterans who participated in the war in Spain on the side of the Republicans, who selected and sent two reliable people to Switzerland - Alexander Foot and Leon Burton, who fought as part of the international brigade against the putschists. Sonya met with them and, after a short study, recruited them to work for Soviet military intelligence. The 30-year-old woman enjoyed unquestioned authority among these experienced fighters. Soon Sonya's residency was replenished by another person sent from Moscow, Franz Obermanns, a German refugee who also fought as part of the international brigade in Spain. He helped collect the required information and could also work as a radio operator. Kuczynski decided to send Foote to Munich, where he, using his specialty as a mechanic, was supposed to get a job at one of the aircraft manufacturers that produced Messerschmitt fighters. Burton's task was to penetrate the I. G. Farbenindustri" in Frankfurt am Main, which produced military chemical products. The British moved to Germany, but did not have time to do anything there.

It should be noted that one day Sonya’s assistants found themselves in a restaurant in Munich, where Hitler regularly met with Eva Braun, accompanied by a small security detail. Experienced participants in the Spanish Civil War suggested that Ursula organize the liquidation of the Nazi leader, but the Center ordered Kuczynski to urgently return them to Switzerland and train them as radio operators. The situation in Europe was becoming more complicated; fascist Germany, which had already captured Austria and Czechoslovakia, did not hide further aggressive intentions. Under these conditions, the Intelligence Directorate was preparing its illegal stations for work in wartime conditions, which required ensuring uninterrupted communications with the Center. Ursula taught Foote and Burton how to operate a walkie-talkie and how to encrypt messages, as well as how to make a radio station from commercially available parts. In December 1939, Sonya received instructions from the Center to provide assistance to another illegal resident of military intelligence in Switzerland, Sandor Rado, who at that time had no radio contact with Moscow. Kuczynski began to regularly meet with him in Geneva (the journey there by car took about three hours), picked up information reports, returned back, encrypted them and transmitted them to Moscow at night. The work was both difficult and dangerous. In Switzerland, the authorities introduced a wartime regime and strengthened police control over all foreigners living in the country. In the capital, other large cities, and in areas bordering Germany, the Gestapo and Abwehr operated almost openly, looking for enemy agents and ill-wishers of the Third Reich. Each trip, regular broadcasts, prohibited by the authorities for all radio amateurs, were associated with great risk and the threat of arrest, but Ursula acted calmly. She did not arouse suspicion either from the police or from counterintelligence, which allowed her to carry out all the instructions of the Center. At the end of 1939, Sonya managed to successfully solve another extremely difficult problem. The Kremlin decided to help the family of the famous German communist Ernst Thälmann, who was held in prison in Germany, by transferring a large sum of money to his wife Rosa. All attempts made by the foreign intelligence agencies of the NKVD to make contact failed. And the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army assigned this task to Kuczynski. Ursula sent her children's nanny to Germany, whom she completely trusted. In her luggage there was a clothes brush with a built-in hiding place. Operation was successfully completed. Although Rosa Thälmann was unable to use the money, since she was under round-the-clock control of Gestapo agents, the very fact of material assistance provided Rosa with great moral support, and the entire amount was transferred to the wife of another arrested German communist. Meanwhile, Kuczynski’s own situation became more complicated. She had documents as a German emigrant of Jewish origin and could be deported to Germany with subsequent inevitable arrest. The Swiss police, following a tip from the Gestapo, have already detained a member of the station, Sonja Obermanns, and deported him. The center ordered Ursula to urgently leave the country. The intelligence officer prepared two more radio operators for Sandor Rado's group and handed him over Foot, who remained to work in Switzerland, since he had reliable cover. Sonya and Burton were offered to move to England. To get legalized there, Kuczynski divorced her first husband and formalized her marriage to Leon, receiving an English passport. At first their union was fictitious, but then they actually became husband and wife and lived happily ever after.

In December 1940, Sonya and her two children moved to England along a long and dangerous path under the conditions of the occupation of a large part of France by Nazi Germany. Ursula's parents, brother and wife and four sisters who had left Germany to escape the Nazi regime were already there. Red walkie-talkie In accordance with the Center's instructions, Sonya was supposed to create a new illegal reconnaissance group in England, capable of obtaining information on Germany and Great Britain. Ursula had to perform the duties of a resident and at the same time a radio operator. Life in the new place was safer than in Switzerland, but it was necessary to get accustomed to an unfamiliar environment, characterized by increased spy mania and control over the airwaves. Ursula began searching for sources of information, initially using members of her family. In addition to Leon, who was already working for Soviet military intelligence, she was helped by her father, brother and one of her sisters. In addition, Sonya actively made new acquaintances and found people ready to help her and share information. Every month the Center received four to six telegrams and reports from Sonya’s illegal station. They contained data about Nazi Germany, as well as the British armed forces, military equipment, and new products used for military purposes. After Germany’s attack on the USSR, Sonya went on air and sent a short message to the Center: “My new “Red Walkie-Talkie” sends warm wishes for Victory over fascism to you and the Soviet country. I am always with you. Sonya.”Ursula continued to conduct active intelligence activities, finding new sources that were extremely important in war conditions. The center was interested in the possibility of concluding an anti-Soviet deal between London and Berlin. Sonya reported to Moscow the opinion of the influential English Labor member Stafford Cripps about the possible results of Nazi Germany’s attack on the USSR: “The Soviet Union will be defeated in no later than three months. The Wehrmacht will pass through Russia like a hot knife through butter.” The intelligence agency highly appreciated the results of Kuczynski's work. In one of the coded messages in April 1942, the Center informed Sonya: “Your information is reliable and valued. Continue to receive updates on the state of Germany from this source. We are interested in data on strategic reserves of the most important types of raw materials (oil, all fuels and lubricants, tin, copper, chromium, nickel, tungsten, leather, etc.) and the state of food supplies for the German army and population." In October 1942 On the 1st, Ursula received a new important task - to reestablish contact with Klaus Fuchs, a German emigrant who worked in Birmingham in a closed laboratory involved in the highly secret Tube Alloys project to create nuclear weapons. The physicist had already been in contact with Soviet military intelligence, but then contact with him was lost.

Ursula successfully solved the task set by the Center, finding and establishing the level of relationship required for work with Fuchs. The German emigrant began to transfer valuable materials to Sonya. So in Moscow they learned about all the research work carried out in Great Britain under the Tube Alloys program, about the creation of an experimental station in Wales to study the diffusion of uranium-235. Due to the special importance of the information received, the Center instructed Sonya to work only with Fuchs in compliance with maximum precautions, and to stop meeting with other sources. At secret meetings, Ursula received from the physicist new collections of documents and reports that revealed the theoretical foundations of the creation of nuclear weapons and the progress of work on the manufacture of a uranium bomb. At the end of 1943, Fuchs moved to the United States, where, together with American scientists, he continued work on the atomic project. Before leaving, he met with Sonya several times and gave her a total of 474 sheets of classified materials, which were forwarded to the Center through a special channel. Ursula handed Fuchs the terms of communication with the Soviet liaison officer on American territory. Based on Fuchs' data, Sonya informed Moscow that Roosevelt and Churchill signed an agreement in Quebec on joint work on an atomic bomb and on the widespread involvement of British physicists in this project, which was being implemented in the United States, taking into account the large resources of the American side. Her own people in the OSS After Fuchs’s departure, Ursula continued active work at the head of her illegal station. She managed to achieve unique results. Moscow received top-secret documents, including the Review of United States Bombing Strategy in Europe, prepared by American intelligence.

Special calculations from British intelligence officers were obtained, which made it possible to draw conclusions about the state of weapons production in the Third Reich based on the serial numbers of German models of various military equipment disabled by the Western Allies. These calculations were intended for the high military command of the United States and Great Britain, and thanks to Sonya, they also ended up with the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. Members of the station, with the knowledge of the Center, without revealing themselves, collaborated with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was looking for candidates to be deployed behind German lines. In this way, a lot of important information was obtained about how American intelligence works, about the direction of training and equipment of agents. Descriptions of ciphers and codes, characteristics and operating features of the newest radio station, etc. were sent to Moscow. It should be especially noted that under the conditions of the most severe counterintelligence regime operating in England, no one ever suspected a resident of the pretty woman who lived in London with her children. Soviet military intelligence. She gave birth to a third child from Leon and for neighbors and acquaintances she was a caring mother, spending almost all her free time with her children. Even her regular broadcasts on an undercover radio station were not discovered by the British counterintelligence MI5. The Second World War ended, but Sonya's activities continued. The Western allies began to change their attitude towards the USSR, seeing it as an enemy. Moscow needed reliable information about what was happening in Europe, Great Britain, and the USA. However, after the betrayal of the Soviet cryptographer in Canada, working conditions became significantly more difficult. A wave of spy mania arose, Fuchs, Foote and other agents with whom Sonya worked were arrested. In 1947, she had to leave England. After picking up the children, Kuczynski flew by plane to the British zone of occupation of Germany, after which she arrived by taxi in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Here she was met by colleagues, including Lieutenant General Ivan Ilyichev, who headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army during the war. The fearless intelligence officer was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner. Thus ended the fifth foreign mission of Ursula Kuczynski, who, under the operational pseudonym Sonya, forever entered the history of the GRU. Author Vyacheslav Kondrashov

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

His crew managed to shoot down three German " Junkers”, when Poland as a geopolitical unit ceased to exist. Botyan’s native village became Soviet territory, and Alexey also became a citizen of the USSR.

In 1940, the NKVD drew the attention of a modest elementary school teacher. A former non-commissioned officer who speaks Polish as a native "pilsudczyk“... 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 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. This is how a new war began for Alexei Botyan, which ended only in 1983 - with his retirement.

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

He first found himself behind German lines in November 1941 near Moscow, becoming the commander of a reconnaissance and sabotage group. In 1942, he was sent deep behind enemy lines, to the regions of Western Ukraine and Belarus.

Under his leadership, a major sabotage was carried out: on September 9, 1943, in Ovruch, Zhitomir region, the Hitlerite Gebitiskommissariat was blown up, and the explosion killed 80 Nazi officers, including Gebitiskommissar Wenzel and the chief of the local anti-partisan center Siebert. 140 kilograms of explosives, along with lunches, were carried to Yakov Kaplyuka, the caretaker of the Gebitskommissariat, by his wife Maria. To protect herself from searches at the entrance, she always took the two youngest of her four children with her.

After this operation, the Kaplyuki were taken into the forest, and Botyan was introduced to the Hero for the first time - 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 through negotiations and sometimes with weapons, then on Polish soil there were three different anti-Nazi forces: the Home Army (“Home Army”). Akovites", formally subordinate to the emigrant government), the Army of the People (" Alovites", supported by the Soviet Union) and rather independent Khlopsky Battalions - that is, peasant ones. To successfully solve the problems at hand, the ability to find a common language with everyone was required, and Botyan succeeded in this perfectly.

On May 1, 1944, a group of 28 people led by Botian headed 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 Ilzhi and frees a large group of arrested underground fighters.

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

The scouts went to the warehouse manager of Wehrmacht Major Ogarek. After communicating with Botyan, he hired another Pole, who brought a time mine embedded in his boots to the warehouse. On January 18, the warehouse exploded; More than 400 Nazis were killed and wounded. On January 20, Konev’s troops entered almost the entire Krakow, and Botyan received the second presentation to the Hero. (Subsequently, Botyan became one of the prototypes of “ Major Whirlwind"from the novel of the same name by Yulian Semyonov and the television film based on his script.)

After the war, Alexey Botyan becomes the Czech Leo Dvorak (he did not know the Czech language; he had to vigorously master it “ by immersion method", fortunately, his legend explained the poor possession " 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 intelligence officer's post-war activities are shrouded in understandable fog. According to open information from the SVR and stingy (“ permitted") according to Botyan's stories, he carried out special tasks in Germany and other countries, worked in the central apparatus of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, participated in the creation of a special purpose group of the KGB of the USSR " Pennant" And after retirement, as a civilian specialist, he helped prepare for another six years “ young specialists».

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

Simultaneous game session with cadets of the Military-Patriotic Club “Vympel”, 02/20/2010.

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 down to the smallest detail (but, of course, does not talk about what cannot be talked about). He is proud that during his entire “work” he was only once grazed on the temple by an enemy bullet - without even leaving a scar.

Yesterday the hero-scout turned ninety-five.

70 years ago, on March 9, 1944, in the village of Boratyn, Lviv region, a sabotage group of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov died. She was captured by UPA militants. Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions were shot.

Shortly before the start of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Kuznetsov began preparing to work abroad from illegal positions. However, the outbreak of war made adjustments to this preparation. In the first days of Nazi Germany’s attack on our country, Nikolai Kuznetsov submitted a report with a request to be used in “an active struggle against German fascism at the front or in the rear of the German troops invading our land.” In the summer of 1942, having undergone special training, he was enlisted in the special purpose detachment “Winners,” commanded by D.N. Medvedev.

In accordance with the withdrawal plan, Kuznetsov was parachuted deep behind enemy lines - in the Sarny forests of the Rivne region.
In the city of Rivne, turned by the Germans into the “capital” of temporarily occupied Ukraine, Nikolai Kuznetsov appeared under the name of Chief Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert, holder of two Iron Crosses. The intelligence officer's good professional training, brilliant knowledge of the German language, amazing will and courage were the basis for his performance of the most complex reconnaissance and sabotage missions.
Acting under the guise of a German officer, Nikolai Kuznetsov carried out the people's sentence in the center of the city of Rivne - he destroyed the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine Gell and his secretary Winter. A month later, in the same place, he mortally wounded Deputy Reich Commissioner General Dargel. Together with his comrades, he kidnapped and took from Rovno the commander of the punitive troops in Ukraine, General von Ilgen, and his personal driver E. Koch Granau. Soon after this, in the courthouse he destroyed the cruel executioner, the president of the supreme court in occupied Ukraine A. Funk.


Conspiracy meeting between Kuznetsov (left) and the secretary of the Slovak Embassy Krno, an agent of German intelligence. 1940, operational filming with a hidden camera.

An interesting episode was the liquidation of the commander of the special forces, General Ilgen. Kuznetsov proposed a plan not just to liquidate the general, but to capture him and deliver him to the detachment. The implementation of this plan, in addition to Kuznetsov, was entrusted to Strutinsky, Kaminsky and Valya Dovger.
General von Ilgen occupied a substantial house in Rovno, which had a permanent sentry. The moment for the operation to capture Ilgen was chosen well. Four German soldiers, who constantly lived in the general’s house and served as his guard, were sent to Berlin, where the general sent suitcases with looted goods with them. The house was guarded by local police.
On the scheduled day, Valya went to Ilgen’s house with a package in her hands. The orderly suggested that Valya wait for the general, but she said that she would come back later. It became clear that von Ilgen was not at home. Soon Kuznetsov, Strutinsky and Kaminsky appeared there. They quickly eliminated the guards, and the chief lieutenant explained to the orderly that if he wants to live, he must help them. The orderly agreed.
Nikolai Ivanovich and Strutinsky selected documents of interest from von Ilgen’s office, folded them and packed them together with the weapons they found in a bundle. About forty minutes later von Ilgen drove up to the house. When he took off his overcoat, Kuznetsov came out of the next room and said that there were Soviet partisans in front of him.

The general was forty-two years old, healthy and strong, he did not want to obey the intelligence officer’s commands. I had to tinker with him. When they managed to “pack” the general, it turned out that officers were coming to the house. Nikolai Ivanovich came out to meet them. There were four of them. The scout's mind worked feverishly: what to do with them? Interrupt? Can. But there will be noise. And then Kuznetsov remembered the Gestapo badge that he had been given back in Moscow. He had never used it before.
Nikolai Ivanovich took out a badge and, showing it to the German officers, said that a bandit in a German uniform had been detained here and therefore asked to see documents. Having carefully examined them, he asked three to follow their path, and invited the fourth to enter the house as a witness. He turned out to be Erich Koch's personal driver.
So, along with General von Ilgen, Officer Granau, the Gauleiter’s personal driver, was also brought into the detachment.


The merit of Nikolai Kuznetsov was that he simultaneously purposefully collected intelligence information important for the Center. Thus, in the spring of 1943, he managed to obtain extremely valuable intelligence information about the enemy’s preparations for a major offensive operation in the Kursk area using the new Tiger and Panther tanks. He also became aware of the exact location of Hitler’s field headquarters near Vinnitsa, codenamed “Werewolf.” Kuznetsov was the first to report on the preparation of an assassination attempt on the heads of government of the Big Three, who were gathering for a historic meeting in Tehran. His task also included collecting information about the movement of military units, about the plans and intentions of the Gestapo and SD services, about the trips of high officials of the Reich, which was successfully used in the fight against the enemy.


From left to right: Nikolai Kuznetsov, commissar of the partisan detachment Stekhov, Nikolai Strutinsky

At the end of December 1943, N.I. Kuznetsov received a new task - to expand intelligence work in the city of Lvov. Carrying out acts of retaliation, he carried out the verdict of the people and destroyed the Vice-Governor of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and Lieutenant Colonel Peters. The situation in Galicia became extremely complicated after this. Kuznetsov and his two comrades - Yan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov - managed to escape from Lvov. It was decided to make our way to the front line. However, on the night of March 8-9, 1944, they were ambushed in the village of Boratin, Lviv region and died in an unequal battle with Ukrainian nationalists; Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions were shot.

Monument to Nikolai Kuznetsov in Tyumen.
On November 5, 1944, a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published on awarding the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to members of the special forces of the NKGB of the USSR who operated behind enemy lines. In the list of those awarded, along with the name of D.N. Medvedev, there was also the name of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov - posthumously.
In 1990-1991 A number of protests by members of the Ukrainian nationalist underground against perpetuating the memory of Kuznetsov appeared in the Lviv media. Monuments to Kuznetsov in Lviv and Rivne were dismantled in 1992. In November 1992, with the assistance of Strutinsky, the Lviv monument was taken to Talitsa.
Vandals have repeatedly tried to desecrate the grave of Nikolai Kuznetsov. By 2007, activists of the initiative group in Yekaterinburg had carried out all the preparatory work necessary to move Kuznetsov’s remains to the Urals.
The case of Nikolai Kuznetsov is stored in the archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and will be declassified no earlier than 2025.

Englishman Kim Philby - legendary intelligence officer, who managed to simultaneously work for the governments of two competing countries - England and USSR. The work of the brilliant spy was so highly appreciated that he became the only recipient in the world of two awards - the Order of the British Empire and the Order of the Red Banner. Needless to say, maneuvering between two fires has always been very difficult...

Another legendary Soviet intelligence officer who made a lot of efforts to defeat fascism is.