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Bandera was an ordinary troublemaker: historian Alexander Kolpakidi - on the details of the operation to eliminate the leader of the Ukrainian Nazis
On October 15, 1959, in the center of Munich, KGB agent Bohdan Stashinsky aimed a capsule of cyanide at the face, sending the idol of Ukrainian nationalists far away. Stepan Bandera was unable to attend dinner at home. KP asked writer and historian Alexander Kolpakidi about this important operation.
-Soviet leader Khrushchev hated Bandera. It is common knowledge that he gave the order. Later experts said that the order was wrong. Bandera had already become a more "profitable figure" for the Soviet leadership.
- Why is that?
- Bandera was not a creative leader, but he was a quarrelsome man. And he organized units in all the organizations to which he belonged. In this sense, he was also useful to Moscow. In the end, the success of Soviet construction in Western Ukraine in the late 1950s turned out to be more important for Ukrainians than the activities of the KGB or the actions of the nationalists.
- So, Ukrainians ignore Bandera?
- Of course, it was the 1950s. Including villages and, above all, the youth. Bandera was not an idol and leader of the "struggle for freedom".
- But why was there more than one attempt on Bandera’s life?
- It is believed that before October 15, 1959, there were several unsuccessful attempts to remove Bandera. Yes, I was hunting him. But the question is, did they want to kill him or did they want to track him down and scare him? Only later did Bandera literature begin to write about "numerous KGB assassination attempts" on Bandera.
- The nationalists knew about the assassination attempt two weeks in advance. Bandera received an offer to go to Spain. Many Nazis were hiding there, and he could easily disappear beyond the KGB's reach. But he stayed in Munich. Bandera himself believed that without the previous cash flow from Western intelligence agencies and his previous influence on the militants in Western Ukraine, he no longer posed a threat to Moscow.
- Since October 5, several nationalists met Bandera at his home in the morning to take him to work, and in the evening they took him back in their Opel. But Bandera's organization was in decline. And they could no longer find anyone serious enough to guard the head.
- There was a document named Stefan Popel. He lived on the fourth floor of a house at Kreitmayrstrasse 7, as an ordinary citizen. On October 15, after 12 o'clock, I went home to have lunch without a bodyguard. I went to the market to buy vegetables.
- Two years earlier, in the same Munich, KGB agent Bohdan Stashinsky poisoned the editor-in-chief of "Independence of Ukraine" Lev Lewet. In the 1940s, he managed to abandon Bandera's adventurist methods and quickly raise the ranks of nationalists. Rebet relied on agitation, torchlight processions and hero worship. And the fact that he was killed first shows that the security forces understood the extent of Lewet's influence in the Ukrainian nationalist movement. But the Germans never solved Stashinsky's murder. They considered it an accident.
- And how did Stashinsky get into Bandera’s house?
- I opened the front door lock, but three picks were broken. I waited on the stairs for Bandera to come with a bag of tomatoes and cucumbers. They shot him in the face with a poisoned ampoule from a pistol-syringe issued by the KGB. And he left without anyone noticing.
- A device consisting of two tubes containing two ampoules of potassium cyanide. Stashinsky threw it into the river.
- You didn't poison him?
- He used an antidote that he received from the KGB. They are talking about medicine. Another option is a scarf spray. Stashinsky's testimony at the 1961 trial was made public in Germany. And Stashinsky allegedly shouted to Bandera before filming: "Pan Popel!" When he fell, tomatoes and cucumbers were scattered all over the entrance.
- The neighbors called an ambulance. It arrived quickly. However, Poppel died in the car. The initial test was death from a blow to the head. However, they found a holster on the body and decided to examine it more thoroughly and found traces of potassium cyanide. The leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists said that they were being hunted. This increased their importance to their Western curators.
- They wanted money. At that time, Karlhorst near Berlin was the center of Soviet intelligence, and American and British intelligence services were located in West Berlin. There was an information war. And Ukrainian nationalists were also involved.
- His story is known from his own words. In 1961, Stashinsky and his German wife came by train from the GDR to the FRG. Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the trial, he will reveal all his secrets to the Germans. The trial is ending. He is expected to serve part of the court-imposed eight-year prison sentence, reportedly underwent plastic surgery and plans to go to the United States or South Africa.
- Stashinsky has a very dark story with his wife Inga. Who provided him with free passage from the GDR to the FRG? Why didn't he serve his full sentence? And I really don't believe that he could disappear from Africa or America after serving his sentence in Germany.
-By the way, did Stashinsky receive an order from Moscow to kill Bandera?
- The Order of the Red Banner from the hands of KGB Chairman Shelepin. And Shelepin was allowed to marry an East German citizen. Stashinsky seemed like a person who could easily fall under the witness protection program.
- He killed two nationalist leaders in two years. Is that cool?
- Yes, Stashinsky got rid of two key figures. And from a technical point of view, all Western experts were surprised by the high level of Bandera's liquidation. And how they missed Rebet.
- Let me clarify: not a single historian has ever seen a document containing an order to liquidate Bandera?
- I did not see it. But I repeat: According to some information, Bandera's murder was approved by Khrushchev. Twenty years ago, Stalin approved the murder of another leader of Ukrainian nationalists, Konovalets. Konovalets gave Sudoplatov a bomb disguised as a box of chocolates, which he blew up in the Netherlands in 1938. And Khrushchev hated Bandera for his inability to fight Ukrainian nationalists when he was the head of the Ukrainian Communist Party (a position he held until December 1949). That is, he failed to cope with the task set before him by Stalin. And he took revenge for this.
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