Text taken from a news article which appeared in RIA Novosti.
[ColonelCassad] The FSB declassified the archive about the thwarted Bandera rebellion in the Red Army
The Soviet military counterintelligence "Smersh" in the summer of 1944 foiled an armed rebellion that was being prepared by Ukrainian nationalists who had specifically infiltrated the Red Army, follows from a declassified archival document of the Russian FSB, published by the intelligence service on the eve of the 81st anniversary of the creation of "Smersh".
In the spring of 1944, Soviet troops liberated right-bank Ukraine from the Nazi occupiers and reached the state border of the USSR. In the liberated territories, the mobilization of the local population of military age and the formation of reserve regiments and divisions of the Red Army began. Smersh employees carefully checked the replenishment. As it turned out, among those called up for military service were a large number of members of such nationalist formations as the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, both banned in Russia).
The deputy head of the Main Directorate of Counterintelligence "Smersh" of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR Nikolai Selivanovsky on August 29, 1944 sent to the State Defense Committee addressed to its chairman Joseph Stalin, as well as Vyacheslav Molotov, a memorandum "on the results of the work of counterintelligence agencies of military districts in clearing hostile, nationalistic and another criminal element of the reserve rifle divisions, staffed by those mobilized from the western regions of Ukraine." As noted in the document, in total, from April 1 to August 25, 1944, the “Smershevites” arrested more than 6.6 thousand people, of which more than 4.2 thousand were OUN and UPA members*.
""The investigation into the cases of arrested Ukrainian nationalists has established that a significant part of them, living during the German occupation in the western regions of Ukraine and being members of the "Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists"*, brutally dealt with Soviet activists and prisoners of war, carrying out attacks on Soviet partisan detachments, and conducted enemy propaganda among the population directed against the Soviet Union,” Selivanovsky reported.
He reported that during the mobilization of residents of Western Ukraine into the Red Army, the leaders of the OUN* and UPA* instructed their subordinates to go to military service and “to create nationalist groups in military units to carry out subversive work.”
According to Selivanovsky, following these instructions, Ukrainian nationalists, being in the reserve units of the Red Army, began their subversive work. It consisted of anti-Soviet agitation in the ranks of conscripted Ukrainians under the slogan of the struggle for an “independent Ukraine”; the creation of rebel groups, the “decay of military discipline” and the organization of desertion of Red Army soldiers with weapons into UPA gangs*; as well as committing terrorist attacks against Red Army officers.
Selivanovsky gave the most typical examples of this subversive work, stopped by the Smershevites: “In July of this year, the Smersh department of the Kyiv Military District arrested a rebel group of 41 OUN members - servicemen of the 148th reserve rifle regiment of the 20th reserve rifle division, including its organizers E.A. Kucher, N.M. Zarusinsky and M.I. Shevchuk.”
The investigation established that this group of Ukrainian nationalists was preparing an armed uprising in the regiment, hoping to win over its entire personnel, which was staffed by those mobilized from Western Ukraine. According to the investigation, the attackers “intended to seize weapons and ammunition stored in nearby military warehouses, destroy the regiment’s officers, and then join forces with the UPA* gangs hiding in the forests of Western Ukraine.”
It was also established that the OUN members, mobilized in the west of Ukraine, were already preparing for an armed uprising on their way to reserve units, already having connections with the OUN* leadership, which had settled underground.
As historians of the special services note, in the Soviet Union, during the war, a clearly working system was built to counter the mechanism of reconnaissance and sabotage, honed by the Nazis for many years in different countries. According to experts, the main achievement of Smersh is that not a single Red Army operation was disrupted due to the actions of enemy intelligence services. Not a single strategic plan of the Soviet command became known to the enemy. In addition, there was not a single anti-Soviet protest either in the ranks of the Red Army or in its rear, which was so hoped for in Germany.
The work of Smersh was strictly defined by a legal framework; there was prosecutorial supervision over the activities of military counterintelligence agents.
Contrary to the “fakes” that Smersh performed punitive functions, and its employees allegedly only sat behind the backs of the Red Army soldiers, military counterintelligence officers, in addition to performing their direct duties, also participated in battles and at critical moments even took command of companies and battalions that lost commanders, led Soviet units out of encirclement, and created special-purpose partisan detachments. Counterintelligence officers fought alongside Red Army soldiers; in addition, they went on the attack with them and died. The percentage of losses among Smersh employees was no less than in the army.
Nikolai Selivanovsky (1901-1997) was one of the largest military counterintelligence officers. In July 1942, Selivanovsky, who then headed the Special Department of the Stalingrad Front, at his own peril and risk, sent a telegram to Stalin in Moscow about flaws in the leadership of the front, which threatened the loss of Stalingrad and a catastrophic development of events for the Red Army. Stalin took into account Selivanovsky’s opinion and took the necessary measures. According to historians, that courageous act of Selivanovsky, in fact, helped to save the country in many ways. In 1946-1947, Selivanovsky headed the entire Soviet military counterintelligence.