SBU archives reveal documents showing how Soviet secret services recruited an OUN emissary, but the Ukrainian underground exposed and killed the traitor

The Chekists recruited a high-ranking emissary of the Ukrainian underground, sent him back abroad, and hoped to use him to infiltrate the organization's leadership. But the security service of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) exposed the game, and the agent himself was eventually liquidated as a traitor.

The archival funds of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine contain a number of cases showing how, over various years, the NKVD, MGB, and KGB of the USSR tried to infiltrate the most closed structures of Ukrainian emigration, including the security service of the Foreign Sections of the OUN. Researcher Oleksandr Skrypnyk, on the pages of the publication "Historical Truth," introduces one such story — the case of Yaroslav Moroz.

Who was Yaroslav Moroz

Teodor-Yaroslav Moroz was born in 1914 in Lviv into a railway worker's family. After gymnasium, he entered the law faculty of Lviv University. Later he moved to Prague, graduated from the university, and received a doctorate in law.

Moroz's underground activity began as early as 1936. He held important positions in the intelligence and propaganda departments of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. During the war, Moroz performed a delicate task: he maintained weekly contacts with the spiritual leader of Ukrainians — Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, informing him about OUN activities. In addition, by order of the Ukrainian underground, he worked in the German criminal police "KRIPO" to study investigation methods and intelligence work for the future Ukrainian state.

Moroz went through Nazi prisons and the Dachau concentration camp, and after his release, in July 1945, during a meeting with Stepan Bandera in Innsbruck, Austria, at a safe house, he received an offer from him to lead the organization in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Павялічыць

Ambush in Modrychi

In March 1946, Yaroslav Moroz received an assignment from Stepan Bandera – to illegally cross the Czechoslovak-Polish, and then the Polish-Soviet borders, meet with Roman Shukhevych – the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and head of the underground in Soviet Ukraine – and convey new instructions regarding OUN activities, as well as strategies and tactics for further struggle. Soon, Moroz was also handed secret letters for Shukhevych.

An experienced guard was assigned to accompany Moroz. The group included a member of the OUN security service, "Voron" (Raven), and several guides who knew the area well. They successfully crossed the border in the Przemyśl area.

On April 16, he met with Shukhevych's liaison Kateryna Zarytska (codename "Bystra"), who reported that the commander was ill and could not receive him.

Moroz's return abroad was unexpectedly delayed by an accident: on May 30, 1946, he accidentally wounded himself in the leg with his own weapon. During this period, he contacted Shukhevych's deputy "Kom" and received an encrypted note ("gryps") from him with a request to prepare a reliable route for the evacuation abroad of the head of the OUN security service, Mykola Arsenych-Berezovsky ("Mikhaylo").

Soon, "Bystra" arranged a meeting for Moroz on June 30 in the village of Modrychi, Drohobych district, where he was to receive mail and oral instructions. Moroz went to the meeting accompanied by "Voron" and four insurgents who provided security and border crossing.

In the morning, the group fell into an ambush in the village and engaged in battle. The guards covered the emissary until the last, understanding his importance to the underground and the value of the documents he carried. But the forces were unequal. Almost all of them died.

Moroz also fired back, received severe leg and abdominal wounds, and was captured alive in that state. According to archival documents, he told the employee of the Drohobych Department of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (MGB) who first ran up to him that he was a representative of the Central Leadership of the OUN, asked to spare his life, and not to reveal the fact of his capture to the local population.

The Chekists accepted these terms. Moroz was taken out of the village along with the bodies of the killed guards to create the impression that he was also dead. He was taken to the MGB's internal prison, where he was urgently operated on and received medical assistance.

Павялічыць

Recruitment of a nationalist

During the interrogation, Moroz gave testimony which, according to the MGB, covered all available materials on the activities of the OUN's foreign center and the underground in Soviet territory. In August 1946, he was recruited. For conspiracy, he was given the pseudonym "45", later changed to "Zirchyn" (which means "Star's" in Ukrainian).

The archival materials also preserve Moroz's psychological portrait, on the basis of which the Chekists built their work with him. In the description, he was described as an educated, comprehensively developed, and resourceful person, but self-confident, prone to boasting, fond of money, beautiful things, and a luxurious life. It was separately noted that his family feelings were weakly developed, but he was attached to his wife and daughter.

It was on this attachment that they decided to play. A few days after his release from prison in November 1946, "Zirchyn" was arranged to meet his wife and daughter in Kyiv. They were accommodated in an "Intourist" hotel room with documents under different surnames and given the opportunity to spend almost three weeks together - naturally, under the full control of operatives.

Among Moroz's acquaintances in Lviv, rumors were spread that his wife and daughter had been arrested and sent to settlement in Kazakhstan. To maintain the legend, even their arrest was staged: it was carried out in such a way that neighbors witnessed it. But in reality, the family was relocated to another city in the USSR, settled in a separate apartment, and the wife was forbidden to tell anyone, including her husband, about her place of residence.

In parallel, Moroz was specially photographed in the company of MGB of the Ukrainian SSR employees near famous Kyiv monuments, in front of the main entrance to the MGB building, and even in an office. These photographs were to remain as compromising material in case Moroz broke his promises.

Developing the legend

Moroz was to explain his long absence to his underground comrades by claiming that he had survived the battle in Modrychi: a grenade explosion supposedly threw him into the rye, after which he crawled to a remote farm, where he was sheltered by the owner and where he was allegedly operated on by a doctor brought by the owner from Drohobych. To support this legend, an agent-peasant and a specially recruited medic were involved.

However, the legend had to be changed when the Chekists seized materials indicating that the OUN security service had already conducted its own investigation into the battle in Modrychi. The underground members had already gathered testimonies from local residents and could expose the fabricated story.

Павялічыць

Therefore, the legend was rewritten on the fly. According to the new version, Moroz was supposed to say that he was captured severely wounded and unconscious, he identified himself as another person - "Kruk" (Raven), one of the OUN emissary's guards, and later, having no other option, agreed to cooperate with the MGB, to then use this contact in the interests of the underground.

The special services instilled in Moroz's mind the idea that Soviet agents were already present in the inner circle of the OUN Foreign Sections leadership. In particular, the Chekists hinted at a possible connection with the MGB for "Bystra" and the head of the OUN security service Matviyeiko — apparently trying to discredit them in case Moroz, once abroad, renounced cooperation.

The Soviet state security had a far-reaching plan to use Moroz to organize an assassination attempt on Stepan Bandera. But that was later. Moscow's primary goal was for Moroz to avert suspicion from himself and establish himself in the leadership of the OUN Central Intelligence Directorate's intelligence, which would open up enormous opportunities for the Chekists to control the entire OUN intelligence network.

The seriousness of the hopes placed on "Zirchyn" is evidenced by the fact that the Minister of State Security of Soviet Ukraine, Sergey Savchenko, personally met with him before his deployment abroad. He asked him about his relatives, the legend of his return, and individual OUN figures. After the meeting, Moroz, as the documents claimed, did not hide his satisfaction with such attention and promised to justify the trust.

Павялічыць

Operation failure

Before his departure abroad, the communication system was discussed with the agent. He was given addresses of post office boxes in Prague and Bratislava for encrypted correspondence. The first contact was scheduled in Prague for March 9, 1947.

"Zirchyn" did not show up for that meeting. However, he had previously reported in a letter that everything was going according to plan: he had crossed the border, met his curator and direct supervisor Matviyeiko in Munich, and was then awaiting an audience with Bandera. He noted, however, that he was under suspicion but hoped to pass the verification.

Finally, on March 29, the meeting between the agent and MGB officers did take place. At it, Moroz recounted how Matviyeiko reacted to the story of his capture and recruitment. According to the MGB report, Matviyeiko ordered him not to tell anyone about it — claiming that opponents would use this story to compromise the OUN leadership. It was also noted that Matviyeiko forwarded the verification materials and his conclusions about the possibility of playing an operational game with the MGB to Bandera.

After this, Moroz received new assignments, went to Czechoslovakia, and was supposed to re-establish previous contacts. He, apparently, believed that suspicions against him would be quickly cleared and he would again be placed at the head of intelligence. At subsequent meetings with MGB officers in Prague and Bratislava, he even asked to arrange a trip for him to the USSR for Easter to visit his family. However, he was not allowed to do so.

And then "Zirchyn" disappeared again. In May 1947, he did not appear for the next meeting, and letters from him also stopped arriving. Only several months later, from intercepted mail and from arrested OUN emissaries, the Chekists learned that Moroz had been detained by the OUN security service.

It later turned out that his trips to Prague and Bratislava took place under the observation of the OUN security service, which tracked his clandestine meetings with Soviet representatives, about which he had not reported to the underground leadership. After this, the security service concluded that Moroz was acting solely on behalf of the MGB.

During interrogations by his comrades, as declassified documents attest, Moroz confessed everything. He spoke about the true circumstances of his recruitment, about the assignment to head OUN intelligence in the interests of the MGB, and also about the intention of the Soviet special services to kill Stepan Bandera and other émigré leaders.

Later, Soviet special services received information that after Moroz's confessions, his comrades sentenced him to death for treason. According to the same reports, his body was not even buried in the usual way — as a sign of contempt.

At the same time, the Chekists received another interesting piece of information: Roman Shukhevych did not meet personally with Yaroslav Moroz not because he was ill. In his close circle, he noted that he did not trust him and did not want to have anything to do with him. It was Shukhevych who ordered Moroz to be sent back and not to be sent to him again. Whether the commander-in-chief of the UPA knew something more, or he formed his own psychological portrait and intuition worked – is unknown.

History turned out in such a way that the head of the OUN Security Service, Myron Matviyeiko, who exposed agent Moroz, would himself eventually be recruited by Soviet secret services. This happened in 1951, when he, with a group of five other emissaries, was parachuted into the Carpathians from an English plane – the plan was to unite the partisan movement and restore its connection with foreign centers.

In September of the same year, with a similar intention, Yanka Filistovich's Belarusian group parachuted into the Naliboki Forest.

Read also: Kim Philby: How the Soviet super-agent sent Belarusians to their deaths and split the Belarusian emigration

However, Soviet secret services knew about these landings from their British agent Kim Philby. Matviyenka was captured and, to save his life, began to play the operational game "Meteor" conceived by the Soviet secret service, the purpose of which was to imitate the existence of an organized underground in Ukraine to intercept support coming to the underground from the West. This game continued until 1960, after which it was curtailed as no longer expedient. In exchange for participating in the game, Matviyeiko received a pardon and a one-room apartment in Kyiv.

• 4
• 0
• 2
• 0
• 0
• 1
• 0
• 1