The history of modern military intelligence in Russia begins on November 5, 1918, when by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic the Registration Directorate of the Field Headquarters of the Red Army (RUPSHKA) was established, the successor of which is now the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (GRU GSH).
About the fate of the most famous military intelligence officers of our country. Richard Sorge
Certificate issued to Richard Sorge by the OGPU for the right to carry and store a Mauser pistol.
One of the outstanding intelligence officers of the 20th century was born in 1895 near Baku in a large family of German engineer Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge and Russian citizen Nina Kobeleva. A few years after Richard's birth, the family moved to Germany, where he grew up. Sorge took part in the First World War on both the western and eastern fronts and was wounded several times. The horrors of the war affected not only his health, but also contributed to a radical change in his worldview. From an enthusiastic German patriot, Sorge turned into a convinced Marxist. In the mid-1920s, after the ban of the German Communist Party, he moved to the USSR, where, after getting married and receiving Soviet citizenship, he began working in the apparatus of the Comintern.
In 1929, Richard moved to the Fourth Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters (military intelligence). In the 1930s, he was sent first to China (Shanghai) and then to Japan, where he arrived as a German correspondent.It was Sorge's Japanese period that made him famous. It is generally accepted that in his numerous coded messages he warned Moscow about an imminent German attack on the USSR, and then he told Stalin that Japan would remain neutral towards our country. This allowed the Soviet Union to transfer new Siberian divisions to Moscow at a critical moment.
However, Sorge himself was exposed and captured by the Japanese police in October 1941. The investigation into his case lasted almost three years. On November 7, 1944, the Soviet intelligence officer was hanged in Tokyo's Sugamo prison, and 20 years later, on November 5, 1964, Richard Sorge was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Nikolay Kuznetsov
Nikanor (original name) Kuznetsov was born in 1911 into a large peasant family in the Urals. After studying to become an agronomist in Tyumen, he returned home in the late 1920s. Kuznetsov showed extraordinary linguistic abilities early on; he almost independently learned six dialects German language. Then he worked in logging, was expelled from the Komsomol twice, then took an active part in collectivization, after which, apparently, he came to the attention of the state security authorities. Since 1938, after spending several months in a Sverdlovsk prison, Kuznetsov became an investigator of the central apparatus of the NKVD. Under the guise of a German engineer at one of the Moscow aircraft factories, he unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the diplomatic environment of Moscow.
Nikolai Kuznetsov in the uniform of a German officer.
After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in January 1942, Kuznetsov was enlisted in the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, which, under the leadership of Pavel Sudoplatov, was engaged in reconnaissance and sabotage work behind the front line in the rear of German troops. Since October 1942, Kuznetsov, under the name of the German officer Paul Siebert, with the documents of an employee of the German secret police, conducted intelligence activities in Western Ukraine, in particular, in the city of Rivne, the administrative center of the Reichskommissariat.
The intelligence officer regularly communicated with officers of the Wehrmacht, intelligence services, and senior officials of the occupation authorities and sent the necessary information to the partisan detachment. Over the course of a year and a half, Kuznetsov personally destroyed 11 generals and high-ranking officials of the occupation administration Nazi Germany, but, despite repeated attempts, he failed to eliminate the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine, Erich Koch, known for his cruelty.
In March 1944, while trying to cross the front line near the village of Boratin, Lviv region, Kuznetsov’s group came across soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). During a battle with Ukrainian nationalists, Kuznetsov was killed (according to one version, he blew himself up with a grenade). Buried in Lvov on memorial cemetery"Hill of Glory"
Ian Chernyak
Yankel (original name) Chernyak was born in Chernivtsi in 1909, then still on the territory of Austria-Hungary. His father was a poor Jewish merchant, and his mother was Hungarian. During the First World War, his entire family died in Jewish pogroms, and Yankel was brought up in an orphanage. He studied very well, while still at school he mastered German, Romanian, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech and French languages, which by the age of twenty he spoke without any accent. After studying in Prague and Berlin, Chernyak received an engineering degree. In 1930, at the height of the economic crisis, he joined the German Communist Party, where he was recruited by Soviet intelligence, which operated under the guise of the Comintern. When Chernyak was drafted into the army, he was assigned as a clerk to an artillery regiment stationed in Romania.At first, he transmitted information about the weapons systems of European armies to Soviet military intelligence, and four years later he became the main Soviet resident in this country. After the failure, he was evacuated to Moscow, where he entered the intelligence school of the Fourth (Intelligence) Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. Only then did he learn Russian. Since 1935, Chernyak traveled to Switzerland as a TASS correspondent (operational pseudonym “Jen”). Regularly visiting Nazi Germany, in the second half of the 1930s he managed to deploy a powerful intelligence network there, codenamed “Krona”. Subsequently, German counterintelligence failed to uncover a single agent. And now, out of 35 of its members, only two names are known (and there are still disputes about this) - Hitler’s favorite actress Olga Chekhova (wife of the nephew of the writer Anton Chekhov) and Goebbels’ mistress, star of the film “The Girl of My Dreams”, Marika Reck .
Ian Chernyak.
Chernyak's agents managed to obtain a copy of the Barbarossa plan in 1941, and in 1943, an operational plan for the German offensive near Kursk. Chernyak transmitted valuable technical information to the USSR about the latest weapons of the German army. Since 1942, he also sent information on atomic research in England to Moscow, and in the spring of 1945 he was transferred to America, where he was planned to be included in work on the US atomic project, but due to the betrayal of the cryptographer, Chernyak had to urgently return to the USSR. After that, he was almost not involved in operational work; he received the position of assistant at the GRU General Staff, and then as a translator at TASS. Then he was transferred to teaching, and in 1969 he was quietly retired and forgotten.
Only in 1994, by Presidential Decree Russian Federation“for the courage and heroism shown during the performance of a special task,” Chernyak was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. The decree was passed while the intelligence officer was in a coma in the hospital, and the award was presented to his wife. Two months later, on February 19, 1995, he died, never knowing that the Motherland remembered him.
Anatoly Gurevich
One of the future leaders of the Red Chapel was born into the family of a Kharkov pharmacist in 1913. Ten years later, Gurevich's family moved to Petrograd. After studying at school, Anatoly entered the Znamya Truda No. 2 plant as a metal marking apprentice, where he soon rose to become the head of the plant's civil defense.
Then he entered the Intourist Institute and began to intensively study foreign languages. When civil war began in Spain in 1936, Gurevich went there as a volunteer, where he served as a translator for senior Soviet adviser Grigory Stern.
In Spain he was given documents in the name of Republican Navy Lieutenant Antonio Gonzalez. After returning to the USSR, Gurevich was sent to study at an intelligence school, after which, as a Uruguayan citizen, Vincent Sierra was sent to Brussels under the command of GRU resident Leopold Trepper.
Anatoly Gurevich. Photo: from the family archive
Soon, Trepper, due to his pronounced Jewish appearance, had to urgently leave Brussels, and the intelligence network - the “Red Chapel” - was headed by Anatoly Gurevich, who was given the pseudonym “Kent”. In March 1940, he reported to Moscow about the impending attack of Nazi Germany on Soviet Union. In November 1942, the Germans arrested “Kent” and he was personally interrogated by Gestapo chief Müller. He was not tortured or beaten during interrogations. Gurevich was offered to participate in a radio game, and he agreed because he knew how to communicate that his encryption was under control. But the security officers were so unprofessional that they did not even notice the conventional signals. Gurevich did not betray anyone; the Gestapo did not even know his real name. In 1945, immediately after arriving from Europe, Gurevich was arrested by SMERSH. At Lubyanka he was tortured and interrogated for 16 months. The head of SMERSH, General Abakumov, also participated in torture and interrogation. A special meeting at the USSR Ministry of State Security “for treason to the Motherland” sentenced Gurevich to 20 years in prison. His family was informed that he “went missing under circumstances that did not give him the right to benefits.” Only in 1948 did Gurevich's father learn that his son was alive. “Kent” spent the next 10 years of his life in the Vorkuta and Mordovian camps.After his release, despite many years of appeals from Gurevich, he was regularly denied a review of the case and restoration of his good name. He lived in poverty in a small Leningrad apartment, and spent his tiny pension mainly on medicine. In July 1991, justice triumphed - the slandered and forgotten Soviet intelligence officer was completely rehabilitated. Gurevich died in St. Petersburg in January 2009.
Soviet intelligence is the best in the world. Not a single similar structure on the planet in its entire history can boast of so many brilliantly carried out operations - the theft of US nuclear technology alone is worth it!
Can the CIA, or MOSSAD, or MI6 oppose anyone to Soviet intelligence officers of such a class as Arthur Artuzov (Operations Trust and Syndicate 2), Rudolf Abel, Nikolai Kuznetsov, Kim Philby, Richard Sorge, Aldrich Ames or Gevork Vartanyan? They can. Agent 007. The operations carried out by Soviet intelligence are studied in all special schools in the world. And among this brilliant galaxy it is impossible to name the very best. One article substantiates the idea that the best Soviet intelligence officer is Kim Philby, another calls Richard Sorge. Gevork Vartanyan, who outplayed the Abwehr, according to authoritative and unbiased estimates, is one of the hundred best intelligence officers in the world. And the aforementioned Artur Artuzov, in addition to dozens of brilliantly performed operations, led the certain time the work of such outstanding Soviet intelligence officers as Sandor Rado and Richard Sorge, Jan Chernyak, Rudolf Gernstad and Hadji-Umar Mamsurov. Books have been written about the exploits on the invisible front of each of them.
The luckiest
For example, Soviet intelligence officer Yan Chernyak. In 1941, he managed to obtain the Barbarossa plan, and in 1943, the offensive plan German army near Kursk. Jan Cherniak created a powerful intelligence network, not a single member of which was ever exposed by the Gestapo - during 11 years of work, his Krona group did not have a single failure. According to unconfirmed reports, his agent was the Third Reich movie star Marika Rökk. In 1944 alone, his group transferred 60 samples of radio equipment and 12,500 sheets of technical documentation to Moscow. He died in retirement in 1995. The hero served as the prototype for Stirlitz (Colonel Maxim Isaev).
Invisible Front
The Soviet intelligence officer Haj-Umar Mamsurov, who participated under the pseudonym Colonel Xanthi, served as the prototype for one of the heroes of Ernest Hemingway’s novel “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” IN Lately A lot of materials about Soviet intelligence are being declassified, making it possible to understand what the secret of its phenomenal victories is. It is very interesting to read about this structure and its brightest employees. Few people know about many of them. Only recently did the Rossiya 1 channel launch a project that talks about amazing stories about the legendary exploits of Soviet intelligence officers.
Hundreds of little-known and unknown heroes
For example, the film “Killing Gauleiter. An Order for Three" tells the story of three young intelligence officers - Nadezhda Troyan and Elena Mazanik - who carried out the order to destroy the executioner of Belarus Wilhelm Kube. Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Fitin was the first to inform the Kremlin about There are a lot of them - heroes of the invisible front. Some remain in the shadows for the time being, others, due to current circumstances, are known and loved by the people.
Legendary scout and partisan
This is often facilitated by well-produced films with talented and charming actors and well-written books, such as those about Nikolai Kuznetsov. The stories “It Was Near Rovno” and “Strong in Spirit” by D. N. Medvedev were read by all children in the Union. The Soviet intelligence officer of World War II Nikolai Kuznetsov, who personally destroyed 11 generals and bosses of Nazi Germany, was known, without exaggeration, to every citizen of the USSR, and at one time he was generally the most famous Soviet intelligence officer. Moreover, his features can be discerned in the collective image of the hero of the legendary Soviet film “The Exploit of a Scout,” which is still quoted today.
Real events and facts
In general, the Soviet intelligence officers of World War II are surrounded by an aura of glory, because the cause for which they worked and very often gave their lives ended in a great victory for the Red Army. And that’s why films about intelligence officers who penetrated the Abwehr or other fascist structures are so popular. But the scenarios were not at all far-fetched. The plots of the films “The Path to Saturn” and “The End of Saturn” are based on the story of intelligence officer A.I. Kozlov, who rose to the rank of captain in the Abwehr. He is called the most mysterious agent.
Legendary Sorge
In connection with films about Soviet intelligence officers, one cannot help but recall the film by the French director Yves Champy “Who are you, Doctor Sorge?” The legendary Soviet intelligence officer, who was in Japan during World War II and created a powerful extensive intelligence network there, nicknamed Ramsay, told Stalin the date of Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union. The film spurred interest both in the actor Thomas Holzmann and in Richard Sorge himself, about whom few people knew anything by that time. Then articles about him began to appear in the press, and for a while the Soviet intelligence officer, the head of the organization in Japan, Richard Sorge became very popular. The fate of this resident is tragic - he was executed in the courtyard of Tokyo's Sugamo prison in 1944. Sorge's entire residency in Japan was a failure. His grave is located in the same place where he was executed. The first of Soviet people who laid flowers on his grave was a writer and journalist
Traded for Powers
At the beginning of the film “Dead Season,” Rudolf Abel addresses the audience. The prototype of the intelligence officer, who was perfectly played by another famous Soviet intelligence officer, Konon Molodoy. Both he and, as a result of the betrayal of his partners, failed in the United States, were sentenced to long terms and exchanged for American intelligence officers (the famous exchange scene on the bridge in the film). For a while, Rudolf Abel, who was exchanged for the American pilot F. G. Powers, becomes the most talked about intelligence officer. His work in the states since 1948 was so effective that already in 1949 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in his homeland.
Cambridge Five
A Soviet intelligence officer and leader of an organization known as the Cambridge Five, Arnold Deitch recruited large, high-ranking members of British intelligence and the Foreign Office to work for the Soviet Union. Allen Dulles called the organization "the most powerful intelligence group of World War II."
Kim Philby (nickname Stanley) and Donald McLean (Homer), Anthony Blunt (Johnson), Guy Burgess (Hicks) and John Cairncross - all of them, due to their high positions, had the most valuable information, and therefore the effectiveness of the group was high. Kim Philby is called the most famous and most important Soviet intelligence officer.
The legendary "Red Chapel"
Another Soviet intelligence officer, the head of the Red Chapel organization, the Polish Jew Leopold Trepper, entered the annals of our country's intelligence services. This organization was a horror for the Germans; they respectfully called Trepper the Big Chief. The largest and most effective Soviet intelligence network operated in many European countries. The story of many members of this organization is very tragic. To fight it, the Germans created a special Sonderkommando, which was led personally by Hitler.
There are many known, even more unknown
There are many lists of Soviet intelligence officers, and there are five of the most successful ones. It includes Richard Sorge, Kim Philby, Aldridge Ames, Ivan Agayants and Lev Manevich (worked in Italy in the 30s). Other lists name other names. Robert Hanssen, an FBI employee in the 70s and 80s, is often mentioned. Obviously, it is impossible to name the very best, since Russia has always had more than enough enemies, and there have always been a lot of people who gave their lives in the secret struggle against them. And the names large quantity intelligence officers are still classified as “secret”.
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 in 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 progress 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 items there. chemical substances. This is how they mined sulfur hydrochloric acid, nitrogen fertilizers, from which the partisans made bombs. Each transfer of such components to liaison officers was associated with the risk of not only being detected by Japanese counterintelligence, but also 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 due to the arrest of one of their group’s contacts by the Japanese, there was a threat of failure. 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 had 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 apartment building and regularly transmitted 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 around 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 an attack by Nazi Germany 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 20th, 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. This is how Moscow 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 soil. 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 of her time with her children. free time. Even her regular broadcasts on an undercover radio station were not discovered by the British counterintelligence MI5. The Second Ended World War, 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
70 years ago, on March 9, 1944, in the village of Boratyn, Lviv region, she died sabotage group the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. 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. So in the spring of 1943, he managed to obtain extremely valuable intelligence information about the enemy’s preparation of 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 movement military units, about the plans and intentions of the Gestapo and SD services, about the trips of high officials of the Reich, which were successfully used in the fight against the enemy. 
From left to right: Nikolay Kuznetsov, Commissioner 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 kept in the archives Federal service security of the Russian Federation and will be declassified no earlier than 2025.
