The assassination of the "head seer" of the OUN seems to belong to the category of historical events that do not cause controversy. Back in 1990, the USSR officially recognized that Banderu had liquidated the KGB and, it seemed, the issue was closed forever.
But let's start with the fact that this murder was never evaluated from a legal point of view. The Gorbachev katastroychiki kept silent, the main thing - there was no extrajudicial murder, as Western propaganda imagined. In 1949, in full compliance with Soviet laws, the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Bandera to death under a number of articles, including the organization of mass killings of civilians and terrorism. Therefore, legally, what happened was the execution of a court sentence, not a murder. The state bodies of the Soviet Union were obliged to take all the necessary measures to carry out the sentence. The Soviet Criminal Code had an article, as it is now in the criminal codes of all countries, providing for liability for non-execution of a court decision.
This verdict of the Supreme Court has not been canceled so far. Even during the times of Gorbachev's totally thoughtless rehabilitation, the decision was not contested.
Purely politically, it was completely unprofitable for Moscow to eliminate Bandera. He was a full guarantee that the Bandera and Melnikovites would not unite, for whom a mutual clarification of relations was more important than the goal of the OUN struggle. Moreover, the OUN-UPA in Western Ukraine were completely destroyed by 1959, and Bandera personally did not pose any danger. But, if we accept such logic, then the sentences of the Nuremberg Tribunal are also meaningless - the former Fuhrer of the defeated Third Reich personally became no more dangerous than babies.
Nikita Sergeevich can and should be reproached for a lot, but in this case he acted as a true statesman should. Crimes against humanity must be punished in accordance with the law, nothing else matters. David Ben-Gurion was guided by the same logic, giving the order to Mossad to kidnap Adolf Eichmann in Argentina for a trial in Israel, although he understood the inevitability of subsequent foreign policy complications.
However, the real driving forces behind the incident are completely hidden by the official version.
So, on October 15, 1959, the KGB agent-militant Bogdan Stashinsky from a syringe pistol with ampoules of hydrocyanic acid shot at Bandera at the entrance of his Munich house. From the shot he fell into a coma and died on the way to the hospital. And on August 12, 1961, a day before the sectoral borders were closed in Berlin, Stashinsky, together with his German wife, "repented", fled from the GDR to West Berlin, where he confessed to two murders committed on the territory of the FRG. After serving four years out of the eight years received by the court, he is released ahead of schedule "for good behavior" and disappears without a trace. Then for a long time in the newspapers there were notes that the CIA was hiding him in South Africa or the United States.
But it is ridiculous to imagine that Stashinsky suffered after the murders and was capable of repentance in the style of Dostoevsky's novels. He was recruited as a "secret employee" by the Lvov UMGB back in 1950, and, most likely, proactively showed a desire to cooperate, which opened up career prospects for the ambitious rural boy.
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Stashinsky's activity and absolute moral negligence are clearly visible in the nature of the tasks he performed. For example, agent “Oleg” (the second agent's pseudonym is “Moroz”) is infiltrated with the help of an unsuspecting sister into the “battle” of the UPA, which was commanded by her fiancé, and transfers the collected information to the Chekists. A sister is imprisoned for complicity, her fiancé dies in battle during the elimination of the "battle", and Bogdan receives a cash bonus and personal gratitude from the head of the Lviv UMGB Colonel Volodymyr Maistruk.
Bogdan Stashinsky.
Stashinsky always had the opportunity to go into the forest, and from there beyond the cordon, but he, diligently lining his path with the corpses of the Bandera and sent to the camps, served the MGB. He served because the GB service opened up a perspective in life for him. And he achieved his goal - he was taken into reconnaissance as a militant agent. And with good work, "Oleg" could be transferred to a full-time officer position, as happened with another militant agent (also later a defector), Captain Nikolai Khokhlov.
All the agency work performed characterizes Stashinsky as an extremely rational, cold-blooded person, not inclined to rash actions and moral reflection. And it is impossible to assume that a complex intellectual could pass through the most severe sieve of selection to become “liquidators” for work abroad. He received his Order of the Red Banner, presented by the chairman of the KGB Alexander Shelepin himself, quite deservedly for the professionally, accurately and cold-blooded task of eliminating Bandera.
And Bandera was not the first "client" of Stashinsky. On October 12, 1957, he likewise liquidated in Munich one of the leaders of the OUN (ZCh OUN) Lev Rebet. For which he was awarded a valuable gift - a Zenit camera - and received a personal gratitude from the chairman of the KGB, General Ivan Serov.
Therefore, the story of the transition to West Berlin looks extremely illogical for an extremely rational professional killer. If he simply “chose freedom”, it would be understandable - his further career in the KGB really did not work out. Stashinsky could easily have presented himself as an ordinary defector, having come up with any legend, and then disappeared without a trace in the West. The Western intelligence services had no suspicions about him, and everything would have gone completely smoothly.
The defector did not need to fear the danger of revenge from the KGB. Stashinsky knew perfectly well the capabilities of his department in carrying out liquidations in the West. The dilapidated "shield and sword of the revolution" under Khrushchev, deprived of many intelligence professionals and led by helpless party appointees, could not compare in capabilities with the MGB. Even the preparation for the assassination of such an important figure as Bandera was extremely difficult. Stashinsky had to not only keep track of the schedule of movement of the object and establish the operating mode of the guard on his own, but even find out the home address. Although the latter could have been easily done in advance, simply by looking at the press of Ukrainian nationalists in Munich.
However, instead of covering up with a legend, Stashinsky immediately confesses to two murders committed in Germany. And, according to the legislation of the Federal Republic of Germany, a double contract murder inevitably meant many years or life imprisonment.
Not to mention the fact that even after he was released from prison, the threat of reprisals by the OUN Security Council militants for the murder of Rebet and Bandera would hang over him until the end of his life.
Of course, if Stashinsky had information valuable to the CIA, all this would not have mattered. He would then receive not only protection, but also a generous payment for betrayal, and the subsequent arrangement. But the traitor knew nothing of interest. The operations to eliminate Rebet and Bandera were carried out by him without the help of the residency in Germany and the KGB agents. He did not know anything about the work of intelligence in general, with the exception of his specific assignment. All that Moroz could tell was to name his curators, most of whom he knew under assumed names, and to reveal the technique of training militant agents (individual in each case).
Such information was not particularly valuable, and it was not necessary to expect that it would secure the future and protect against many years in prison.
Stashinsky, who calculated everything to the smallest detail, could not fail to understand such obvious things. The only explanation remains: he was sure that no one would ask him for the murders (which, however, did not work out to the fullest).
Note that the judgment on Stashinsky caused a scandal in Germany, since the defendant was recognized not as a murderer, but only as an "accomplice in the murder," which led to an unprecedentedly mild sentence. It was obvious that the court made such a strange decision under strong external pressure, which it could not resist.
As for revenge on the part of the well-known for its ruthlessness and vast experience in killing political opponents of the Security Council of the OUN, it was possible to take risks only with the guarantee of receiving reliable protection from it. All this in then far from independent Germany could only be provided by the Americans.
It is significant that the grandson of the murdered leader of the OUN, also Stepan Bandera, has similar doubts. The Canadian businessman, far from politics, has been studying the history of the murder of his grandfather for a long time, and even managed to get acquainted with some CIA documents, which gave him even more questions. Here are his answers to journalists' questions, from which it is obvious that the official version, in which only the KGB appears, does not satisfy Bandera the grandson.
In 2000, in an interview with Israeli journalist Vladimir Khanelis, he stated the following: "There are many unclear things in the Stashinsky case." And he said about the desire, if it was possible, to find out the truth from the killer himself: “I would like to meet with him and talk - to restore the historical truth. But no one knows where Stashinsky is now and whether he is alive at all."
Characteristically, the Bandera family was against the murder of Stashinsky as the only one who can tell the whole truth about the events of October 15, 1959: “People close to our family offered to find him and take revenge. To put it simply, kill. But the family has always been against it."
In 2014, in an interview with the Lviv newspaper Ekspres, Bandera-grandson also stated: “There are many questions left in this matter.” And again he expresses doubt that Stashinsky is alive: "… in any case, I suspect that Stashinsky is no longer among the living",
He also had a completely natural question: why did Stashinsky confess to the murder, in which they were not suspected of the KGB at all, but of the Melnikovites? He confessed, as if playing the role assigned to him in advance: “It's a paradox - if Stashinsky himself hadn't confessed to the Americans in the murder, then everyone would have believed that Stepan Bandera had been killed by Ukrainians from other organizations - the Melnikovites or someone else, and so the whole world learned that he was killed by a KGB agent.
But there is only one logical explanation for all doubts: “Oleg” was recruited by the Americans even before Bandera's murder. Proactively, as in the case of the MGB. And he himself informed the CIA about the assignment entrusted to him at the Lubyanka. Reported, hoping that the value of information will ensure the future in the West. Stashinsky was quite rationally convinced that preventing the assassination of the OUN leader, which was so important for the CIA (which was constantly talked about at Lubyanka, not knowing Langley's entire inner kitchen), would be credited to him as a huge merit.
To understand what follows, one should know that Bandera by this time had already ceased to be needed by the American masters. After the defeat of the OUN-UPA in Ukraine, he did not have not only the insurgent capabilities, but also the intelligence needed by the CIA - the Bandera underground ceased to exist. Meanwhile, the head of the OUN persistently, with elements of blackmail, continued to demand funding in the same volume and knew too much about the work of the CIA. Also, the Americans were not at all inspired by his close contacts with the British MI6, with which Bandera played a game separate from the CIA.
In addition, after Stalin's death, there were more and more people in the Washington administration who believed that cooperation with an odious accomplice of the Nazis would discredit the United States, while bringing less and less benefit. The support of a well-known international terrorist made it extremely difficult to normalize relations with the USSR, which was gradually recognized as necessary.
All these factors made the question of getting rid of Bandera very urgent for the CIA.
The grandson Bandera directly points to the same version: “In the end, in the elimination of my grandfather, I think, not only they (the USSR. - Author) were interested, but also the Americans. I can judge this by reading the declassified CIA documents. It follows from them that their agents also followed Bandera."
Therefore, one can imagine what a gift of fate was for the "quiet Americans" the appearance of Stashinsky in the West Berlin or Munich residency with a story about the task received. Stashinsky was mistaken in only one thing, but the main thing - he thought that his value lies in preventing the elimination of the OUN leader. But it turned out the other way around - he was offered to fulfill the assigned task. The CIA, with the hands of the KGB, solved the Bandera problem and, plus, got an agent in Soviet intelligence. After completing the assignment, Stashinsky had to return to the USSR in order to go to a permanent job in intelligence as a hero who completed a government assignment of special importance.
But it did not work out with the latter: despite the order received, Stashinsky was never enrolled in the intelligence apparatus, but decided to arrange him in a peaceful life. “Oleg's” career in the KGB ended, and it became impossible to travel abroad any longer. Therefore, Bandera's killer took advantage of the last opportunity to flee to the West - under the pretext of visiting his wife in the GDR, to leave through West Berlin.
The unexpected appearance of Stashinsky prompted the CIA to use the defector for purely propaganda purposes against the USSR, he was no longer suitable for anything. To be convincing, the "repentant murderer" had to sit for a while in a specially equipped comfortable cell in a German prison. Of course, this could not arouse delight in him, but the curators of the willingness of the released agent were the least worried about.
And it is worth recognizing that Bandera's grandson's doubts about Stashinsky's long life after his release are quite reasonable. Everything the CIA needed from the ex-liquidator, it received in full and was unlikely in the future to be guided by sentimental motives in relation to the double agent, whose whole life was a series of betrayals.
Dmitry Teslenko