How a teacher from Kherson lured money from the NKVD to develop a farm in France

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

A turning point in history, burdened by war and chaos during the formation of the new government, along with numerous heroes, gives rise to no less number of traitors, swindlers and adventurers. The latter include Vasily Nedaykasha, who, fighting first against the Whites and Reds, later became an intelligence officer of the Ukrainian People's Republic, and then began to cooperate with the Bolsheviks, selling them long-outdated intelligence information at a considerable price.

How Vasily Nedaykasha, a teacher from the Kherson province, ended up in France

Vasily Denisovich Nedaykasha, born in 1896, was born in the village of Glodosy, Kherson province. At the age of 20, he was drafted into the tsarist army, from where he ended up in the trenches of the First World War. Vasily returned to his native village in 1918 with the rank of lieutenant, awarded to him for his repeated valor in battles. Having organized a detachment of "free Cossacks" in his small homeland, he established an independent power not controlled by Kiev in the district.

In the summer of 1919, Nedaykasha with a detachment joined Batka Makhno for three months, then transferred to the ranks of the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) under the leadership of Petliura. Six months later, when the army ceased to exist, Vasily moved to Volyn, from where he began to carry out special assignments of the UNR government in exile.

In 1925, Nedaykasha, with two brothers and the remnants of his detachment, fled to Poland. Here he received an offer to engage in intelligence activities in Ukraine in order to continue the struggle for its liberation from the Bolsheviks. Until 1933, Vasily remained on the territory of Poland, engaged in the creation of an agent network and headed one of the intelligence sectors created by the General Staff of the UPR War Ministry. Then he moved to France, where, shortly before Nedaykashi, his brothers, Porfiry and Petro, moved to live.

How NKVD officers recruited Nedaykasha, and how much money did the newly minted intelligence officer demanded for his services

Having settled in a new place, Vasily met a certain Boykov, who provided intelligence to two parties at once - the Soviet Union and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). In a conversation with him, Nedaykasha admitted that he wants to go to work for the nationalists. The content of the conversation soon became known in the Special State Political Administration (OGPU) of the USSR, since, being a double agent, Boykov did not fail to share information with both the Soviet resident and the representative of the OUN.

However, the nationalists suspected a Polish agent of the former supporter of the UPR and did not show interest in him, unlike the state security of the Soviets: here they decided to recruit Nedaykasha in the hope of getting valuable information over time. Vasily immediately agreed to cooperate, but put forward a condition - he would share information, but not free of charge, but for 48 thousand dollars (at the modern rate) per year.

It was for this amount that Nedaykasha was ready to tell Soviet intelligence about the location of border points, the structure of the UPR intelligence network, Polish-Ukrainian agents, sources of financial support for the UPR and other similar information. The money, according to the former Makhnovist, he planned to invest in the development of his own farm, so that after a year of working for the Bolsheviks, he would retire from business related to politics.

After a short auction, an agreement was reached: "Beetle" - such an agent's nickname was given to Nedaykasha at the OPGU - receives an advance payment of $ 5,700 for the first information. After their confirmation, he is paid 23 thousand, after which every month he is given 3 400 dollars.

What information was provided by "Zhuk" -Nedaykasha to the agents of the OGPU

In February 1934, Vasily handed over to new employers part of the data on the UNR agent network. He explained the scarcity of the information provided by the lack of time, asking for a full collection of information for another three months and, as usual, money. A month later, Vasily transferred another material to the OPGU, which contained as many as forty pages of text. "Zhuk" very much counted on the fee, but received only the promise of an advance after checking the data.

However, the information provided by Nedaykasha contained general and already known information, which, according to the objective opinion of the OPGU representatives, could not be paid in any way. At the end of April 1934, having given a promise to go to Warsaw to restore old ties in the UPR, "Zhuk" received $ 7,400 in advance, without later transferring anything of value. Moreover, taking the money, he did not leave for Poland, explaining this by the lack of messages from the right people.

Subsequent data on the UNR intelligence connections with the United States and a number of Asian and Western countries also turned out to be incomplete and superficial. In the spring of 1935, Nedaykasha was ordered to leave for Warsaw to collect information about the UNR agent network in Soviet Ukraine. However, having lived on Polish territory for two months, "Zhuk" on his return admitted that he had not completed the task to the end. He substantiated this with a bad memory of surnames and a long absence (one year) among his former comrades-in-arms.

But he spoke about the upcoming attempt on Kosior, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Ukrainian SSR, as well as the intentions of the President of the UPR Levytsky to create an anti-Soviet organization from the Ukrainian military who had left for France. And although the agent who supervised him reported that the "Zhuk" was lying, history showed that a terrorist act was indeed planned against Stanislav Kosior and other party leader Pavel Postyshev, and preparations were being made at that time.

How "Zhuk" cheated the NKVD "and deceived the deceivers

In the fall of 1935, it was decided to introduce Nedaykash into the OUN, but the leadership opposed, which hoped to receive more detailed information from him about the UNR agents on the territory of Ukraine. After several spatial reconnaissance reports made during the year, interest in the "Beetle" as a valuable employee gradually faded. By the end of the summer of 1939, he was expelled from the ranks of Soviet agents, recognizing, in fact, an ordinary provocateur.

Vasily was remembered after the formation of the French organization "The Society of Former Ukrainian Warriors", where the former "Zhuk" took over as deputy chairman. Nedaykasha spoke about plans to create this society back in 1935. Despite this fact, the description given to him by the USSR residency reads: “The behavior of this agent indicated that he was deliberately introduced into Soviet intelligence. Attempts to convert him to nothing led to the presence of the "Beetle" great intelligence experience. In this regard, the residency considers further cooperation unpromising, since the activity of this agent is more like provocative."

In general, the secret services of the USSR reacted extremely harshly to cases of betrayal. They tried to eliminate the guilty person by all possible means. The first was Georgy Agabekov, who was eliminated by the NKVD.