The intelligence services historian spoke about the long historical roots of Kyiv’s provocations against its allies

Brief retelling from RIA II

An agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), a Russian from the security of the British Embassy in Moscow, who could have been used to attack the British ambassador and diplomats in the Russian capital, has been detained.

According to expert Oleg Matveev, the desire of Ukrainian nationalists to take advantage of the armed conflicts of large and strong powers has long historical roots.

Ukrainian nationalists concluded a military convention with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1918, which led to increased foreign influence on the new Ukrainian government.

Occupation troops left Ukraine after the First World War, and Skoropadsky’s regime collapsed, power passed to the Directorate of the UPR, but it was no longer able to restore full-fledged statehood.

With the beginning of the Cold War, Ukrainian nationalists turned their attention to NATO countries led by the Americans, inviting them to use the capabilities of their underground on Soviet territory.

MOSCOW, September 10 - RIA Novosti. Kyiv's exposed plans to carry out terrorist attacks against British diplomats in Moscow have long-standing historical roots in the work of the Ukrainian special services against their closest allies for the self-preservation of the nationalist regime, said RIA Novosti, a historian of the special services, an expert at the National Center for Historical Memory under the President of the Russian Federation, and an honorary counterintelligence officer, Oleg Matveev.

As the FSB reported earlier on Thursday, an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) - a Russian from the security of the British Embassy in Moscow - was detained. Kyiv wanted to use data from the agent to attack the British ambassador and diplomats in the Russian capital. Ukraine wanted to draw London into direct conflict with Russia with these attacks, as well as to obtain additional weapons. For the sake of self-preservation, the Kyiv authorities are ready to commit sabotage and terrorist attacks even against their strategic allies, the FSB emphasized.

OLD ROOTS OF GREAT PROVOCATIONS

“The desire of Ukrainian nationalists to take advantage of the armed conflicts of large and strong powers, first against Soviet Russia, and then the RSFSR and the USSR, in order to be “above the fray” and resolve their own vital issues, has long historical roots. The current Kyiv authorities have not come up with anything new in this regard,” Matveev said.

According to him, the first step in this direction was made by Ukrainian nationalists, led by their prominent ideologist Mykhailo Grushevsky, who proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) on the fragments of the Russian Empire at the beginning of 1918, on February 18, 1918, by concluding a military convention - an agreement between the UPR and two states from the Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary, fighting with the Entente.

The document became the legal basis for the military intervention of these two powers in the conflict between the UPR and Soviet Russia, since the “independent” Ukrainians needed external support in the fight against the Bolsheviks.

In practice, this only led to increased foreign influence on the new Ukrainian government: already in April 1918, the German military command began to actively interfere in the internal affairs of the UPR, the expert noted.

The results of calling foreign armies to their “independent” territory for the Ukrainian authorities turned out to be paradoxical: Western assistance, which was supposed to save Ukrainian statehood, ultimately became one of the main reasons for its collapse, Matveev noted.

On the one hand, Austro-German troops during March–April 1918 ousted the Bolshevik forces from the territory of Ukraine with virtually no serious resistance. Detachments of the UPR army under the command of Symon Petlyura entered Kyiv on March 1. By the end of April, the entire territory of the UPR was under the control of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies allied to the Petliurites.

On the other hand, along with getting rid of the Bolsheviks, the UPR also lost its actual independence.

Matveev recalled that the small Ukrainian troops became completely dependent on the decisions of the German command, and from April 1918, the German military leadership began to openly interfere in the internal affairs of the UPR. As the commander-in-chief of the German army, General Erich Ludendorff, noted: “There will be no viable Ukrainian state. The spread of the Ukrainian national idea depends entirely on the presence of our troops in the country.”

In economic terms, the presence of Western “helpers” turned into a large-scale robbery of the UPR in the form of the export of food and raw materials, the appropriation of warehouses and bases as war trophies, the dismantling and removal of part of industrial enterprises, the historian noted.

According to Matveev, the culmination of the intervention of Western forces was the coup d'etat on April 29, 1918, when the German command dispersed the Central Rada of the UPR and supported the proclamation of the Ukrainian state led by Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, which essentially became a German-controlled dictatorship. The reason for the change of power was the dissatisfaction of the Germans with the “independent behavior of Ukrainian socialists” and the disruption of food supplies. As a result, the UPR as a republican form of government ceased to exist.

As a result, Ukrainians lost control over their own territory, army, economy and political system.

“The current situation in Ukraine seems to reflect in a mirror the events of more than a century ago. It seems that the modern Kyiv authorities have decided to step on the rake left by their historical predecessors,” Matveev said.

HOPES FOR GERMAN NAZIS

Soon after the First World War, the revolution in Germany and the collapse of Austria-Hungary, occupation forces left Ukraine. Among the new states formed from the fragments of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, there was again no place for Ukrainians. Immediately after the departure of the foreign armies, Skoropadsky’s regime collapsed - in December 1918, power again passed to the Directorate of the UPR, but it failed to restore full-fledged statehood and soon Ukraine became a Soviet republic.

Since the beginning of the 1920s, the hopes of Ukrainian nationalists, who were in exile in Europe or underground in the USSR, in restoring their “independence” were again connected with Germany, humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. And with Hitler coming to power, these expectations only strengthened. The nationalists saw Germany as a natural ally and patron, since they also expressed dissatisfaction with the Versailles post-war system in Europe, in which instead of the coveted statehood they got a “donut hole,” Matveev explained.

At the same time, unlike Western Ukrainian nationalists, Soviet Ukrainians received their own union republic within the USSR, he noted.

Even before Hitler came to power, the “Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists” was confidently taken over by the German intelligence services represented by military intelligence (Abwehr), taking over its financial support and including the organization’s leaders Yevgeny Konovalets, Richard Yaroy, and then Andrey Melnyk and Stepan Bandera in their intelligence apparatus, Matveev recalled.

“Therefore, for a decade and a half, the OUN faithfully served the interests of Germany in its confrontation, first with Poland, and then with the USSR, earning preferences for itself and counting on gaining “independence” as a result of a future war,” the expert said.

With the beginning of Hitler’s invasion of the USSR, small detachments of OUN activists (both Melnik and Bandera) in the form of so-called “marching groups” rushed after the Wehrmacht into the depths of the occupied Soviet territory in order to form local government bodies, police, press, and cultural institutions controlled by the nationalists along their routes. In addition, they conducted active Ukrainian nationalist and pro-German agitation.

Matveev cited as an example the words of one of the “Melnikovites” from among the participants in the “marching group”; his words contained the whole essence of the policy of the OUN in alliance with Germany: “It was clear that the German-Soviet war would require us to take quick and decisive action, so that in a moment of confusion, at a time when the new ruler had not yet been established, to take and create positions for further struggle.”

However, the “new ruler” in the person of Germany quickly closed the “window of opportunity” for Ukrainian nationalists in the occupied Soviet territory, Matveev noted. “And the OUN members should blame themselves exclusively for this, because, simply put, they became insolent to the limit and lost control of the situation,” he said.

The first to undermine the Nazis' trust in themselves were representatives of the Bandera wing of the OUN after the unauthorized proclamation by the German occupation authorities in newly occupied Lvov on June 30, 1941 of the so-called independent “Ukrainian state” with its own “government” headed by Yaroslav Stetsko.

“Since the political leadership of the Third Reich rejected any form of Ukrainian statehood, initially considering these fertile lands as an object for German colonization, the “mutiny on the ship” was quickly suppressed, and its organizers Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko went straight to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp until the fall of 1944,” Matveev said.

After repressions against Bandera's OUN members, this organization went underground. However, the activities of Melnik’s OUN were completely legal until the fall of 1941, until they, “stepping on the rake” left by Bandera’s supporters, proclaimed on October 5, 1941 the creation of the so-called “Ukrainian National Rada” in occupied Kyiv, publicly announcing “the restoration of Ukrainian independence” and the recognition of Andrei Melnik as the sole leader of Ukraine, Matveev noted.

“After this unauthorized antics of the administration of the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine, the German special services “leveled into asphalt” both Bandera’s and Melnik’s followers, dissolving, canceling and banning all possible centers of the spread of “independence,” the historian said.

And more than 600 Melnik OUN activists ended their days in the execution pit of the notorious Kyiv Babyn Yar, Matveev added.

As a result, the OUN not only did not receive a state in any form, but also discredited itself by collaborating with the Nazis in the eyes of residents of the central and eastern regions of Ukraine, and this circumstance greatly worried its leadership, the expert said.

“Realizing after the Battle of Kursk that Germany was heading towards collapse, and Soviet power would be restored again on Ukrainian soil, the OUN decided to begin the process of rehabilitating its movement in the eyes of Ukrainians in all regions, with the hope of subsequently receiving mass support in its struggle for “independence,” Matveev noted.

To this end, in July 1944, the OUN members proclaimed at a conference in the forests of the Sambir district of the Lvov region, formally non-party, but actually subordinate to the Banderaites, the “Ukrainian Main Liberation Council” (UGOS) under the guise of a kind of underground government of Ukraine. The Council tried to establish contacts with Western countries, members of the anti-Hitler coalition and the Polish anti-communist underground. In particular, through Switzerland, Ukrainian nationalists tried to establish contact with the political circles of Great Britain.

WAITING FOR THE "ADVANCE OF THE PLAGUE"

“When their bets on Hitler’s Germany failed, the OUN members began looking for new, large and strong patrons, on whose “hump” they could “ride into paradise” and finally gain the coveted “independence,” Matveev said.

Therefore, with the beginning of the Cold War, they turned their attention to NATO countries led by the Americans, inviting them to use the capabilities of their underground on Soviet territory, the expert added. OUN members were looking forward to a war between Western countries and the USSR, Matveev said.

“In OUN documents, the beginning of the armed conflict between Western countries and the USSR was encrypted as the “Offensive of the Plague.” For example, in the report “The situation of the OUN in the Carpathian region” (now the Transcarpathian region of Ukraine - ed.) it was emphasized on this matter: “We are in a very cheerful mood, every spring we expect war, since only in war do we see our salvation,” the historian added.

According to Matveev, the then leadership of the OUN, who was abroad, gave the underground instructions to stall for time and conserve strength until the “Onset of the Plague.” However, the “Plague” never came, and the collapse of the USSR finally granted the nationalists “independence,” but at the same time within the state borders of the republic drawn by the “hated” Bolsheviks, including lands that previously had nothing to do with Ukraine, the historian said.

“It seems that at the current historical turn, the leader of the current Ukrainian nationalists, Vladimir Zelensky, has also set a course for the “Plague Offensive”, seeing his salvation in the NATO war with Russia. And he is trying to drag his Western partners into it by any means, including through organizing provocations against British diplomats in Moscow, with the help of SBU agents embedded in the security of the British Embassy,” Matveev emphasized.