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October 15, 2024, marked the 65th anniversary of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) founder Stepan Bandera’s assassination by the KGB in Munich, in then-West Germany.
The date passed without mention anywhere. This may reflect how prior public commemorations of the life and death of Nazi collaborator Bandera—widely credited as the father of Ukrainian nationalism—in Kyiv sparked significant controversy and condemnation across Central and Eastern Europe, particularly neighboring Poland.
The complicity of Bandera and the fascist movements he birthed during World War II is well-documented. His influence over modern-day ultranationalist and Neo-Nazi factions in Ukraine, such as the Azov Regiment, has also been acknowledged in the mainstream media.
Yet, Bandera’s secret Cold War bond with British intelligence has never been seriously explored by Western news outlets. Now, examination of little-known declassified CIA records by CovertAction Magazine exposes the malign contours of a long-running, ruthless conspiracy between Bandera and MI6 to destabilize the Soviet Union.
This dark handshake only expired because MI6’s fascist asset was resistant to joining forces with other Ukrainian anti-Communist forces, therefore jeopardizing plans by Washington and London for all-out war with the Soviets in Donbas. That plot, intended to ultimately collapse the entire USSR, has eerie, direct echoes of the current Ukraine proxy war. So too Britain’s willingness, then and now, to go even further than the U.S. in building alliances with the most reactionary, dangerous Ukrainian ultranationalist elements, in service of balkanizing Russia.
“Bandit Type”
MI6 first contacted Bandera while he was exiled in post-war West Germany in 1948, via Gerhard von Mende. An ethnic German hailing from Riga, Latvia, von Mende has been described as the “enthusiastic Nazi” who headed Berlin’s Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territory, or Ostministerium. Among other connivances, von Mende was charged with recruiting fifth columnists from the USSR’s Central Asian republics, to undermine and attack Communist authorities. He has been credited with influencing subsequent British and American support for Islamic extremists.
Per a declassified CIA biography, after Nazi Germany’s defeat, von Mende was “interned as a ‘guest’” at the Agency’s Camp King, where Nazi officials and soldiers were interrogated and tortured. In some cases, inmates were unwittingly dosed with LSD under PROJECT BLUEBIRD, a forerunner to the CIA’s notorious MK-ULTRA mind-control program. Subsequently, von Mende became an asset for West Germany’s Nazi-riddled BND, the CIA, and MI6, continuing his spy recruitment in the USSR via a front company.
Through this position, von Mende was kept abreast of UPA activities and capabilities, and maintained an intimate personal relationship with Bandera. The Ukrainian fascist ideologue’s thuggish West German network was by then hard at work killing hundreds of local citizens suspected by the CIA and MI6 of harboring Communist sympathies. While the OUN-B chief’s “ask” of British intelligence was initially judged too high, that perspective rapidly changed. By 1949, MI6 was helping Bandera airdrop his chaos agents into Ukraine.
[Source: pension-sprachschule.de]
A year later, Britain’s foreign spy agency began formally training these operatives to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations on Soviet soil. This sinister compact was established despite stern CIA and State Department opposition. At this point, the Agency had identified a comparatively moderate alternative to Bandera’s murderous ultranationalist mob, the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR). The group was led by Ukrainian-Greek Catholic priest Ivan Hrinioch, a “longtime CIA asset” and former high-ranking OUN-B operative Mykola Lebed.
Ivan Hrinioch [Source: jonahintheheartofnineveh.blogspot.com]
Mykola Lebed [Source: huri.harvard.edu]
During World War II, Lebed oversaw the UPA’s massacre of tens of thousands of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. However, he subsequently disavowed this genocidal carnage, and led UHVR’s push to unite Ukrainian émigrés, who had fractured due to bloody, internecine squabbles toward the conflict’s end. Under the auspices of Operation AERODYNAMIC, for decades the Agency exploited the UHVR to foment “nationalist flare-ups” throughout the Soviet Union, “particularly” in Ukraine, and “encourage divisive manifestations among” the population, to “exert pressure on the Soviet regime.”
By this time, Bandera had fallen out of favor with many Ukrainian nationalists, and was even renounced by what remained of OUN-B’s Kiev-based leadership. This, his genocidal past, and overt anti-U.S. actions and statements due to Washington’s refusal to publicly advocate for Ukrainian independence, all deterred the CIA from employing him. However, MI6 was unperturbed and pushed ahead with its Bandera operations. This created a ludicrous situation, with London and Washington supporting bitterly antagonistic Ukrainian nationalist factions, which frequently undermined and attacked each other.
As a British intelligence memo randum on “the crisis over Bandera” noted, by 1950 Ukrainian nationalist leaders had “become aware of the fact that the British and Americans were backing rival groups,” putting the agencies’ joint anti-Soviet project at risk. It was decided to dispatch a co-signed message to UPA headquarters via Ukrainian CIA and MI6 agents parachuted into Lviv, calling for an end to “present disagreements” between opposing nationalist factions, which London and Washington professed to “deplore and earnestly hope may be resolved.”
It signed off with the now-infamous, Bandera-coined nationalist slogan, “Glory to Ukraine” (“Slava Ukraini”). The memo’s MI6 author, moreover, recalled an in-person meeting they had with Bandera in London. The spy described him thusly:
“Convincing and sincere…a professional underground worker with a terrorist background and ruthless notions about the rules of the game, acquired by hard experience, along with a thorough knowledge of the Ukrainian people…a bandit type if you like, with a burning patriotism which provides an ethical background and a justification for his banditry.”
The MI6 operative cheerfully added that genocidal mass murderer Bandera was “no better and no worse than others of his kind I have had dealings with in the past,” and “genuinely grateful for the help given to him” by British intelligence, “but at the same time is certainly trying to get all he can out of it.” The CIA begged to differ, however, commissioning a study of London and Washington’s conflicting positions on the “Ukrainian underground” and Bandera, and how to resolve this divergence.
UPA poster from the 1940s. OUN/UPA’s formal greeting is written on two of the horizontal lines “Glory to Ukraine!” “Glory to the Heroes!” The soldier is standing on the banners of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. [Source: euromaidanpress.com]
“Political Overtones”
A subsequent appraisal repeatedly declared Bandera and OUN-B to be “completely unacceptable” to the CIA, “both from the political and the operational standpoints.” It proposed the Agency and MI6 take joint ownership of the UHVR and its anti-Soviet wrecking project in Ukraine, and “exchange political, operational and intelligence data resulting from these operations.” Meanwhile, the CIA would “take independent action to neutralize” OUN-B’s “present leadership,” including Bandera himself. It is unknown if this was pitched to MI6, although London’s steadfast opposition was inevitable.
The “British position,” as described in the study, was Bandera’s “importance” had been perennially“underestimated by the Americans, as a rallying symbol in the Ukraine, as leader of a large émigré group [and] as a leader favored by the homeland headquarters.” This did not conform to the reality on the ground as detected by the CIA, but MI6 had a vested interest in maintaining the fascist demagogue as an agent. An April 1951 Agency memo summarizing recent “talks” with British intelligence “on operations against the USSR” noted:
“[MI6 is] seeking progressively to assume control of Bandera’s lines…[MI6 argues] Bandera’s name still carried considerable weight in the Ukraine…[and OUN-B is] the strongest Ukrainian organization abroad, is deemed competent to train party cadres, [and] build a morally and politically healthy organization.”
By contrast, the CIA observed Soviet authorities “had been successful to a remarkable degree in transforming the mentality of the younger generation” of Ukrainians, resulting in them vehemently rejecting Bandera and his brand of rabid nationalism. While the Agency, therefore, favored “political neutralization of Bandera as an individual,” MI6 balked, as this “would lead to a drying up of recruits” and “disrupt British operations.” However, the declassified paper trail shows London eventually tired of their fascist asset.
In February 1954, a senior MI6 official who led liaison with OUN-B for two decades made a “final attempt to bring Bandera to reason” in London, due to the genocidaire’s refusal to reconcile and unite with opposing Ukrainian nationalist elements. The high-ranking British spook offered him “one last chance” to make amends with émigré leaders. Bandera “refused this suggestion with arrogant finality,” thus making “the break” between Bandera and MI6 “complete.”
All British intelligence-run Ukrainian agents who remained loyal to Bandera were duly jettisoned. MI6 informed other nationalist leaders the agency “would not resume” its relationship with him “under any circumstances.” Bandera remained exiled in Munich, West Germany, and continued to run belligerent cloak-and-dagger operations against the Soviet Union, while ratcheting up his anti-Western rhetoric. The CIA and MI6 viewed these activities as a significant problem, with no obvious solution.
As CIA records of a January 1955 “joint U.S.-UK conference” put it, despite the “unanimous desire” of British and American intelligence to “‘quiet’ Bandera,” it was equally vital the KGB was “not allowed to kidnap or kill him.” This could make Bandera “a martyr” among Ukrainian ultranationalists, a prospect to be avoided if at all possible. Hence, London and Washington kept him alive and well, while permitting West Germany’s BND to run him as an agent. Their old friend Gerhard von Mende was his handler.
West German authorities wished to punish Bandera and his in-country network for crimes including kidnapping, but von Mende consistently intervened to insulate his compatriot from prosecution. A July 1959 CIA report noted the BND’s use of Bandera was such a “closely held” secret within the agency, it was not even formally cleared with the West German government “due to political overtones.” Despite this omertà (code of silence), the BND moved to secure Bandera a U.S. visa.
It was hoped he would connect with Ukrainian émigrés Stateside, while ingratiating himself with the CIA and State Department. Per an October 5, 1959, Agency memo, the BND believed “it should be a simple matter” for the CIA “to influence the issuing of a visa” for Bandera, as “many less desirable and less ‘exploitable’ individuals” had already visited the country via Agency assistance. A formal request was submitted to Washington. Just ten days later, though, the KGB finally caught up with him.
Despite their mutual wish that Bandera not be “martyred” by Soviet intelligence, it is likely that the CIA and MI6 breathed a collective sigh of relief upon hearing of his death. The OUN-B and UPA founder’s destabilizing, disruptive influence within the Ukrainian anti-Communist underground was a significant impediment to Anglo-American spying agencies’ implementation of a far grander plan than had hitherto been tried. Namely, fomenting all-out war against the Soviet Union, using Ukrainian ultranationalists as foot soldiers.
Original article: CovertAction Magazine
