The following translation is taken from a rather lengthy interrogation of Prince Nikolay Mikhaylovich Gagarin, a former Wehrmacht officer and commander of the 3rd squadron of the 600th Cossack division, who went over to the Smolensk partisans on June 9, 1943.
The uniqueness of the document is that, to date, it is the only known story of a Russian emigrant, a representative of an old princely family, who ended up on the Eastern Front with Nazi troops, and then went over to the Soviet side, and later worked for Soviet intelligence in post-war Europe. It further serves as the only historical source that not only helps to more fully reconstruct the facts of Gagarin’s biography, but also allows one to see, through the prism of personal history, the worldview attitudes common among the Russian emigration during the Second World War.
In his interrogation, Gagarin gives a detailed account of his pre-war past, in particular his training and service in the Royal Yugoslav Forces, and later his voluntary transfer to the Wehrmacht in June 1941 to fight the Soviet regime. The document contains illustrative characteristics of the leaders of the collaborationist movement, in particular A.A. Vlasov and I.N. Kononov, as well as details of the training of collaborationist military formations. By order of the German command, Gagarin fought the partisan movement in the occupied Smolensk region. Close acquaintance with Soviet life changed the prince’s worldview attitudes, influenced his desire for peace, and became the main reason for his crossover to the Soviet side.
In reading the interrogation record, one can only wonder if Gagarin’s heart underwent a Grinch-like change after having seen both sides of the war, or if he was a remarkable bullshit artist who was able to hoodwink his interrogators and be released after having admitted to shooting Russian partisans on behalf of the Nazis.
Today, the use of interrogation records from the Stalin era as historical sources sparks legitimate debate within the research community. Many authors argue that the torture inflicted on detainees, combined with the widespread falsification of data, undermines the credibility of such documents. However, the only surviving interrogation record of Gagarin provides no information regarding whether the Prince was subjected to torture or any form of pressure by the investigators. However, the absence of records concerning a criminal case against Gagarin, combined with later evidence of his cooperation with the security services, suggests that the information presented in the interrogation record is authentic.
This document was recently declassified. It was preserved in the Politburo Central Committee archives within the “State Security” subject group, in a subsection dedicated to the Russian emigration. The interrogation record had not been published previously. However, D.A. Volkogonov had made a photocopy for his personal archive, likely between 1993 and 1994, of the cover memo sent by People’s Commissar for State Security V.N. Merkulov to I.V. Stalin on September 14, 1943 (No. 2014/m), as well as the first page of the interrogation record. After Volkogonov’s death, his family sold his archive to representatives of the U.S. government; subsequently, the digitized documents, including the record of N.M. Gagarin’s interrogation, were made available on the U.S. National Security Archive website.
Below, our translation of the 30+ page interrogation record.
Record of the Interrogation of N.M. Gagarin
20 August 1943
INTERROGATION RECORD
of Nikolay Mikhaylovich GAGARIN
N.M. Gagarin, born in 1913, a native of Peterhof, the son of a former prince and a White émigré who resided in Yugoslavia prior to joining the German army, was a lieutenant in the German service and a former platoon commander in the 600th White Cossack Regiment; on June 9 of this year, he defected to the Red Army.
Question: On June 9, 1943, in the village of Oseredok (Osipovichi District, Mogilev Oblast), near the location of a partisan detachment, you appeared wearing the uniform of a German army officer, accompanied by five armed soldiers who, upon being detained, identified themselves as privates from the 600th White Cossack Regiment.
What was the reason for your appearance in the area where the partisans were stationed?
Answer: As a platoon commander in the 600th White Cossack Regiment, part of the German “Reichert” Division, I had long contemplated defecting to the Red Army with my weapons. Knowing from my duties that partisans were stationed near the village of Oseredok, I carried out this plan on June 9 of this year, accompanied by five Cossacks whom I had prepared beforehand.
Prior to this, on June 1 of this year, nine Cossacks from our platoon had defected to the Red Army as a result of my efforts; after I left, two more followed by the end of the day on June 9, bringing the total to 16 men. Before defecting, we seized five light machine guns, 16 rifles, a submachine gun, a company mortar, two pistols, eight grenades, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition, all of which we handed over to the partisans.
Question: Before detailing the motives that prompted you to defect to the Soviet side and the circumstances of your escape from the German army, please tell us about your background.
Answer: I was born on July 20, 1913, in Peterhof. My father, formerly Prince Mikhail Sergeyevich Gagarin, served in the Chevalier Guards Regiment, attaining the rank of colonel, and owned estates in the Ryazan and Tula provinces. From my mother’s accounts, I know that after the February Revolution, my father participated in a plot against Kerensky and later in the formation of the Volunteer Army in the Don region. In 1918, in the city of Krasnodar, my father was arrested as an active White Guardist; he escaped from prison, was wounded, and died while on the run.
My mother, formerly Princess Maria Aleksandrovna Gagarina (née Countess Musina-Pushkina), served as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial Court; she has been living abroad in New York (USA) since 1919, supporting herself by giving French and music lessons to the children of wealthy Americans, and maintains a wide circle of acquaintances among the Russian White émigrés who settled in America.
Question: Which other relatives of yours live abroad?
Answer: My uncle (my father’s brother) is the former Prince Aleksandr Sergeyevich Gagarin, 65 years old. He served in the Tsar’s army as a captain in a cavalry regiment. After the war of 1914–1918, he emigrated to France and married a wealthy Englishwoman. He lives in his own villa in Cannes and maintains close ties with French aristocratic circles and representatives of the House of Romanov.
My uncle (on my mother’s side) was the former Count Nikolai Aleksandrovich Musin-Pushkin, 50 years old, a former officer in a cavalry regiment, currently a German citizen. After the revolution, he emigrated from Russia to Austria. When Germany’s military operations against the USSR kicked off, he went to the front as a translator, but soon returned. Judging by his letters to me, dated in late 1941, he was somewhat dissatisfied, as he advised me to think carefully before deciding to join the active German army on the Eastern Front.
The husband of my aunt (on my mother’s side), who was born I.A. Musina-Pushkina, Nikolay Kochubey, 48, collaborated with Hetman Skoropadskyi in Ukraine and, fearing repression, emigrated to Brussels (Belgium), where he continued to work for the so-called “Ukrainian Community”.
In 1928, when I was in Brussels (where I was studying at an accounting school), Nikolay Kochubey repeatedly traveled with Hetman Skoropadskyi to Berlin for negotiations with the German government on behalf of the “Ukrainian Community,” which, incidentally, according to the same Kochubey, enjoyed regular financial subsidies from the Germans.
Question: Where is Nikolay Kochubey at present?
Answer: In Brussels. Judging by the letters Kochubey sent me, at the beginning of the war between the USSR and Germany, he intended to go to the active German army as an interpreter, but soon abandoned the idea of going to the Eastern Front for reasons unknown to me.
My mother’s second sister, Lyubov Aleksandrovna Kochubey, also lives in Brussels; she is about 56 years old, was married to Pyotr Kochubey (who was shot in Kyiv in 1917 or 1918), and has a son, Vasily (a chauffeur) and a daughter, Olga (married to a Belgian engineer); she is on close terms with General Wrangel’s family, maintains acquaintances among the Brussels aristocracy, and is hostile toward the USSR.
My father’s sister, the former Baroness Lidiya Sergeyevna Knoring, née Gagarina, aged 75, lived in Belgrade, moved to Vienna in 1942, and is currently in Poznań (Poland), staying with one of her husband’s relatives, a certain Shulman (I do not know his first name or patronymic), who, from what I gather, is connected to the National Socialists.
In 1935, during a vacation I took in Belgrade, Knoring told me that she had known Baron Mannerheim prior to the revolution; judging by her constant remarks, she is hostile toward the Soviet Union.
Question: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Answer: I have two younger brothers: Aleksey and Dmitry. Aleksey, 27, graduated from the colonial agronomic school in France. In 1931 or 1932, he went to America to join our mother, graduated from military academy, and is currently serving as an officer in the American army. He married a Russian émigré, started a farm, and, according to his letters from 1939, was once the Virginia fencing champion.
Question: Do you regularly correspond with your brother?
Answer: Yes, up until mid-1941. When I wrote to my brother in America about my intention to volunteer for the German army due to the war, Aleksey, presumably disapproving of my decision, ceased all correspondence with me.
My second brother, Dmitry, aged 26 and also an officer in the US Army, like Aleksey, likewise broke off contact with me; he was apparently guided by the hostility he had once expressed in a letter to me in late December 1941 toward anyone who, in defiance of conscience, fought against their own homeland.
My paternal cousin, Sergey Mikhaylovich Rayevsky, aged 34, held a different view.
Question: How’s that?
Answer: At the outbreak of the war between Germany and the USSR, Sergey Rayevsky joined the German army as an interpreter and went missing in action near Moscow during the Red Army’s winter offensive of 1941–42. Meanwhile, Rayevsky’s brother Mikhail, a 29-year-old aviation engineer, fought against the Germans in the ranks of the French army and is currently being held in a German prisoner-of-war camp.
I have only mentioned my close relatives living abroad, but I also have distant relatives in France, America, Yugoslavia, and other countries, as emigration has scattered my family across the globe.
Question: And now, please describe in detail the circumstances under which you yourself emigrated abroad.
Answer: According to my mother, in 1919, when I had turned six and my two brothers were three and two years old, as the Red Army was approaching Crimea, our family, along with the Rayevsky family and my father’s brother A.S. Gagarin, were evacuated from Yalta to Sevastopol on the French destroyer La Scarpe, acting on the instructions of a French admiral we knew, and subsequently to Constantinople on the French gunboat La Capricieuse.
Question: So as a result, you spent your childhood in Turkey?
Answer: In Turkey and France. Until 1924, I attended primary school on the Princes’ Islands, then the English college for Russians in Büyükdere on the Bosphorus, and finally in Erenköy, where the college had been relocated.
In 1924, my family moved to Nice (France); I attended secondary school there for three years, after which I enrolled in an accounting course, graduating in 1929. By that time, due to financial difficulties, my mother — and soon after, both my brothers — left for America, while I went to Brussels (Belgium).
Question: Why did you not leave for America with your mother?
Answer: My family decided that I should go to my aunt, Irina Kochubey, to continue my education.
However, my relatives soon concluded that I had chosen an unworthy path and had fallen in with “freethinking” young people; to remedy the perceived “flaws” in my upbringing, they sent me in 1929 to the Don Cadet Corps, an institution for White émigrés in Yugoslavia.
In 1934, upon graduating from the cadet corps, I was enrolled in a Yugoslav military academy; I graduated in 1937 and, with the rank of lieutenant, was appointed platoon commander in the 1st Alpine Rifle Regiment. At the time of the German attack on Yugoslavia (April 1941), I was commanding a mortar company within that same Alpine regiment. My service in the Yugoslav army ended with my internment in a prisoner-of-war camp, where I was confined by the Germans in May 1941.
Question: In your testimony from 11 June, you acknowledged a brief association with Yugoslav intelligence. By whom and under what circumstances were you recruited to cooperate with Yugoslav intelligence agencies?
Answer: In the autumn of 1939, in the city of Ljubljana, where the 1st Alpine Battalion was stationed at the time, I met an assistant investigator from the Drava Division at the Officers’ Club; his surname, as far as I recall, was Dmitrijević.
Initially, our relationship was one of casual acquaintance, but one day I shared with Dmitrijević my observations regarding the suspicious behavior of the battalion commander, Major Petar Vajović. He was constantly associating with officers of German descent who had been mobilized into the Yugoslav Army and were members of the Kulturbund, an organization known to be aligned with Nazi Germany.
Question: How did Dmitriyevich react to this information?
Answer: Dmitriyevich attached great importance to the facts I had presented and stated that Vajović’s friendship with the Germans could end badly; therefore, I ought to keep a close watch on the company the battalion commander was keeping.
When I objected that intelligence work was not my role, my duty being strictly military service, Dmitriyevich explained that it is the duty of every officer to combat foreign espionage and prevent potential treason by elements that are unstable or hostile to the state.
Dmitriyevich continued to insist, and I agreed to help organize surveillance of the Germans who, for reasons of their own, were attempting to bring Vajović under their influence.
Question: Was your cooperation with intelligence formally documented?
Answer: I did not provide the standard signature required in such cases, as I knew from literature on intelligence methods, but simply agreed to Dmitriyevich’s proposal: to report on the Germans’ behavior during our scheduled meetings at the Officers’ Club, and to submit written reports should I learn of facts warranting special attention.
Question: Using a fictitious signature?
Answer: No. I signed the two reports I submitted in late 1939 as Lieutenant Gagarin.
Question: What were the reports about?
Answer: I wrote about the ethnic Germans, those Yugoslav citizens (Volksdeutsche) serving in the battalion, warning that in the event of war with Germany, they would likely betray Yugoslavia, attempt to secretly sow disorder within the army, or even resort to open action in support of the enemy.
Furthermore, I submitted a written report regarding a German Gefreiter (lance-corporal), whose surname I do not recall, who deserted the battalion, and another, also a Gefreiter, with a surname like Koss or Wulf, who was openly conducting pro-German propaganda. Acting on my report, the authorities removed the second Gefreiter from the alpine battalion and transferred him to a post far from the German border, in Southern Serbia.
Question: Did you maintain contact with Yugoslav intelligence until recently?
Answer: No. No more than two months into my collaboration with intelligence, ties were cut off.
Question: Why is that?
Answer: In the Yugoslav army, there was a regulation prohibiting officers from traveling more than 15 kilometers away from their garrison without special permission. To facilitate my surveillance of Germans suspected of espionage, and to enable me, if necessary, to venture beyond that 15-kilometer limit or visit restaurants where officers were forbidden to go, Dmitrijević gave me an official note stamped by the Drava Division, stating that I was acting under the orders of the assistant investigating officer. However, I used this authorization for personal purposes; consequently, Dmitrijević, having apparently been reprimanded by his superiors, cut off all ties with me.
Question: It is unclear why the transgression you committed could have served as grounds for ending the relationship.
Answer: I am describing things exactly as they happened. In late September or early October 1939, I set out on my motorcycle from Ljubljana, heading about fifty kilometers toward Tržič, to visit a young woman I knew named Eda; however, on the way, I collided with a cart, leading to my detention by the police, who demanded to see my documents.
After leaving the garrison without authorization, I decided to make use of the note I had from Dmitriyevich, assuming that would be the end of the matter, but the police drew up an official report and forwarded it to the division.
Dmitriyevich reprimanded me for misusing the pass he had placed at my disposal and announced that he was severing professional ties with me.
Question: It’s highly unlikely that a relatively minor incident involving the misuse of a document you had received could have served as grounds for terminating your intelligence-related activities. Could you perhaps be mistaken about this or that detail?
Answer: There is no fabrication in my testimony. Evidently, my work did not satisfy Dmitriyevich, so he severed our connection with no remorse.
Question: Were attempts made by Yugoslav intelligence to resume your cooperation after 1939?
Answer: Contact was permanently severed, and no attempts were made afterward to re-establish it, even though I continued to serve in the Yugoslav army right up until its capitulation following the clash with the German army.
Question: So you served in the same regiment, the 1st Alpine Regiment?
Answer: Yes, but on April 13, 1941, near the town of Mirna (Slovenia), the soldiers and officers of the Alpine Regiment, which had been reorganized during the war with Germany into the Triglav Mountain Detachment, were sent home by order of our commander, General Lukić. I attempted to break through the encirclement trapping the Yugoslav Army on my motorcycle but failed; I then changed into civilian clothes and headed to the town of Litija to see my fiancée, Rozika Kos, the daughter of a railway employee. I could not, however, remain in hiding at Rozika’s place for long without any means of support; after staying with the Kos family for nine days, and at the urging of my fiancée’s brother, who feared reprisals, I reported to the German field commandant’s office in Celje and declared having served in the Yugoslav Army.
The commandant, accompanied by a German captain, directed me to a special prisoner of war train bound for Germany; on April 29, 1941, I was taken to Warburg (Westphalia) and interned in the officers’ camp “VI-B.”
Question: What was the makeup of the prisoners being held in camp VI-B?
Answer: The camp held as many as four thousand Yugoslav Army officers and about a hundred generals; the senior officer in the camp was the former Yugoslav Minister of War, General Trifunović.
On June 23 of that same year, 1941, I submitted a request to the camp commandant to enlist as a volunteer in the German army operating on the Eastern Front.
Question: So you wanted to take up arms to fight against the USSR?
Answer: I had my own ideas in that regard.
Question: Such as?
Answer: With your permission, for the sake of clarity, I would like to set forth the reasons that prompted me to submit an application for deployment to the Eastern Front.
Question: Proceed.
Answer: From childhood onward, I had been instilled with a hatred for everything Soviet. I was raised in a reactionary, monarchist spirit; however, having left my family at an early age and being left to fend for myself, I began to question the hostile claims about the Soviet regime that my relatives and acquaintances constantly repeated to me. In short, I wanted to figure out for myself what was actually happening in my homeland.
I must add that, having spent my childhood in France, Belgium, and Yugoslavia, I was never free of the feeling of being an exile, and I dreamed of returning to Russia.
The war presented the first real opportunity to return to my homeland and, through contact with Soviet people in the occupied territories, to form a vivid, firsthand impression of the nature of the Soviet system and what it had brought to Russia. The idea of traveling to my homeland under the plausible pretext of enlisting as a volunteer in the German army took shape in my mind during the very first days after Germany declared war on the USSR.
At the same time that I submitted my application, I entertained the possibility of defecting to the Red Army should I become convinced of the falsity of the anti-Soviet propaganda disseminated by the German fascists and the White Guards.
Question: Was the request for your enlistment in the German army granted?
Answer: Yes, but quite a bit later, as late as May 1942.
Question: Clearly, in the eleven months since submitting your application, you managed to convince the Germans through your actions that you could be entrusted with weapons to fight against the Soviet state?
Answer: Please believe me when I tell you that I did nothing of substance for the Germans, though in words I did indeed present myself as an ardent supporter of theirs; I studied the German language, familiarized myself with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and outwardly demonstrated such sympathy for fascism that my fellow officers in the regiment — Yugoslavs — soon turned away from me, regarding me as a traitor.
Question: Were you held in Camp VI-B right up until you joined the German army?
Answer: No. In early September 1941, like the other Russian émigrés in Camp VI-B, I was transferred to Camp IV-C in the town of Colditz (Saxony).
Question: Who were the intended prisoners for Camp IV-C?
Answer: With the exception of a few Frenchmen and Belgians, the camp held only Russian émigrés — former officers of the French, Polish, and Yugoslav armies — totaling up to 200 men.
The Russians were housed in privileged conditions in the building of the former “Schützenhaus” restaurant, located in the town park. We were treated courteously; on Saturdays, we were even taken to the cinema for special screenings for POWs. Those who so desired could volunteer for farm work, an opportunity I took advantage of, spending about two months working in the village of Schönbach on the estate of a wealthy German farmer named Balmann.
In October 1941, a commission arrived at the camp representing Russian (Cossack), Ukrainian, and Belarusian organizations that were recruiting prisoners to their cause; I agreed to register as Ukrainian.
Question: Are you actually Ukrainian?
Answer: Although I could not technically be classified as Ukrainian, it was enough for the commission that my mother was born in Kyiv and that Kochubey was a close relative.
In December 1941, I was assigned to the Wutzetz camp near Berlin as part of a Ukrainian group; in January 1942, I was transferred to the Zietenhorst camp, and in late March of that same year, I was moved to the Lichterfelde-Süd camp in the Berlin suburbs.
Question: How do you explain your frequent transfers from one camp to another?
Answer: The Germans frequently transferred prisoners of war from one camp to another, evidently to prevent escapes and to more thoroughly vet the prisoners and gauge their morale.
The last camp I visited, Lichterfelde-Süd, held Frenchmen, 50 Russian émigrés, and 15 Indian prisoners from the British Army, a total of up to a thousand men.
Also present in the camp were a British captain — with whom, for some reason, conversation was forbidden — and a Soviet Navy naval officer, Lieutenant Commander Andreyev (likely a pseudonym), aged about 32, who enjoyed special privileges and lived in separate quarters near the guardhouse.
Question: What can you tell us about Andreyev?
Answer: I taught Andreyev French and often conversed with him. According to Andreyev, his father, a Russian admiral, had been executed by the Bolsheviks, while he himself had lived in the USSR under an assumed name, graduated from a Soviet military academy, and received two decorations; by his own account, he earned his first Order of the Red Banner in the Far East and the second in Spain. Traces of the medals were indeed visible on Andreyev’s tunic. Andreyev told me that prior to 1941 he had run an intelligence training school on the Black Sea coast, but during the war, while carrying out an assigned amphibious landing operation near Leningrad, he surrendered to the Germans.
The Germans, who reportedly knew him from before, immediately proposed that he collaborate with them; Andreyev agreed and was flown to the Mykolaiv area.
Question: Why?
Answer: According to Andreyev, he assisted the Germans in planning the operation to capture Nikolayev, after which he was sent to Berlin. Andreyev claimed to have sent an account of the unsuccessful amphibious operation near Leningrad to the editorial office of Новый Путь (Novyy Put/”New Path”), a Russian White émigré newspaper published in Berlin.
Andreyev once confided in me that he was well-versed in radio technology, held his own inventions in the field, and had once been the USSR champion in receiving Morse code.
In 1937, Andreyev reportedly attended the coronation ceremonies in England alongside other representatives of the Soviet Navy.
Question: Do you know what Andreyev did in the camp?
Answer: Germans in both civilian clothes and uniforms — judging by their vehicles, representatives of the Army and Navy high commands — frequently visited his camp.
At least once a week, Andreyev would go into town in civilian clothes, accompanied by an escort. During one of our final meetings in the first half of 1942, he spoke of planning a high-risk operation, either in the North Sea or the Mediterranean, and said that, if successful, he would proceed to establish an intelligence training school in Switzerland; he intended to personally select the personnel and then travel with them to South America, though I cannot vouch for the veracity of this account.
Andreyev tried to entice me with tales of intelligence agents’ adventures in America and proposed that I work with him, but I declined, citing the fact that I was a career line officer with no interest in intelligence work.
Question: Is that so?
Answer: I am telling the truth. I did not consent to Andreyev’s proposal to collaborate with the Germans; he accepted my refusal and merely asked that I never disclose the content of our discussions to anyone. In late April 1942, Andreyev left the camp for an unknown destination, and I never saw him again.
In early May of that same year, 1942, I was released from the Lichterfelde-Süd camp, along with fifty Russian émigrés who had agreed to join the German army, and I was taken to Berlin.
Question: Presumably, you were released after presenting the Germans with convincing proof of your loyalty and readiness to fight against the USSR?
Answer: Of course, I was considered an enemy of the Soviet regime; otherwise, I would not have been sent to the Eastern Front. I managed to deceive the Germans.
Question: Would it not be more accurate to suggest that, acting under direct orders from the Germans, you are now attempting to mislead Soviet authorities by concealing the true motives behind your defection to the Red Army?
Answer: I want to fight for Russia, against the Germans. That is the sole motive for my defecting to the Red Army.
Question: How much time did you spend in Berlin?
Answer: Two weeks. In Berlin, all of the members of the aforementioned group of White émigrés were quartered in Soldiers’ Barracks No. 2. They were issued German army uniforms, albeit without shoulder boards or rank insignia, and given white armbands bearing the inscription: “In the service of the German armed forces.”
I was issued a document stating that I was being deployed to the Eastern Front as an interpreter, the same identification papers that the Germans provided to the other Russian officers.
Upon the presentation of these documents, the group was addressed by the chairman of the Russian White émigré committee (Russische Vertrauensstellen), who declared: “We are confident that you have sincerely agreed to fight on the side of Germany, which is placing great trust in you by sending you to the Eastern Front. While in occupied territory,” the chairman further warned, “you must under no circumstances engage in politics; your sole task is to fight, arms in hand, against the Bolshevism that has ‘ruined the country.’ The future will show what comes next.”
Question: Were you summoned by the German intelligence agencies?
Answer: No.
Question: We find it highly unlikely that the Germans, before sending you, a Russian émigré officer, into occupied territory, did not enlist you for special intelligence assignments.
Answer: The fact remains, however, that before being sent to the front, I was not summoned by German intelligence agencies, nor did the Germans enlist me to carry out any special assignments.
In late May 1942, the entire group of fifty White émigrés was transported by train to the city of Smolensk and placed at the disposal of the German General von Schenckendorff; I was subsequently assigned to the 600th Cossack Regiment in the city of Mogilev.
Question: Operating against the Red Army?
Answer: No, against the partisans.
Question: What was your assignment upon arriving at the regiment?
Answer: In May 1942, I was appointed platoon commander and served in Cossack Regiment No. 600 until June 9 of that year.
Question: What was the manning strength of this Cossack regiment, and where is it located?
Answer: The regiment has approximately one thousand soldiers and is stationed in the city of Mogilev; at the end of combat operations, it withdraws for rest to the vicinity of the town of Krugloye, located 80 kilometers from Mogilev.
The nucleus of the Cossack regiment was formed from prisoners of war belonging to the Red Army’s 4th Cavalry Division, which had been defeated and partially captured in 1941 in the Osipovichi–Bobruysk area. The 600th Regiment is composed of 70% Don, Kuban, and Ural Cossacks.
Question: Is there a Russian regiment operating as part of German formations?
Answer: Initially, the Cossack regiment was placed under the command of General von Schenckendorff, the army’s rear-area chief of staff, stationed first in Smolensk and later in Mogilev, and in the autumn of 1942, the regiment was incorporated into the German Reichert Division.
Question: What are the other units, besides the 600th, fighting against partisans?
Answer: A Russian reserve regiment, designated the Eastern Reserve Regiment of the Central Front, was also stationed in Bobruysk, a city I visited repeatedly on assignments to the headquarters of the German 203rd Security Division. Two battalions, the Berezino and Dnieper, had been detached from the regiment, and a third, Pripyat, was still in the process of being formed.
Question: What does the Russian reserve regiment do?
Answer: The reserve regiment trains “volunteers,” which primarily are captured Soviet military personnel, after which independent battalions are formed from its ranks and assigned to German divisions.
Upon arrival from the camps and completion of training, these “volunteers” swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler and are issued weapons.
All those who have taken the oath wear German military uniforms bearing the eagle emblem on the chest and side cap; they are regarded as soldiers of a confederated army, meaning they are subject to trial under German military law and cannot be returned to a POW camp or summarily executed, unlike those who have not taken the oath.
Question: Have you named all the Russian formations known to you that are operating as part of the German army?
Answer: No. Based on my observations, there are other Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian national units operating within the territory of Belarus that are fighting against the partisan movement.
These national formations are organized into independent battalions but are subordinate in all respects to the headquarters of the respective German divisions. If individual battalions are deemed unreliable, they are immediately disbanded, and the soldiers are distributed in small groups among German companies.
The “Russian Liberation Army,” which the Germans have recently been heavily promoting, does not exist as a truly unified army; however, a clamorous campaign of lies and demagoguery is being waged around the RLA leader, General Vlasov, aimed at utilizing Soviet prisoners of war in the fight against the Red Army.
Question: Do you personally know Vlasov?
Answer: I saw Vlasov only once, in late January of that year in Mogilev, where he had come for a few hours to visit a Cossack regiment. At the time, I was commanding the honor guard and reported to Vlasov.
Question: Did Vlasov come to the regiment on his own, or was he accompanied by Germans?
Answer: Vlasov arrived in a closed car accompanied by three or four German officers. He was wearing a Soviet general’s uniform, but without rank insignia. At the dinner to which all the regiment’s officers had been invited, Vlasov did not deliver a speech; however, during the ensuing conversation at the table, he reiterated the anti-Soviet slanders found in the so-called “open letter” he had previously published in the press. Among other things, Vlasov asked whether there were any White émigrés among the regiment’s officers. Upon receiving an affirmative answer, he grumbled: “We accept all kinds; some of them are angling for estates, but they won’t get them anyway.”
Russian émigrés from the Cossack and reserve regiments view Vlasov negatively, whereas the captured former Red Army commanders and soldiers regard him with indifference. In reality, Vlasov commands nothing and issues no orders; he serves merely as a figurehead leader, a role without which the Germans would have found it more difficult to generate publicity around the Russian Liberation Army.
Question: Let’s get back to the Cossack regiment in which you served. Are the command positions in it held by Russian officers?
Answer: Yes. However, alongside the Russian command, there is a German headquarters, small in size but significant in importance, that maintains contact with the German High Command, develops operational plans, and also oversees the supply of ammunition and provisions to the regiment.
Question: Who heads the regiment’s German headquarters?
Answer: Oberleutnant Count Rietberg, accompanied by a special interpreter, Sonderführer Dr. Blese.
In addition, the regimental staff includes a German senior paymaster and seven or eight German non-commissioned officers responsible for supply depots, as well as one non-commissioned officer per squadron in charge of supply matters.
Question: Who are the officers of the Cossack regiment that you know?
Answer: I am personally acquainted with more than twenty officers of the Cossack regiment. The regiment is commanded by Ivan Nikitich Kononov (aged 40), a Don Cossack and a lieutenant colonel in the German service; formerly a major in the Red Army and a graduate of the Soviet military academy, he was taken prisoner in 1941. The Germans awarded him the Winter Campaign Medal (1941–1942) and two “Bronze Crosses with Swords” (1st and 2nd class). In speeches before the ranks, he pushes for “a free Cossackdom, liberated from the yoke of Russia,” and frequently repeats rather vacuous phrases, such as: “We are the first to have grasped the ideas of Adolf Hitler,” or “All of the new Europe is looking at us.”
The regiment’s deputy commander is Aleksandr Nikolayevich Pugovichnikov (aged about 50), a native of Kyiv and a major in the German service; a Russian émigré and former officer in the Yugoslav Army, he fought on the White side during the Russian Civil War and was formerly a renowned horseman; he was awarded the “Bronze Cross with Swords” by the Germans. The regiment’s chief of staff, Dmitry Khrushchev (aged 35), is also a Russian émigré; a Don Cossack and a Rittmeister (cavalry captain) in the German service, as well as a former officer in the Yugoslav Army, he was awarded the “Bronze Cross with Swords.”
Question: Do you know the squadron commanders of the Cossack regiment?
Answer: Yes, I do. The regiment’s first squadron is commanded by Dmitry Sushkov (35), a White émigré, Rittmeister in the German service, and former Yugoslav Army officer; in conversations with me, he expressed contempt for the Germans and dreams of going abroad after the war.
The second squadron is commanded by Sergey Mudrov (35), a former Red Army Senior Lieutenant and Rittmeister in the German service; the third by Katyanov (30), a former Red Army Senior Lieutenant and paratrooper who served in Central Asia before the war.
The fourth squadron is commanded by Georgy Gunter (30), a White émigré and Lieutenant in the German service; the fifth (reserve) by Borisov (40), a former Red Army Major who is clearly demoralized by his service with the Germans and, during operations against partisans, tries to give them a chance to break out of the encirclement.
I should add that, at one time, the second squadron was commanded by a certain Tikhonov (the surname is obviously a pseudonym), aged about 36, a Rittmeister in the German service and former Red Army Lieutenant. Allow me to provide more details about him.
Question: Please do.
Answer: According to his own account, Tikhonov was arrested in connection with the Kirov assassination; he was imprisoned for about six years, then released and sent to the front during the war, but defected to the German side at the first opportunity. In the winter of 1941–42, he participated in operations against Belov’s corps, commanding an independent Cossack platoon of thirty sabers. Tikhonov displayed exceptional brutality during the punitive expedition entrusted to him: he executed prisoners and burned down village after village; furthermore, during assaults on fortified partisan positions, he drove women and children ahead of the advancing German lines, an act for which the Germans awarded him an “Assault” badge.
Question: You will be questioned separately regarding the regiment’s officers; for now, please describe the combat operations in which you participated.
Answer: In late 1942, a two-day operation was conducted near the village of Aleksandrovka in the Mogilev Oblast, involving two squadrons of the Cossack regiment, SS units, and artillery; the operation proved fruitless, as the partisans managed to escape the planned encirclement in time.
In early August 1942, a major operation codenamed “Adler” was carried out in the Klichev district (Belarus SSR), involving the Cossack regiment and several other regiments, totaling up to 20,000 personnel, supported by substantial artillery and air assets. The operation was aimed at encircling the partisans; fierce fighting broke out in the southern sector of the ring, whereas in the north, where I was stationed with the 600th Regiment, there were only slight skirmishes. Nevertheless, the main partisan forces once again managed to escape the encirclement, while the remnants fought their way through the SS units.
Question: What were the outcomes of your regiment’s other operations?
Answer: Encirclement operations conducted in September and October 1942 between Vitebsk and Polotsk also proved unsuccessful, save for the fact that a partisan radio station was captured and several partisans were taken prisoner during the fighting.
In late October 1942, a force comprising the Cossack regiment, a French unit, SS troops, and others (totaling up to ten thousand combat troops) conducted an operation to encircle partisans in the Kruglyansky District (Belarus SSR). The Cossack regiment held defensive positions along the Krucha–Shepelevichi line, while the French unit and SS troops conducted offensive operations; however, the main partisan forces managed to break out of the encirclement through a gap that had formed between the Cossack squadrons, reportedly losing only the commander of one of their detachments, Suvorov, in the fighting.
In the final days of December 1942, an operation was launched in the Vitebsk–Polotsk–Nevel triangle; it concluded in late January of the next year and was known as Operation “Winterfeld.” In addition to the Cossack regiment, large German forces, comprising several divisions equipped with armored fighting vehicles and tanks, participated in the hostilities. The offensive against the partisans was conducted in two tiers; the Cossack regiment suffered significant losses and achieved no success, aside from the capture of a few partisans.
Question: Did the partisans break out of the encirclement?
Answer: Yes. Putting up fierce resistance, the partisans broke through the defensive line near Nevel and escaped the encirclement.
Question: Were active operations against the partisans being conducted even prior to your arrival at the regiment?
Answer: Yes. In early 1942, the first squadron of the Cossack regiment operated against partisans in the Vitebsk region and dealt with the local population with exceptional brutality: a number of villages were burned down, and many residents, especially Jews, were shot.
Question: You are omitting details about your own platoon. One might conclude that you did not participate in combat operations against the partisans.
Answer: Allow me clarify my statement. Both I and my platoon participated in clashes with partisans repeatedly during all the operations conducted throughout the nearly 13 months of my service in the 600th Regiment.
Prisoners captured during skirmishes by the unit under my command were neither shot nor subjected to reprisals; instead, they were handed over to regimental headquarters for interrogation.
For instance, in November 1942, in the village of Shchitok (Kruglyansky District), my unit, while on a reconnaissance mission, killed one partisan and captured another during a clash; the captive was handed over to regimental headquarters.
In January of this year, in the village of Zabolotye, where the headquarters of a partisan brigade was located, my unit captured a liaison from a partisan detachment led by Kondratenko. For this operation, I was awarded the “Bronze Cross with Swords” in February of this year.
Question: What was the fate of the partisan you captured?
Answer: The captured partisan liaison was handed over to regimental headquarters. According to Nikolai Denisenko, who served as the regimental commander’s adjutant at headquarters, the man gave a statement but subsequently allegedly escaped.
Question: You state that partisans captured during an engagement were sent to regimental headquarters. Were they not interrogated on the spot by the units that captured them?
Answer: Prisoners are usually subjected to a preliminary interrogation by the squadron that captured them, after which they are invariably sent to the headquarters of the regiment or independent battalion, where the interrogation lasts two or three days. Following this interrogation, the prisoners are handed over to the Geheime Feldpolizei (Secret Field Police), where they are either shot or transferred to division headquarters; in some cases, they are sent to a camp.
Question: Detail for us every instance where you used weapons against partisans.
Answer: Naturally, as a commander, I participated in every firefight my platoon engaged in during clashes with partisans. Furthermore, in early March of that year, in the village of Lipetski (Kruglyansky District), during an unexpected face-to-face night encounter with a partisan patrol, I killed two partisans with my rifle, while a third fled. I acted in self-defense; otherwise, I would have been killed.
Question: It appears you initiated the firefight yourself, resulting in the deaths of the two partisans?
Answer: No, the circumstances of the night encounter were such that if I hadn’t fired, I would have been shot, as the three partisans nearby were already attempting to open fire on me with the rifles and a submachine gun they were carrying.
Question: You previously claimed that the Cossack platoon under your command did not shoot civilians or partisans. Is that correct?
Answer: As I opposed the execution of prisoners, I forbade the use of reprisals against them or civilians. However, Tikhonov, who for a time commanded the 2nd Squadron, which included the second platoon, was known for extreme cruelty; consequently, I believe that on his orders, individual Cossacks from the platoon executed Soviet citizens in my absence.
In July 1942, in the village of Budovshchina, the 2nd Squadron detained three individuals suspected of ties to the partisans; on Tikhonov’s orders, they were brutally beaten and tortured prior to their execution. I demanded an end to the abuse, but the squadron commander ordered me not to interfere, declaring that it was not my place to oversee his actions. When one partisan had already been shot and the second beaten unconscious, I shot the third with the carbine I was carrying at the time to prevent him from being tortured.
Question: Was there no other way to prevent the partisan from being tortured?
Answer: The partisan would have been shot later anyway, but only after the abuse I decided to spare him from.
Question: In that manner?
Answer: There was nothing else I could do.
Question: How did Tikhonov react to the shooting you carried out?
Answer: Tikhonov kicked up a huge fuss and practically accused me of colluding with the partisans, claiming I had ruined the “interrogation,” but that was the end of the matter.
I also admit that I issued an order to the platoon to put down severely wounded partisans. I did not do the shooting personally; the Cossacks did. There were one or two such instances.
Question: Truthfully, for what purpose did you order the killing of wounded partisans?
Answer: The severely wounded partisans would have been shot anyway, but only after undergoing torture and abuse. I must add that I also instructed the Cossacks to shoot me if I were ever severely wounded.
The Cossacks in my platoon can confirm that I was hostile toward the atmosphere of lawlessness, arbitrary violence, and brutal reprisals directed at the local civilian population and prisoners; consequently, Tikhonov’s reports to the regimental commander labeled me an “unreliable element.”
Question: How do you know this?
Answer: In October 1942, Regimental Commander Kononov mentioned Tikhonov during a conversation with me, noting that he had received a highly negative assessment of me from him.
“An untrustworthy individual” — that is how the squadron commander described me. The endless acts of violence I witnessed, committed not only against prisoners but also against peaceful Soviet civilians, aroused in me a deep sense of indignation and ultimately prompted me to defect to the Red Army.
Question: Your claim that you were not involved in the massacres of Soviet people requires thorough verification, which we will undertake. It still remains unclear why, despite your anti-Soviet sentiments, your long period in emigration, and your service in the German army for nearly thirteen months, you decided to defect to the Red Army.
Answer: I did not understand everything happening in Soviet Russia — I state this honestly — but I held no anti-Soviet sentiments.
Two people, younger than me and with less life experience, nevertheless exerted a significant influence on me, and I finally decided to leave the Germans.
Question: Who were they?
Answer: A nurse, Tamara Kozak, and my orderly, Vyacheslav Balakin.
Question: Under what circumstances did you meet Tamara Kozak?
Answer: In late August 1942, following another bout of malaria, I was admitted to a military hospital in the city of Orsha. There, I met Tamara Kozak, a 19-year-old Soviet prisoner of war working as a nurse; she had previously been a Komsomol member.
I was the only Russian speaker in the ward — the other wounded men were Germans — and in her spare time, Kozak would visit me, sit by my bed, and tell me the truth about life in the USSR. What I heard from her was completely different from everything written about Soviet reality in the German and White émigré press.
Question: Did Kozak know that you were a White émigré?
Answer: No, she didn’t know; moreover, she reproached me, asking how I, a Russian, could have agreed to serve the Germans voluntarily, wear their uniform, and fight against my own people; she even called me a “traitor to the Motherland.”
Question: Is it not unlikely that a Soviet prisoner of war would have risked such candid conversations with a German army officer?
Answer: Not immediately, but gradually Tamara became convinced that she had found an attentive listener in me, someone she could trust, since I kept the content of our conversations secret. As she spoke more openly, she made no secret of her extremely hostile attitude toward the Germans.
Question: And were you not afraid that the content of your conversations might become known to the authorities monitoring the political sentiments and associations of German military personnel?
Answer: The Germans trusted me; had Kozak taken it into her head to report me, I would have denied everything outright and portrayed it as an attempt on her part to slander a Russian officer, one who was ostensibly fighting loyally for Germany’s interests.
Question: And yet, conversations with a nineteen-year-old nurse led to a revision of the views that, as you previously stated, had been instilled in you during your years in emigration. Was that really the case?
Answer: There were other reasons as well.
Question: Could you tell us about those, too?
Answer: A German lieutenant lying in the next bed at the field hospital used to dream about the end of the war, saying, “I’ll buy an estate in Russia for peanuts.” Other German officers made equally cynical remarks about the postwar colonization of Russia.
One day in the summer of 1942, while talking to a German Unteroffizier [NCO] from the regimental staff — I don’t recall his surname — I mentioned that a Russian émigré, Major Pugovichnikov, was thinking of nothing but how to get his estate back. The German NCO, however, was surprised by my remark and asked, “Aren’t you planning to get your estate back?”
My negative reply also puzzled an Oberleutnant [First Lieutenant], Count Rietberg, who happened to be nearby.
Question: Did he join the conversation as well?
Answer: Yes. Rietberg declared, “You are mistaken, Lieutenant, if you think there won’t be large estates in Russia.” “Your estates will be returned to you, and indeed to those émigrés we haven’t yet allowed in, provided they are willing to work honestly with us. I myself, I admit, plan to remain here as a landowner, and many of my German soldiers have already put their names down on the lists of Russia’s future colonizers. As for you, Prince,” Rietberg concluded, “a brilliant career awaits you.”
I made no reply and walked away.
Question: So it turns out that, unlike Major Pugovichnikov, who dreamed of getting his estate back, and Count Rietberg, who saw himself becoming a landowner, you had different goals, despite serving in the German army?
Answer: Not only did I never contemplate reclaiming my estate, but I also dismissed the very idea of a return to the Russia of the landed gentry; if only because I witnessed pro-Soviet sentiment among the peasants, even amidst the terror that prevailed in the occupied territories.
On the contrary, my conversation with Oberleutnant Rietberg, an SS officer who knew the prevailing views in Nazi circles, only intensified my hostility toward the German colonizers and strengthened my resolve to escape them and fight on the side of Soviet forces.
Moreover, the Germans treated the Russian officers fighting for their cause with utter disdain.
Question: Really?
Answer: Outwardly, of course, the Germans maintained a necessary level of tact, but among themselves, and I spoke German and was admitted into their circle as a White émigré and former prince, they referred to the Russians who had defected to their side as “lackeys,” while Soviet POWs who joined the so-called Russian Liberation Army were branded “scoundrels” and “traitors” to boot. That is what Oberleutnant Rietberg told me over lunch in the officers’ mess in the summer of 1942, while simultaneously asserting that “the main thing the Germans care about right now is that these Russians fight against the Bolsheviks.”
It was lengthy conversations with my orderly, a Soviet prisoner of war named Balakin, that finally opened my eyes to what was really going on.
Question: What do you know about Balakin’s background?
Answer: Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Balakin was a native of the city of Gorky, born in 1924; he completed his secondary education. At the outbreak of the war, he applied for admission to an armored military academy, but without waiting for a decision, he volunteered for the airborne troops; he was taken prisoner near Smolensk in the winter of 1942.
According to his own account, Balakin joined the ranks of the Russian Liberation Army because he wanted freedom of movement in order to defect to the partisans.
Question: When was Balakin assigned to you as an orderly?
Answer: In September 1942, when I took command of the 2nd Platoon of the 3rd Squadron of a Cossack regiment. Conversations with Balakin from the very first days of our acquaintance convinced me that the man held firm Soviet convictions.
Question: Isn’t it doubtful that an orderly would not fear revealing himself as a Soviet patriot while talking to a German army officer?
Answer: Balakin only opened up after he had sized me up thoroughly. Upon finding a sympathetic ear, he began systematically trying to prove to me that I did not know the truth about the Soviet system and the Russian people, and that the information I possessed on the subject was biased and incorrect. After I had fully sized up my orderly and satisfied myself that he was not trying to entrap me, I told Balakin, during a conversation in late 1942, that I shared his views. I openly expressed my critical attitude toward the “New Order in Europe” promoted by Goebbels’s ministry and toward the Germans’ actual conduct, specifically the atrocities they committed against Russians and the brazen plundering of wealth from the occupied territories, which the Germans regarded as their own colonial possessions.
Seizing the opportunity presented by this conversation, Balakin proposed that we defect to the partisans; I agreed, but insisted that, as an officer, I ought to defect together with my soldiers.
Question: Did you intend to take the entire platoon with you?
Answer: At the time, I believed it would be possible to persuade not just the second platoon, but the entire third squadron, to defect to the Soviet side. Everything hinged on reaching an agreement with the squadron commander, Georgy Katyanov, a goal that seemed entirely feasible to me.
Question: What was the basis for your assumption that Squadron Commander Katyanov could be persuaded to defect to the Soviet side?
Answer: I had been sizing up Georgy Katyanov for some time and was familiar with his background. He was the son of a deported kulak, born in the Urals in 1913; he had graduated from a machine-building institute and the Tashkent Military Infantry School. He had served in the airborne troops, logging 130 jumps, five of them combat missions, and had been taken prisoner due to a miscalculation that caused him to land within German lines. According to Katyanov, he was a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and had told me he found serving the Germans burdensome.
For my part, I tried to convince Katyanov that our paths and the Germans’ were incompatible, arguing that Germany’s defeat was inevitable. My efforts to win him over were progressing well; then, in late May of that year, while at my quarters in the village of Golynka (Osipovichi District, Mogilev Region), Katyanov, who was intoxicated, declared in Balakin’s presence: “Nikolai, the time will come when we drive the Germans out of Russia; you’ll see how I fight.”
However, starting June 1st of that year, Katyanov abruptly changed his behavior due to events in my platoon that had frightened him.
Question: What exactly happened in your platoon?
Answer: On that day, nine Cossacks from my platoon, although I can only recall eight of their surnames (Betin, Ermak, Moiseyev, Kvasov, Poluboyarov, Ivanov, Mikhaylyuk, and Kashirin), acting on the influence of my conversations with them, defected on their own initiative to the partisans, taking with them their personal weapons, three machine guns, and a mortar.
Katyanov, fearing possible reprisals, told me that this should not have been done, that everyone should have left together, since a partial defection could only cast suspicion on us.
I must add that Katyanov’s defection was also hindered by the fact that, shortly before our discussions, he had married a local woman named Maria Fedorovna (I do not know her surname), who worked as an interpreter at the German commandant’s office in the town of Belynichi.
Question: Do you mean to imply that his wife was dissuading Katyanov from defecting to the Soviet side?
Answer: Not exactly. Katyanov had become deeply attached to his wife and feared that if he left, Maria Fedorovna, who was in Mogilev at the time, would be shot by the Germans.
Having abandoned the idea of escape himself, Katyanov decided to do everything possible to stop me as well; he believed that if I succeeded in carrying out my plan, he, as the squadron commander, would be irrevocably compromised in the eyes of the Germans.
Katyanov apparently placed me under surveillance using Cossacks he had specifically primed for the task, so I decided to hasten my departure to join the partisans. I carried out this plan on June 9, 1943.
Question: What was the source of your information that Katyanov was keeping you under surveillance?
Answer: In early June of that year, a Cossack named Mikhaylov, whom I had decided to take with me, told me he had overheard Katyanov instructing the third-platoon commander, Aleksandr Strelets, to keep an eye on me.
Knowing that partisans were active near the village of Motovily (located 12 kilometers from the village of Golynka, where the 2nd Platoon was stationed), I decided to open negotiations with them, intending to defect along with a small group of Cossacks loyal to me.
Question: But hadn’t you previously stated that you intended to defect—if not with the entire squadron, then at least with the platoon you commanded?
Answer: I changed my initial plan because Katyanov had set up surveillance; I feared a provocation or even armed resistance to my defection from certain Cossacks. Under the revised plan, I carried out the escape with five Cossacks.
Question: With whom, exactly?
Answer: The men who left the regiment with me were Mikhaylov, Glukhov, Shevchenko, Bugayev, and a Caucasian named Ringo Natskhao. I do not know the first names of these Cossacks, as it was the custom in the German army to remember soldiers only by their surnames — and even those, as far as I know, were aliases.
Question: What assurance did you have that none of these Cossacks would betray you?
Answer: I personally knew Mikhaylov, Glukhov, and Shevchenko to be patriots, and I was certain that if I asked them at a specific time and place who wanted to join the partisans with me, all three would agree. For his part, Glukhov vouched for Bugayev and Ringo, stating that they, too, would agree to defect. And that is exactly what happened.
Question: So your assumption proved correct?
Answer: Absolutely. All five eagerly agreed to desert the regiment. My orderly, Balakin, and the Cossack Lunin were also supposed to leave with me.
Question: Did you prepare Lunin for the defection?
Answer: Yes. I didn’t say anything specific to Lunin, who was clearly patriotic, for fear he might let something slip, but I hinted that an opportunity would soon arise to escape the Germans and fight against them on the side of the Red Army. Lunin raised no objections.
Although I could see from Lunin’s behavior that he was ready to defect, I still made him accompany me on patrols every day so I could keep a constant eye on him and, if necessary, have another loyal Cossack close at hand.
On June 8, I entered into negotiations with the partisans.
Question: Through whom?
Answer: Glukhov, a Cossack I had prepared for the defection, reported that he knew a young woman named Valya who was in contact with a partisan detachment. Leveraging this connection, I instructed him to inform the partisans of my intention to defect to their side. Through Valya, we received a rendezvous address from the partisans: the village of Motovily, the last house on the right; the password was “Korol [King] 210.”
Upon receiving the rendezvous details, I set out with all the Cossacks of my platoon for the village of Solomenka, where Squadron Commander Georgy Katyanov was stationed at the time.
Question: Did Katyanov summon you?
Answer: No, I did it on my own initiative. I put the question directly to Katyanov: would he like to defect to the partisans if the means — a password and a specific route — were available?
Question: It is unclear why it was necessary to enter into negotiations with Katyanov if you knew he had abandoned his original intention and was obstructing your defection to the Soviet side.
Answer: I still held out hope that, perhaps at the last moment, Katyanov would agree and lead his squadron, or at least a portion of the Cossacks under his command, to join them.
Question: How did Katyanov react to your proposal?
Answer: Katyanov stated that he did not agree to the defection and ordered that, starting June 10, I personally stop going on ambushes and patrols. It became clear that Katyanov would no longer entrust me with the light machine guns I always carried on patrol; I had to leave without delay, that very day, June 9.
Question: What did you do next?
Answer: Upon returning to the village of Golynka, I ordered the Cossacks of my platoon to search the homes of local residents allegedly linked to the partisans. Meanwhile, taking the aforementioned Cossacks — Mikhaylov, Glukhov, Shevchenko, Bugayev, and Ringo Natskhao — along with two light machine guns, I set out to patrol in the direction of the village of Motovily, located 12 kilometers from Golynka.
After leaving the village of Golynka and stopping at the edge of the forest, I asked the five men I had selected who wanted to defect to the partisans with me, warning them that I was not forcing anyone to make a decision against their conscience.
Question: What did the Cossacks say to you?
Answer: All five Cossacks stated that they were coming with me. Afterward, we set off along a route known to us and were met by partisans in the village of Oseredok.
Shortly thereafter, by the end of the day on June 9, Balakin and Lunin arrived at the partisan detachment, having brought their personal weapons with them.
Question: Tell me, did Katyanov, knowing of your intentions, really take no measures to detain you, such as arresting you or sending you far away from the area of partisan operations?
Answer: My arrest would have been highly inconvenient for Katyanov himself.
Question: How so?
Answer: I could have revealed the content of our negotiations and reported his personal sentiments, which were far from favorable to the Germans.
Question: It is still unclear how to explain your relatively easy defection to the Soviet side, given that you were already under suspicion.
Answer: After the conversation with Katyanov during our last meeting on June 9 convinced me that he was firmly opposed to my defecting to the Soviet side, as a ruse I stated that I would act according to his orders and cease patrolling near the partisans.
I must add that the element of surprise aided my defection; had I delayed even one more day, I might well have been removed from the regiment following a denunciation by Katyanov, who clearly feared that my actions would compromise his squadron.
The only thing I want now is for the Soviet authorities to believe in my sincerity.
I reiterate that I defected to the Red Army with the intention of fighting the Germans, weapon in hand, as an officer, and I ask for the opportunity to thereby redeem myself before the Motherland.
Recorded correctly from my words and read by me:
GAGARIN
Interrogators:
Chief of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR, Commissar of State Security 3 Rank [Pavel Anatolyevich] SUDOPLATOV
Deputy Chief of the Investigative Unit for Especially Important Cases, Colonel of State Security [Lev Leonidovich] SHVARTSMAN
Head of Department 2 of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR, Lt Colonel of State Security [Mikhail Borisovich] MAKLYARSKIY
Source: RGANI. F. 3. Op. 58. D. 284. Pp. 3-51.
Translation © 2026 by Michael Estes and TranslatingHistory.org
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