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25.10.2023

"OPERATION PAYBACK"

Lubomyr Luciuk

 

We all need to be reminded of how the Soviet KGB orchestrated "Operation Payback" to provoke tensions between the Ukrainian and Jewish diasporas, a covert operation regurgitated by the operatives of the Russian Federation and their fellow travellers in the West. Here is the actual document*) and an English translation:

“Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine

To Comrade V. V. Shcherbytsky

MEMORANDUM about active measures against OUN centres abroad

The republican Committee of State Security carried out a set of measures to counteract the attempts of reactionary political circles and security services in the West to use the ringleaders of OUN centers abroad in subversive actions against the USSR (Operation Payback).

With this goal in mind, we, in consultation with the KGB of the USSR, prepared and, through our operational capabilities in the USA, twice reissued and disseminated the book Lest We Forget, along with a list of OUN accomplices of the Nazis; three counter-propagandistic films were handed over to 17 anti-fascist organizations; the mass media and the authorities in the USA were sent messages from a number of people’s assemblies that were held in the republic, containing a demand that these war criminals be handed over to Soviet justice.

All these materials compelled the American government to create the Office of Special Investigations at the Department of Justice in order to identify and pursue Nazi criminals, which allowed [us] to shape US public opinion advantageous to us, under pressure of which 7 perpetrators were stripped of American citizenship. Two of them committed suicide; HRUZYTSKY and KOZIY fled to Latin America; FEDORENKO was deported to the USSR, and today an investigation is taking place in order to bring him to justice.

Considering the positive evolution of Operation Payback in the USA, in 1980–1985 measures aimed at unfolding a similar campaign in Canada were implemented. For this purpose, materials about the punitive activities of the SS Galicia Division were planted in the Toronto Star; the book We Accuse, about the Nazis’ use of this formation, was disseminated; the authorities were given documents about the criminal past of 59 henchmen.

Public opinion that is favorable to us, which was created as a result of this, forced the government of Canada to establish in February of t[his] y[ear] a commission headed by the lawyer [sic] Deschênes, which began collecting information about war criminals.

In the estimation of the KGB of the USSR, the implemented measures succeeded in showing the broad public abroad that reactionary circles in a number of countries are involved in harboring Nazi criminals and their accomplices in the persons of OUN ringleaders. This in turn struck a serious blow at attempts of ruling circles to use OUN centers abroad in hostile activities against the Soviet Union; forced the OUNites to divert efforts and funds to their own defence. Thus, in 1985 the ringleaders of the OUN in the USA and Canada held several “congresses” and “conferences” to discuss the situation that had developed; created a number of “committees” designed to “prove” the non-participation of the nationalists in crimes against the civilian population during the war years.

With a view to further advancing Operation Payback, the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR is preparing to push through its operational channels in the USA and Canada the films Their Trade Is Treachery and Hiding in the West; additional distribution of the book We Accuse; the publication and dissemination abroad of the books Behind the Back of the Statue of Liberty and the White Book of the OUN; as well as providing Western government circles and the public with new, factual materials that compromise OUN ringleaders abroad.

I am reporting for information.

Head of the Committee of State Security of the Ukrainian SSR                       S. Mukha

 

*Source: HDA SB Ukraїny, f. 16, op. 10 (1987), spr. 11, fols. 184 –85. Original. Typescript on a blank form.”

 

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