London more extreme than Washington on the Ukrainian question

The tendency on behalf of the British to support more extreme approaches to fighting the Russians has contemporary echoes. Kit Klarenberg has written about how British Boris Johnson pushed Ukraine towards a more militaristic position in April 2022 than even the Americans desired, blocking attempts by the Ukrainian and Russian governments to come to a peace deal.

what the hell is wrong with fucking anglos, jesus christ, sink this accursed island into the sea already

Anyway, the CIA were quite displeased with the British infatuation with Bandera. I find it particularly interesting that the Americans admitted that the Soviets had done well in bringing over the younger generation of western Ukrainians onto their side. This stands in stark contrast to the usual line that West Ukrainians were uniformly opposed to Soviet rule, and points to a more nuanced picture of generational and class struggle within West Ukrainian rural society:

But the CIA and State Department officials were “very strongly opposed” to London’s idea of returning Bandera to the Ukraine. Bandera, the Americans said, had “lost touch with feelings in the Ukraine, particularly in the former Polish territories where… the Soviet government had been successful to a remarkable degree in transforming the mentality of the younger generation.” For the CIA, the best solution for intelligence in the Ukraine was the “political neutralization of Bandera as an individual….” The British argued that such “would lead to a drying up of recruits” and “would disrupt British operations…. MI6 disregarded the CIA statement that “Bandera…is politically unacceptable to the US Government.”

Of course, MI6 had no qualms with dealing with Bandera. He was just another brutal bandit. The British organs had dealt with hundreds in the past, and would happily deal with many more in the future.

Bandera was, according to his MI6 handlers, “a professional underground worker with a terrorist background and ruthless notions about the rules of the game…. A bandit type if you like, with a burning patriotism, which provides an ethical background and a justification for his banditry. No better and no worse than others of his kind….”

Despite London’s enthusiasm for banditry, eventually Bandera proved too much, and the Anglo-Saxons found unity in promoting Lebed:

the UHVR rejected Bandera’s authoritarian approach and demanded unity in the emigration. In messages brought from the Ukraine by CIA agents, UHVR insisted in the summer of 1953 that Lebed represented “the entire Ukrainian liberation movement in the homeland.” American and British officials tried to reconcile Bandera to Lebed’s leadership, but Bandera and Stetsko refused. In February 1954 London had enough. “There appeared,” reported Bandera’s handlers, “to be no alternative but to break with Bandera in order to safeguard the healthy ZCh/OUN elements remaining and be able to continue using them operationally…. The break between us was complete.” MI6 dropped all agents-in-training still loyal to Bandera. In July MI6 informed Lebed that it “would not resume [its] relationship with Bandera under any circumstances.” MI6 maintained its four wireless links in Ukraine, now run by a reconstituted ZCh/OUN, and shared intelligence from the links with Lebed and the CIA.

"London’s enthusiasm for banditry" is a really good line :ukkk:

However, Bandera was able to continue on for several years through his trusty contacts with Nazi-era German intelligence (who also supported fascist Russian nationalists), which had also found a second life under American support:

The BND, the West German intelligence service under former Wehrmacht Gen. Reinhard Gehlen, formed a new relationship with Bandera. It was a natural union. During the war, Gehlen’s senior officers argued that the USSR could be broken up if only Germany wooed the various nationalities properly. Bandera had continued lines into the Ukraine, and in March 1956 he offered these in return for money and weapons…. Bandera’s personal contact in West German intelligence was Heinz Danko Herre, Gehlen’s old deputy in Fremde Heere Ost who had worked with the Gen. Andrei Vlassov’s army of Russian émigrés and former prisoners in the last days of the war and was now Gehlen’s closest adviser.

Honestly, it is hard to believe that Bandera was really abandoned by the anglosaxons, when his operations involved so many American and British instruments. I also find it questionable whether Bandera only ‘attempted to penetrate US military and intelligence officers’, or if there was more to it.

Bandera remained in Munich. He had two British-trained radio operators, and he continued to recruit agents on his own. He published a newspaper that spewed anti-American rhetoric and used loyal thugs to attack other Ukrainian émigré newspapers and to terrorize political opponents in the Ukrainian emigration. He attempted to penetrate U.S. military and intelligence offices in Europe and to intimidate Ukrainians working for the United States. He continued to run agents into the Ukraine, financing them with counterfeit U.S. money. By 1957 the CIA and MI6 concluded that all former Bandera agents in Ukraine were under Soviet control. The question was what to do. U.S. and British intelligence officials lamented that “despite our unanimous desire to ‘quiet’ Bandera, precautions must be taken to see that the Soviets are not allowed to kidnap or kill him … under no circumstances must Bandera be allowed to become a martyr.”

The Americans and Lebed

Despite how successful their relationship would become in the future, at first it was marred by difficulties. Once again, representatives of the Vatican tried to smooth over these problems:

Attempts to build a relationship in 1945 and 1946 between the SSU (US Strategic Services Unit, a precursor to the CIA) and the Hrinioch-Lebed group never materialized owing to its initial mistrust. In December 1946 Hrinioch and Lopatinsky asked for U.S. help for operations in the Ukraine ranging from communications to agent training to money and weapons. In return, they would create intelligence networks in the Ukraine. Zsolt Aradi, the SSU’s contact in the Vatican, approved the relationship. He noted that the “UHVR, UPA, and OUN-Bandera are the only large and efficient organizations among Ukrainians,” and that Hrinioch, Lebed and Lopatinsky were “determined and able men… resolved to carry on…with or without us, and if necessary against us.” The SSU declined. A later report blamed the Ukrainians for “ineptitude in arguing their case and factionalism among the emigration.”

Despite his later attempts to whitewash his record, declassified American intelligence reports were quite sanguine about Lebed’s wartime record, not that it affected their willingness to cooperate with him:

A CIC report from July 1947 cited sources that called Lebed a “well-known sadist and collaborator of the Germans.” Regardless, the CIC in Rome took up Lebed’s offer whereby Lebed provided information on Ukrainian émigré groups, Soviet activities in the U.S. zone, and information on the Soviets and Ukrainians more generally.

Increasing cold war tensions intensified American interest in Lebed. They needed a professional covert operative, and the quiet. experienced Lebed fit the bill much better than the explosive Bandera:

The Berlin Blockade in 1948 and the threat of a European war prompted the CIA to scrutinize Soviet émigré groups and the degree to which they could provide crucial intelligence. In Project ICON, the CIA studied 30 groups and recommended operational cooperation with the Hrinioch-Lebed group as the organization best suited for clandestine work. Compared with Bandera, Hrinioch and Lebed represented a moderate, stable, and operationally secure group with the firmest connections to the Ukrainian underground in the USSR. **A resistance/intelligence group behind Soviet lines would be useful if war broke out. The CIA provided money, supplies, training, facilities for radio broadcasts, and parachute drops of trained agents to augment slower courier routes through Czechoslovakia used by UPA fighters and messengers. **

Lebed goes to New York: the pro-WW3 lobbyist

Despite occasional unpleasant brushes with the past, Lebed was cherished by the CIA for his Gestapo-style efficiency:

CIA handlers pointed to his “cunning character,” his “relations with the Gestapo and … Gestapo training,” that the fact that he was “a very ruthless operator.” “Neither party,” said one CIA official while comparing Bandera and Lebed, “is lily-white.”

Bandera and Lebed did find common cause, like contemporary Ukrainian nationalists, in castigating the West for not being eager enough to enter nuclear war with their Russian enemy:

Like Bandera, Lebed was also constantly irritated that the United States never promoted the USSR’s fragmentation along national lines; that the United States worked with imperial-minded Russian émigré groups as well as Ukrainian ones; and that the United States later followed a policy of peaceful coexistence with the Soviets.

Bandera claimed that:

A war between the USSR and other states would certainly cause a great number of victims to the Ukrainian nation, and also probably great destruction of the country. Nevertheless, such a war would be welcomed not only by active fighters-revolutionaries, but also by the whole nation, if it would give some hope of destroying Bolshevik suppression and achieving national independence.