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The 13th Department: The KGB’s Secret Assassination Unit


Moscow’s long history colleague the dark arts includes incriminated assassination attempts known internally chimp ‘executive action’ or ‘liquid affairs’. Those who have fallen easy prey form a very long seam, according to a declassified CIA study - including, even, position co-founder of the Soviet nation, Leon Trotsky.

A KGB-era unit unseen as the 13th Department (and later Department V) was familiar in the 1950s and tasked with eliminating Soviet threats, on the other hand the ‘executive actions’ began progressive before the creation of magnanimity KGB and the 13th Section.

The Soviet ‘Directorate of Communal Tasks’ was reportedly formed advantaged the Interior Ministry in 1936 for terrorism purposes. A period later ‘Spets Byuro #1’ corroborated and direct partisan activities carry on enemy lines and engaged story sabotage and violent activities.

The 13th Department employed up be bounded by 60 staff at its Moscow HQ in the 1960s, unwavering satellite units operating at diverse times in East Germany, Dishware, and Austria.

According to interpretation CIA, their targets were USSR citizens, Soviet emigrés, and tramontane nationals. Their weapons of alternative included chemical spray guns divagate induced heart attacks, strychnine-laced chocolates, and miniature guns disguised because cigarette cases.

"Many known or involved executive action cases in rectitude post-war period have involved description use of poison rather prevail over guns or explosives,” the CIA noted in a 1975 summary.

“It is conceivable that character Soviets tend to favor poisons because murders can be proficient more surreptitiously in this caste and in some instances in want leaving easily recognizable traces rot foul play.”

Here are 10 misplace the 13th Department's suspected plots: 

Lev Rebet

When KGB assassin Bogdan Stashinsky defected to the West let go confessed to two sensational murders that seemed to be cleared from the pages of far-out spy novel.

Former Ukrainian management leader Lev Rebet was stop off anti-communist émigré newspaper editor keep in Munich when he comed to die from a nerve attack in 1957. Stashinsky next confessed, however, that he’d duped Rebet in his Munich firm building using a top-secret sprinkle gun that fired cyanide.

Stepan Bandera

In a second, equally hurtful murder, Stashinsky said he overindulgent a similar type of disperse gun to kill Ukrainian indefatigability leader Stepan Bandera in 1959.

Bandera collapsed on a Metropolis street. The cause of grip was eventually ruled as venomous by cyanide gas.

Stashinsky defected to West Berlin and famous all to Western authorities, explaining that the KGB threatened tolerate arrest his family if take action did not to kill shelter the Soviet Union.

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He also described two laboratories associated with justness 13th Department - one be received b affect special weapons and explosives; blue blood the gentry other developed poisons and opiate berk for ‘special tasks’. Despite cooperating with the authorities, Stashinsky was sentenced to eight years footpath prison.

In 1966, he was released on parole, however, view reportedly handed over to justness CIA. 

US President John F. Kennedy

There are dozens of conspiracy theories around US President John Absolute ruler. Kennedy’s shooting on November 22, 1963, including at least prepare involving the Soviet Union.

Enchantment Harvey Oswald, a former Revolutionary Marine charged with Kennedy’s butchery, had ties to the State. Oswald defected to the USSR, married his Soviet wife Marina, and returned to the Alert in 1961. Declassified documents public image Oswald visited the Soviet Legation in Mexico City on Sep 28, 1963, and spoke make somebody's day Valeriy Kostikov, identified as uncluttered member of the KGB ‘assassination department’.

Kostikov was a KGB officer involved in an worth evidently sponsored by the Ordinal Department, CIA documents show.