1. Bohdan Mykolayovych Stashynsky or Bogdan Nikolayevich Stashinsky is a former Soviet spy who assassinated the Ukrainian nationalist leaders Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera in the late 1950s.
19 Facts About Bohdan Stashynsky
1. 2.
Bohdan Stashynsky's family were supporters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
3.
In 1950, Bohdan Stashynsky was arrested for travelling without a ticket on public transportation to Lviv from his village.
4.
In 1953, Bohdan Stashynsky was sent to Kiev to continue studies in espionage.
5.
In 1956, Bohdan Stashynsky often travelled to Munich, West Germany, where he began to perfect his false identity.
6.
Bohdan Stashynsky received the instructions to carry out the assassination directly from the headquarters of the KGB in Moscow.
7.
Bohdan Stashynsky used the weapon to kill Lev Rebet in 1957.
8.
Bohdan Stashynsky was honoured by Moscow with the Order of the Red Banner by Shelepin for his work and given his final assignment to kill Yaroslav Stetsko.
9.
Bohdan Stashynsky was to be assassinated in 1960; it could not be perpetrated for reasons which have not been clarified.
10.
Bohdan Stashynsky met and fell in love with an East German woman, Inge Pohl, in 1957.
11.
In 1961, Inge returned to East Berlin to give birth to their son, Peter, but Bohdan Stashynsky was unable to visit them.
12.
Against KGB orders, Bohdan Stashynsky took his Joseph Lehmann identity card with him to East Germany, as well as other documents that would confirm his identity as a KGB agent.
13.
The CIA was suspicious of Bohdan Stashynsky, who was flown to Frankfurt for interrogation and doubtful of his claims that he had assassinated Rebet and Bandera.
14.
At first, the West German police were suspicious of his stories, but after interrogation and visits to the two murder sites, where Bohdan Stashynsky re-enacted the killings, authorities determined that Bohdan Stashynsky was telling the truth.
15.
Bohdan Stashynsky was put on trial for the two murders in October 1962, and sentenced to eight years in prison.
16.
Bohdan Stashynsky Stashinskyi, who had been persuaded by his German-born wife Inge to confess to the crimes and take the load off his troubled conscience, stuck resolutely to his statements.
17.
Bohdan Stashynsky reconstructed the crimes exactly as they had happened, revisiting the crumbling business premises at the Stachus, in the heart of Munich, where Lev Rebet had entered the office of a Ukrainian exile newspaper, his suitcase in his hand.
18.
In 1967, Bohdan Stashynsky was released from prison early on parole and was reportedly handed over to the CIA.
19.
Bohdan Stashynsky covered his tracks masterfully after being released and has vanished into obscurity.