Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov
Encyclopedia
Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov (July 27, 1911–March 9, 1944) was a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 intelligence agent and partisan
Soviet partisans
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....

 who operated in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. He used several pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

s during his intelligence operations: e.g. Rudolf Schmidt, Nikolai Vasilevitsh Grachev (Николай Васильевич Грачёв) and Oberleutenant Paul Siebert.

He was born into a peasant family in the Yekaterinburg
Sverdlovsk Oblast
Sverdlovsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in the Urals Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Yekaterinburg formerly known as Sverdlovsk. Population: -Geography:...

 region. He studied forestry in a technical school and, after discovering his linguistic talents, learned German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

, Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...

, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 and Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

. In 1932 he enrolled into Sverdlovsk Industrial Institute and continued to study German and other foreign languages.

In 1938, Kuznetsov moved to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and joined the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

. When Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...

 started, Kuznetsov, at his own request, was sent to join Soviet partisan units in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. In 1942, he fought as a member of guerrilla group "Victors", led by Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev
Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev was one of the leaders of the Soviet partisan movement in western Russia and Ukraine....

, in central and western Ukraine. He was in charge of several complex operations involving assassinations and kidnappings of high-ranking Nazi officials in the Rivne
Rivne Oblast
Rivne Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Rivne. The area of the region is 20,100 km²; its population is 1.2 million...

 and Lviv
Lviv Oblast
Lviv Oblast is an oblast in western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Lviv.-History:The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on December 4, 1939...

 regions, such as successful operations against the German-appointed chief judge of Ukraine, the vice-governor of Galicia, the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar
Reichskommissar , in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and the Nazi Third Reich....

 of Ukraine, three German generals and others. Kuznetsov was also the first intelligence agent to uncover German plans to launch a massive tank attack
Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk took place when German and Soviet forces confronted each other on the Eastern Front during World War II in the vicinity of the city of Kursk, in the Soviet Union in July and August 1943. It remains both the largest series of armored clashes, including the Battle of Prokhorovka,...

 in the Kursk region
Kursk Oblast
Kursk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kursk.-Geography:The oblast occupies the southern slopes of the middle-Russian plateau, and its average elevation is from 177 to 225 meters . The surface is hilly, and intersected by ravines...

, information about German V-2 rocket
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...

s, as well as about Operation Long Jump
Operation Long Jump
Operation Long Jump was the codename given to the unsuccessful World War II German plot to assassinate the "Big Three" Allied leaders, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt, at the 1943 Tehran Conference....

, Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's plan to assassinate the heads of the USSR, USA and Great Britain during the Tehran Conference
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943, most of which was held at the Soviet Embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference amongst the Big Three in which Stalin was present...

. Kuznetsov was acting in Rivne (the capital of a fascist state in Ukraine) under the fake German identity of Oberleutenant Paul Siebert. It was Kuznetsov who obtained information about the location of Hitler's headquarters "Wehrwolf
Wehrwolf
Führerhauptquartier Werwolf was the codename used for one of Adolf Hitler's World War II Eastern Front military headquarters located in a pine forest about north of Vinnytsia in Ukraine that was used between 1942 and 1943...

" near the city of Vinnitsya.

On March 9, 1944, he was killed in a firefight with members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army near the city of Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

, who had mistaken Kuznetsov for a German deserter since he was wearing a Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 uniform. There is also a possibility that the Ukrainians were on the Germans' side and were causing a road blockade.

Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov has been posthumously awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union
Hero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...

. A minor planet
Minor planet
An asteroid group or minor-planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...

 2233 Kuznetsov
2233 Kuznetsov
2233 Kuznetsov is a main-belt asteroid discovered on 3 December 1972 by L. V. Zhuravleva at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. It was named after Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov , a Russian intelligence agent, WWII partisan, and posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union.- External links :*...

 discovered in 1972 by Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova
Lyudmila Zhuravlyova
Lyudmila Vasilyevna Zhuravleva is a Soviet, Russian and Ukrainian astronomer.She works at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory.She also serves as president...

 is named after him.

Films about Kuznetsov

  • Strong with Spirit
    Strong with Spirit
    Strong with Spirit is a 1967 Soviet spy film directed by Viktor Georgiyev based on a screenplay by Anatoli Grebnev and Aleksandr Lukin. It tolds the story about the Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov. Produced by Sverdlovsk Film Studio. Composer - Edison Denisov...

     («Сильные духом»)
  • Special Operations Squad («Отряд специального назначения»)
  • Genius of the intelligence («Гений разведки»)
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