Proskurov was a shining jewel on the banks of the Southern Bug River.
More than a decade later, however, the city would be renamed Khmelnytskyi.
Night had already fallen, yet a single office on the eastern end of the second floor of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs building on Solovetsky Street remained illuminated.
Seated alone behind the room’s only desk, Major Ivan Alexandrovich Serov quietly leafed through a thick stack of documents, pausing from time to time to make notes in the margins.
Only a week earlier, Serov had been serving in the Moscow Civil Police Bureau, where he had become its youngest bureau chief.
His tenure had lasted barely six months before a telephone call from Lavrentiy Beria abruptly changed the course of his career.
He was transferred to the State Security Main Directorate, appointed Deputy Director, and simultaneously placed in charge of the Secret Political Affairs Department.
It was one of the Commissariat’s most important divisions, responsible for investigating anti-Soviet activities throughout the country.
Along with his promotion came another assignment from Beria himself: restoring order in eastern Ukraine by suppressing the growing partisan movement.
It was a task that demanded visible results—and quickly.
Since assuming control of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs following Yezhov’s downfall, Beria had placed particular trust in only three rising officers.
One was Serov.
Another was Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov, who had been dispatched to the Don region to reorganize operations around Rostov.
The third was Bogdan Zakharovich Kobulov, who remained in Moscow overseeing much of the Commissariat’s central work.
Even Serov had to admit that both men were exceptionally capable.
Abakumov, for example, had dismantled several well-established criminal organizations around Rostov within less than two months of taking office.
Kobulov had achieved equally impressive results in Moscow, where illegal gambling dens, black markets, and organized prostitution had all but disappeared under his administration.
Eastern Ukraine, however, presented an entirely different challenge.
The enemy there was not made up of ordinary criminals seeking profit, but armed anti-government partisans scattered throughout forests and rural villages.
They enjoyed the support—or at least the silence—of many local residents, while weapons, ammunition, and funding continued to arrive across the Polish border.
Hunting down disciplined guerrilla units hidden in dense forests was far more difficult than breaking up gangs operating in a city.
Fortunately, Moscow had not demanded immediate miracles.
Beria’s instructions were straightforward.
Serov was first to gain a thorough understanding of conditions in eastern Ukraine before submitting a comprehensive operational plan explaining how he intended to restore order.
Before committing additional manpower and resources, the Commissariat wanted to know exactly how the campaign would be conducted.
During the past week, Serov had spent nearly every waking hour reviewing reports from every district under his authority.
The conclusion he reached was deeply discouraging.
The recent purge had certainly removed countless officials responsible for the excesses of the previous administration, but it had also stripped away much of the Commissariat’s experienced leadership.
Across eastern Ukraine, entire departments had been left hollow.
Many of the newly appointed officers had been transferred directly from the Red Army, military academies, or Party organizations.
Their political backgrounds were beyond reproach, but few had any practical experience in intelligence work, criminal investigation, or counterinsurgency.
They were honest men—but honesty alone was not enough.
Experience could not be acquired overnight, and until these new officers learned how to do their jobs, the burden of restoring order would fall on a very small number of capable commanders.
During the past week, Serov had interviewed the heads of several State Security bureaus across eastern Ukraine, hoping to gain a clearer picture of the situation on the ground.
The results, however, had been deeply disappointing.
Most of the officers either knew very little themselves or simply repeated information copied from official reports.
The reason was hardly surprising—they, too, had only recently assumed their posts.
Today’s findings, however, were different.
From the thick stack of reports covering his desk, one document finally caught his attention. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Closing the report, Serov glanced at the name stamped across its cover:
Shevchenko State Security BureauLieutenant Viktor Viktorovich Tarasev
The name meant nothing to him.
That, in itself, was unremarkable.
In the aftermath of the recent purge, most of the newly appointed State Security chiefs throughout eastern Ukraine were complete strangers to him.
What interested him was the report itself.
Although relatively brief, it outlined a comprehensive operational plan for eliminating more than a dozen partisan groups active throughout the Volyn–Shevchenko Forest.
Unlike the reports he had been reading all week, this one was logically organized, concise, and, above all, practical.
Serov opened it again and began reading from the first page.
The report opened with a concise summary of the security situation in the Volyn–Shevchenko Forest, including estimates of each partisan group’s strength, armament, and patterns of activity over the previous two years.
Rather than merely listing information, the author analyzed it carefully, identifying the guerrillas’ likely operating areas, methods of movement, sources of supply, and local support networks.
The latter half of the report proposed a series of concrete countermeasures.
It recommended cutting the routes used to smuggle weapons and ammunition across the border, restricting food supplies to the forests, conducting a comprehensive census throughout the Shevchenko district to eliminate potential recruitment networks, and strengthening cooperation between local security agencies.
None of the proposals relied on unrealistic assumptions; each was supported by clear reasoning and appeared entirely practical.
Holding the report in one hand, Serov rose from his chair and walked over to the large wall map hanging beside his desk.
As he reread the final pages, he compared the recommendations with the terrain marked on the map.
After a long moment of thought, he picked up a colored pencil from the tray beneath it and slowly drew a broad circle around the entire Volyn–Shevchenko Forest, extending it to include the seven surrounding towns.
He had made his decision.
Rather than limiting these measures to Shevchenko alone, he intended to implement the plan across the entire region.
If Lieutenant Tarasev’s analysis proved accurate—and Serov believed it would—then the security situation in the Volyn–Shevchenko Forest could change dramatically within three to six months.
…
Meanwhile, back in Shevchenko, Viktor stood silently before a large wall map, deep in thought.
As an exile settlement, Shevchenko had no conventional local government.
Real authority rested with the administration of the forced labor camp, which also fell under the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
The camp commandant officially held the rank of lieutenant—the same rank Viktor now wore—but in practice the two positions were far from equal.
A lieutenant in the labor camp administration held considerably less authority than a lieutenant in the State Security Bureau.
As the newly appointed head of the bureau, Viktor had been given an office of his own in the town’s only stone building.
Compared with the cramped wooden barracks he had occupied before, the new office felt almost luxurious.
Built in the traditional Russian style, it featured a ceiling nearly four meters high, making the room seem unusually spacious.
Despite the harsh conditions in Shevchenko, it was well furnished.
A desk, bookshelf, wardrobe, and proper bed occupied one side of the room, while a cushioned armchair stood beside a broad writing desk.
To Viktor’s surprise, there was even a radio and a gramophone.
The change was so dramatic that it felt as though he had gone from carrying a hunting rifle to commanding an artillery battery.
Even so, Viktor had no intention of becoming comfortable.
He had not forgotten the deadline hanging over him.
Moscow had given him three to six months to eliminate the partisan movement.
The recent expansion of the State Security Directorate, along with the higher salaries and broader authority granted to its officers, came with equally high expectations.
Viktor understood one thing better than ever after surviving the water cell: under Stalin’s system, no one was rewarded for doing nothing.
Privilege existed only so long as results followed.
The large map hanging beside the window covered only the Shevchenko district and the forests surrounding it.
Some of those routes even disappeared into the marshes.
Standing with his arms folded, Viktor studied the section of the map surrounding the swamps.
The red lines represented what local hunters called hunter’s paths—narrow trails secretly opened by farmers who slipped into the forest to hunt illegally.
They had little choice.
Every year Moscow demanded enormous grain procurements from Ukraine, and during the past two years the quotas had risen even higher.
Once deliveries were made, many collective farms were left with barely enough grain to feed themselves.
To survive, some farmers risked entering the forest in search of game.
Poaching, however, was a criminal offense.
Forest patrols regularly searched the woods for illegal hunters, forcing the farmers to create hidden trails that avoided the official patrol routes.
Not everyone who entered the forest carried a rifle.
Some brought sacks of grain instead.
Deep within the woods, they quietly exchanged food for meat with the partisan bands hiding there.
Over time, an uneasy relationship of mutual dependence had developed between the starving farmers and the guerrillas.
To many villagers, the partisans were not outlaws but the only people willing to help them.
The People’s Militia, the Border Guard, and the other government forces were seen instead as instruments of oppression.
Viktor understood why such attitudes had taken root in eastern Ukraine.
The causes stretched back years, shaped by both history and national policy.
Those were problems far beyond his authority to solve.
His concern was much simpler.
Complete the mission.
He had no desire to experience another water cell.
The sharp rhythm of leather boots striking the wooden floor interrupted his thoughts.
Viktor slowly lifted his eyes from the map and turned toward the doorway.
At that moment, two lieutenants in State Security uniforms stepped into the office.
“Comrade Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich,” one of the officers announced as the two men came to attention in the doorway.
Both saluted sharply.
“Lieutenants of the 2nd and 3rd Companies, 203rd Regiment, 14th Border Guard Infantry Division, reporting as ordered.”
A faint smile finally appeared on Viktor’s face.
“Come in, comrades.
Welcome.”
He stepped forward, shaking hands with each of them in turn.
“Can I offer you something to drink?
I have some good tea—or if you prefer, there’s fruit juice.”
The invitation noticeably eased the tension between them.
The two officers exchanged a quick glance before the bearded lieutenant spoke.
“Perhaps we should discuss the mission first, Comrade Lieutenant Viktor Viktorovich.”
He hesitated briefly before continuing.
“Under the Chief’s orders, both of our companies have been placed under your operational command.”