Following the path of a communication agent

Petro Kohut is one of those who survived in a strange land and did not disavow his motherland. This is his story.
Born November 19, 1919, Petro Kohut comes from a peasant family that lived in Petrusha Volya in Lemki area.  

After Poland was occupied by the Fascist Germany in 1939, advised by Polish anti-fascists he moved to the Soviet territory and went to the intelligence section of Lviv special military district. After being checked, he undertook accelerated training and in late 1939 infiltrated the occupied Poland as Petro Voytovych in order to organize communication with an intelligence cell operating in the area of Peremyshl-Syanok-Horlytsya.

The cell had several major tasks: to collect political, economic data concerning the situation in the occupied territories; to gather intelligence concerning Fascist plans, organization, troop disposition, and important infrastructure installations (military airfields, fuel depots, armouries above all).

Petro Kohutov then carried the information to Lviv. To do so, he had to cross the state border illegally several times a month. Travelling back he brought along other agents, carried weapons, radios, encoded messages containing further instructions for the intelligence cell.
Petro Kohutov
(a photograph from German documents)
Casting his mind back to that time, Petro Kohutov smiles and says: “I used a thousand different tricks to cross the border... I crossed it with the smugglers, under the guise of a profiteer, a civilian German citizen, a man in love... There were all kinds of situations... But the most difficult thing to do when in the frontier zone is to wait until dark. The train which carried me to the border station where I would normally cross always arrived in the morning, so I had to wait until dark without attracting the attention of military patrols, counter-intelligence. Sometimes I would sit in the forest or in the field until its dark, but this was dangerous because I could easily meet a police patrol”.

The intelligence cell incorporated two Poles: Countess Czeslava Zavislyak (former Captain with the Polish Armed Forces), and Daniel Kindzerski (previously worked at the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw); three Lemkies: Gabriel Levitski in Rushev, Daniel Levitski, Mykola Kaplun in Korsun.

“I had to be creative very often,” Petro Kohutov says. “One day I received an order to contact Daniel Kindzerski. When I came to Warsaw, his wife opened the door and said that Germans took Daniel to a construction camp nearby. I travelled to the needed railway station and went to cafe for a beer while the train stood at the platform. I waited for the train to depart, left my beer, ran to the platform and shouted so that everyone could hear me: Stop! You forgot me! – But the train, of course, didn’t stop. As a result, I had a solid alibi and three hours until the next train. I approached the construction camp where the German guarding the gate asked for my ID. I told him that I was about to leave for Germany as a volunteer worker and wanted to say farewell to a friend of mine. The word “volunteer” made an impression, so the German sent for Daniel with whom I discussed all necessary matters.”

Just before the war, the Soviet leadership suggested that establishment of Poland-based intelligence networks be intensified. To support them, radio facilities, trained operators were sent over the border. Among those whom Petro Kohutov helped infiltrate the occupied territories in 1940 was Antonina Hlyba – a radio operator who became his wife several years after.


Petro Kohutov, his wife Olena Tsarenko

Antonina Hlyba’s real name is Olena Tsarenko (born 1918). Graduated from Kharkiv communication technical school in 1938. Fell under the attention from the Soviet intelligence due to her interest in parachute sport. Undertook covert intelligence radio operator training in 1940.

Speaking of that period, Petro Kohutov says: “I was close to fiasco in April, 1941, when I was delivering a radio. The train stopped just before Warsaw and through loudspeakers they ordered everyone to take the luggage and get off the train. I thought this was it. I looked around and saw a German military train full of drunken soldiers standing on the opposite side. I opened the emergency door (I had a duty key which unlocked every door on the train), jumped off and crawled into the nearest open carriage. The train left in a minute and I was in Warsaw just an hour later.”

Just before the Great Patriotic War, the intelligence cell which Petro Kohutov belonged to managed to collect, sent to the Centre various important data on the German formation’s strength, armaments. The situation in the border zone was very difficult, so the cell had to be creative. Agents tried to get jobs in restaurants visited by German military, as local authorities’ chauffeurs, at railway stations etc. But sometimes, the tasks assigned from the Centre forced the operatives to work on the verge of exposure.

Petro Kohutov recalls: “We tried to find out the number of a German division for quite a long time. We used various approaches, all in vain. We decided to take the risk after we learned that the division was in field camp for training. One day, I pretended to get lost and openly walked straight to division’s field camp. I managed to see the number plate before the guards stopped me. For this information I was put forward for decoration with the Order of the Red Star.”

After-war analysis showed that the indicated intelligence cell was second after Richard Sorge, who delivered an encrypted telegram with the exact date of German assault on the USSR.

When the Great Patriotic War began and the Soviet forces were pushed back from the western borders, cell’s major problem was shortage of batteries for the radios. The couriers delivered battery packs several times, but the communication with the centre was lost from early 1942. Under such conditions, the intelligence cell continued collecting and established contact with the Polish resistance and partisan parties comprised of former Soviet POW’s operating in the area.

Petro Kohutov’s comrades-in-arms say that he is a born spy. As calm, silent as he was, the man had excellent memory, instantly remembered passwords, hideouts, and numbers of German units, numbers and models of airplanes at fascist airfields, tanks that passed through a railway station or village. At the same time, he is a gifted actor, speaks fluent Ukrainian, Polish, and German.



After the war, Petro Kohutov finished extramural secondary school and the Faculty of Law at Ivan Franko Lviv State University later on. Worked in the system of trade and tourism.

At the same time, journalism and social activity are Petro Kohutov’s personal “hobbies” which he devoted his entire life to. He has been elected Deputy Director of “Ukraine” regional society, Deputy Director of regional department of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Nearly 500 his articles have been published in newspapers, magazines of various countries.

He has been awarded seventeen orders and medals.

Petro Kohutov’s intelligence work during the war has been described in several books: Ivan Lubashenko’s “Unseen Battle” (Lviv, 1976), Vitold Shymchuk’s “On a Warpath” (Zhesuv, 1980), Valentina Kolomiets’s “The Comrade Went Through Every Combat and War” (Lviv, 1988), and Dmytro Bedzyk’s “Flash” (Kyiv, 1983).