STASHINSKY, BOGDAN

In October 1957 the Ukrainian nationalist leader Lev Rebet collapsed and died at his home in Germany, and two years later another exile, Stephan Bandera, suffered the same fate. In August 1961, Stashinsky revealed that he was an experienced KGB officer who had killed both men by firing prussic acid into their faces, causing their almost instantaneous deaths from what appeared to be heart attacks. Troubled by his conscience and  disapproval of his German fiancée, Stashinsky  defected to the  Central Intelligence Agency and revealed his next assignment had been the assassination of the former Ukrainian prime minister, Raoslav Stetskow. Stashinsky was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in Germany but was released in 1966 and resettled by  the CIA.