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Personal Details
- Russian Name
- Василий Григорьевич Киселев
- Birth Date
- 20 Jul 1896
- Defection Date
- Dec-41
- Death Date
- >1969
Vasiliy Grigoryevich Kiselev
Василий Григорьевич Киселев
Service Details
Biography
Vasiliy Grigoryevich Kiselev spent most of his military career as a military tactics trainer and became affiliated with an NKVD military unit only two months before his capture and defection. Thus, the depth of his knowledge of Soviet state security is unclear.
Kiselev was born in July 1896 in the village of Kochukovo near Vladimir, east of Moscow.[i] He graduated from the Third Peterhof Warrant Officer School in March 1917 and was assigned to an operational army battalion. However, he joined the Red Army in April 1918 and fought against White forces in Ukraine during the civil war. He became a military instructor soon after joining the Red Army and worked for much of 1919 and 1920 in administrative and personnel assignments. In February 1921 he became the adjutant of the 47th Nikolaevsk Infantry Commanders Course, continuing a career in military training that took him Leningrad, Kharkov, and Moscow for much of the 1920s and 1930s. He was promoted to colonel in the Red Army in 1940.
In September 1941, Kiselev was among the officers that formed the command staff of a newly created unit on the Leningrad Front, the 20th NKVD Infantry Division. This new unit was responsible for providing security for railroad lines and critical industrial facilities. This was Kiselev’s first and only state security position, and it lasted only just over two months, because he captured as a POW in December 1941.
Soon after landing in the Hammelburg officer POW camp, he met Kombrig Ivan Georgiyevich Bessonov (see separate entry) and began participating in planning for the air dropping troops near Soviet prison camps in the distant Soviet rear. However, after the plan failed to produce an anti-Soviet insurrection, Kiselev, along with Bessonov and other officers were temporarily arrested and held in a concentration camp. Kiselev was released in early 1944 and employed as a tactics trainer in the Mariampol officer training camp, which prepared officers for anti-Soviet action on the Eastern Front. In early 1945, the Mariampol training camp was incorporated into the KONR, and Kiselev became an officer in the KONR military forces[ii] until it was disbanded in May 1945.
After the war, Kiselev participated in the formation of the Union of the Flag of St. Andrew in January 1948 in Germany. Former KONR officers formed the Union to prepare for future military actions against the Soviet Union, which never came. Aleksandrov asserts that Kiselev was living in Germany as of 1969 under the name N. V. Kukushkin.[iii] His further fate is unknown.
[i] Biographical information in Kirill Mikhailovich Aleksandrov, Офицерский Корпус Армии Генерал-Лейтенанта Ал. Власова, 1944-1945 (Officer Corps of the Army of General Lieutenant Vlasov, 1944-1945) (Saint Petersburg: Русско-Балтийский информационный центр, «БЛИЦ», 2001), pp. 169-172. See also Aleksandrov, Aрмия Генерала Власова 1944-1945 (General Vlasov’s Army 1944-1945) (Moscow: Yauza EKSMO, 2006), pp. 19, 116, 435.
[ii] Aleksandrov, Officer Corps of the Army of General Lieutenant Vlasov, 1944-1945, p. 49.
[iii] Aleksandrov, Генералитет и Офицерские Кадры Вооруженных Формирований Комитета Освобождения Народов России 1943–1946 гг. (General and Officer Corps of the Armed Formations of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia 1943-1946), dissertation for the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg History Institute, 2015, p. 68.
Kiselev was born in July 1896 in the village of Kochukovo near Vladimir, east of Moscow.[i] He graduated from the Third Peterhof Warrant Officer School in March 1917 and was assigned to an operational army battalion. However, he joined the Red Army in April 1918 and fought against White forces in Ukraine during the civil war. He became a military instructor soon after joining the Red Army and worked for much of 1919 and 1920 in administrative and personnel assignments. In February 1921 he became the adjutant of the 47th Nikolaevsk Infantry Commanders Course, continuing a career in military training that took him Leningrad, Kharkov, and Moscow for much of the 1920s and 1930s. He was promoted to colonel in the Red Army in 1940.
In September 1941, Kiselev was among the officers that formed the command staff of a newly created unit on the Leningrad Front, the 20th NKVD Infantry Division. This new unit was responsible for providing security for railroad lines and critical industrial facilities. This was Kiselev’s first and only state security position, and it lasted only just over two months, because he captured as a POW in December 1941.
Soon after landing in the Hammelburg officer POW camp, he met Kombrig Ivan Georgiyevich Bessonov (see separate entry) and began participating in planning for the air dropping troops near Soviet prison camps in the distant Soviet rear. However, after the plan failed to produce an anti-Soviet insurrection, Kiselev, along with Bessonov and other officers were temporarily arrested and held in a concentration camp. Kiselev was released in early 1944 and employed as a tactics trainer in the Mariampol officer training camp, which prepared officers for anti-Soviet action on the Eastern Front. In early 1945, the Mariampol training camp was incorporated into the KONR, and Kiselev became an officer in the KONR military forces[ii] until it was disbanded in May 1945.
After the war, Kiselev participated in the formation of the Union of the Flag of St. Andrew in January 1948 in Germany. Former KONR officers formed the Union to prepare for future military actions against the Soviet Union, which never came. Aleksandrov asserts that Kiselev was living in Germany as of 1969 under the name N. V. Kukushkin.[iii] His further fate is unknown.
[i] Biographical information in Kirill Mikhailovich Aleksandrov, Офицерский Корпус Армии Генерал-Лейтенанта Ал. Власова, 1944-1945 (Officer Corps of the Army of General Lieutenant Vlasov, 1944-1945) (Saint Petersburg: Русско-Балтийский информационный центр, «БЛИЦ», 2001), pp. 169-172. See also Aleksandrov, Aрмия Генерала Власова 1944-1945 (General Vlasov’s Army 1944-1945) (Moscow: Yauza EKSMO, 2006), pp. 19, 116, 435.
[ii] Aleksandrov, Officer Corps of the Army of General Lieutenant Vlasov, 1944-1945, p. 49.
[iii] Aleksandrov, Генералитет и Офицерские Кадры Вооруженных Формирований Комитета Освобождения Народов России 1943–1946 гг. (General and Officer Corps of the Armed Formations of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia 1943-1946), dissertation for the Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg History Institute, 2015, p. 68.