Fedorchuk, Vitaliy Vasilievich

Born in the village of Ogievka, Skvirsky district of the Kiev province of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (now in the Ruzhinsky district of the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine ) in a peasant family . Ukrainian . At the end of the seven-year plan, in 1934 he got a job in large-circulation publications , worked in the regional newspapers of the Zhytomyr and Kiev regions .

He has been in military service since 1936 . He graduated from the Kiev Military School of Communications named after M.I. Kalinin ( 1939 ), after which he was recruited to the military counterintelligence agencies. He received higher education later, having graduated in absentia from the KGB Higher School under the USSR Council of Ministers ( 1960 ).

In the state security organs since March 1939 . He served as an assistant to the operational authorized representative of the special department of the NKVD of the Ural Military District , from June 1939 - deputy head of the special department of the NKVD of the 82nd Motor Rifle Division in the Trans-Baikal Military District . In this position, he participated in the hostilities on the Khalkhin-Gol River (1939) and in the Great Patriotic War , when in October 1941 the division was transferred to the 5th Army on the Western Front , fighting in the Mozhaisk direction. In the battles near Mozhaisk, Vitaly Fedorchuk was seriously wounded in a bone, but after treatment he returned to duty. Since March 1942 - head of the special department of the NKVD of the 92nd Tank Brigade on the Kalinin , Western and North Caucasus fronts. From September 1943, he was deputy head of the counterintelligence department of SMERSH (from 1946 - the Ministry of State Security of the USSR Yaroslavsky , from 1944 - the Kalininsky garrisons .

In February 1949, he was appointed head of the department of special departments of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR for the Moscow Military District (MBO) , in December 1950 - in a similar position for the Central Group of Forces in Austria. In 1954, he was demoted to deputy head of the department he had previously headed. Since July 1955 - Deputy Head, since 1958 - Head of the Special Department of the KGB for MBO . In February 1963 he became deputy chief, and in February 1966 - head of the Directorate of Special Departments of the KGB of the USSR Group of Soviet Forces in Germany . In this position, Fedorchuk survived the tragedy - the suicide of his son Eugene, who shot himself from a service pistol Vitaly Vasilyevich. This caused an internal investigation, which, however, did not interfere with his further career ^[1] .

In February 1967, Fedorchuk became the head of the 3rd Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR (military counterintelligence) under the Council of Ministers of the USSR .

Since July 18, 1970 - Chairman of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR and member of the Board of the KGB of the USSR.

From May 26 to December 17, 1982 (with the transfer of Yu. V. Andropov to the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee and before he came to power) - Chairman of the KGB of the USSR . Immediately after the election of the latter, Fedorchuk was transferred from the KGB to the Ministry of Internal Affairs as General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee . “He was also displeased with the activities of the new chairman of the KGB, Fedorchuk,” Gorbachev noted in his memoirs about Secretary General Andropov , indicating that “Brezhnev himself made the choice of Fedorchuk,” and Fedorchuk’s subsequent appointment to the post of Minister of the Interior took place “so as not to conflict with Ukraine and Shcherbitsky ” ^[2] . As Vitaly Vasilievich himself recalled in his last interview, in December 2006, Andropov “ hating me and wanting to somehow humiliate me, dismissed the Chairman of the KGB of the USSR and appointed him the chief police officer of the country ” ^[3] .

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 17, 1982 he was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR with relieving of the duties of chairman of the KGB of the USSR on the same day he was awarded the military rank of " Army General ." In the post of minister was replaced by N. A. Shchelokov , against whom a criminal case was initiated. “He conducted the first final expanded collegium not in the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but in his Lubyanka, in the building of the KGB,” recalled colonel general of the internal service I. Shilov ^[4] . According to the author of the book “The Life of Wonderful People,” Sergey Kredov, the rank of army general Vitaly Vasilievich was given as compensation for moral damage when transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they also promised to award the Hero of Socialist Labor with a star , but they did not ^[5] .

In January 1986, M. S. Gorbachev was relieved of his ministerial post and enlisted as a military inspector-adviser in the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR , which was liquidated in 1992. Then he was fired. Characteristic of E. K. Ligachev : “a very dry, pale person with a not very great intellect” ^[6] . Some memoirists (for example, intelligence officers Lieutenant General V. A. Kirpichenko , N. S. Leonov , etc.) characterized him as the leader of an honest, “workaholic,” but stubborn, tough and rude, incompetent in intelligence matters ^[1] .

Member of the CPSU (b) / CPSU in 1940 - 1991 . Member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 8-11 convocations (1970-1989).

The dismissal of Vitaly Vasilievich suffered heavily. He had an extensive stroke , for two weeks he lay unconscious. And health has not fully recovered. He outlived his son, wife, daughter and granddaughter - and remained alone, not accepted in the veteran collectives of the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs ^{[7] [8]} .

Vitaly Vasilievich Fedorchuk died in Moscow on February 29, 2008 after a serious long illness. He was buried at the Golovinsky cemetery in Moscow ^[9] .

• Second wife - Lyubov Sergeevna Fedorchuk (10/02/1920 - 09/21/1993)
• Son - Yevgeny Vitalyevich Fedorchuk (02/02/1942 - 01/05/1967) (shot himself) ^[10]
• Daughter - Tatyana Vitalievna Fedorchuk (12/02/1945 - 09/08/1994)
• Granddaughter - Kuznetsova Ekaterina Vyacheslavovna
• Granddaughter - Soboleva Margarita Dmitrievna

• Order of Lenin (1977)
• Order of the October Revolution (1971)
• 2 Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (1973, 1980)
• Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree (1985)
• 3 Orders of the Red Star (1943, 1952)
• Medal of Military Merit
• medals.
• Badge " Honorary State Security Officer " (1965)
• Battle Order "For Merit to the People and the Fatherland" I degree ( GDR , 1970)
• Order of Merit for the Fatherland ( GDR , 1975)
• Order "September 9, 1944" I degree ( NRB , 1974)
• Order of the Red Banner ( Czechoslovakia , 1970)
• Officer of the Order of the Renaissance of Poland ( Poland , 1972)
• Order of Suche-Bator ( MPR )
• Order of Merit ( MPR )
• Order of the North Star ( MPR )

• lieutenant (1939)
• junior lieutenant of state security (1939)
• State Security Lieutenant (1940)
• Senior Lieutenant of State Security (1941)
• Major of State Security (1943)
• lieutenant colonel (1947)
• Colonel (1951)
• major general (02/18/1958)
• lieutenant general (10.27.1967)
• Colonel General (12/14/1970)
• army general (12/17/1982)

• State power of the USSR. The supreme bodies of power and administration and their leaders. 1923-1991 Historical and Biographical Handbook / Comp. V.I. Ivkin. Moscow, 1999. - S.565-566.
• Degtyarev K. SMERSH. - M .: Yauza Eksmo, 2009 .-- S. 641-642. - 736 p. - (Encyclopedia of special services). - 4000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-699-36775-7 .
• Lisyuk Yu., Chisnikov V. Kerivniki of the organs of the sovereign bespeka of Radyansky Ukraine (1953-1991). Kiev, 2001. - S.432-433. (in Ukrainian)
• Nizhnik N. S., Salnikov V. P., Musket Sh. Sh. Ministers of the Interior of the Russian State (1802-2002): biobibliographic reference. - SPb., 2002.
• Nekrasov V.F. of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in persons: Ministers from V.V. Fedorchuk to A.S. Kulikov, 1982-1998. M., 2000 .-- S. 5-32.
• Tumshis M.A. Shield and sword of the Soviet Union. Directory. Brief biographies of the leaders of the state security bodies of the USSR and the Union republics (December 1922 - December 1991). - M., Dmitry Pozharsky University, 2016 .-- ISBN 978-5-91244-161-5 . - S. 464-465.

• Anton Kolesnikov. “I was never ashamed of my service in the KGB.” (Russian) . zn.ua (September 14, 2001). - Interview with Vitaly Fedorchuk to the Ukrainian weekly Knowledge.
• Ivan the Immortal. “What is General Fedorchuk silent about?” (Russian) . 2000.ua (January 12, 2007). - Interview with Vitaliy Fedorchuk to the Ukrainian weekly newspaper 2000.
• Nikolay Golushko . “In the special services of three states” (Russian) . biography.wikireading.ru (2012). - The head of "Vitaly Fedorchuk" from the book "In the special services of three states."
• Leonid Mlechin . “The KGB. Chairpersons of Security Agencies. Declassified Fates. Chapter 15 VITALY VASILIEVICH FEDORCHUK ” (neopr.) . rulibs.com (2006). - Chapter 15 about Vitaly Fedorchuk from the book “KGB. Chairpersons of Security Agencies. Declassified Fates "..