Operation Bandura

In June 1944, four Abwehr agents with a radio station were captured by Soviet counterintelligence officers in the Andreapol area. The leader of the group N. E. Mikhailov (in the archives of German military intelligence he was listed as Volkov, while Smersh was called the Baltic) and the radio operator immediately agreed to work for the Soviet military counterintelligence. Thus began a radio game between the German intelligence center of Army Group North and the military counterintelligence of the 2nd Baltic Front. Overseen from SMERSH agent-operational activities for the game "Pandora" Deputy V. S. Abakumova, Lieutenant General Babich Isai Yakovlevich . The direct organizer of the radio game was the head of the SMERSH department of the 2nd Baltic Front, N. I. Zheleznikov ^[1] .

According to the radio game plan, the radio operator transmitted a request for reinforcements. Not suspecting a trick, the center asked for a reliable place for the release of four agents. Such a place was chosen just in the region of Andreapol, where the activities of the "Bandura" mainly took place. At the time of landing, the agents were disarmed. Their capture was suitably furnished, and the radio game continued. Two months later, in the same area, a courier agent was taken from an airplane and captured, delivering weapons, ammunition, uniforms, food and medicine to the Bandura group. The game "Pandora" was successfully conducted until 1945.

Information about this operation is rather scarce. In the book of E. Tolstykh ^[2] there are additional details of the operation, however, they cannot be considered reliable, since the author uses fictional characters in the book.

• Sergeev F. Secret operations of Nazi intelligence 1933-1945., Politizdat, 1991, ISBN 5-250-00797-X .
• North A. “Death to Spies!” SMERSH Military Counterintelligence during the Great Patriotic War., Eksmo, 2009, ISBN 978-5-699-33376-9 .
• Anatoly Tereshchenko. How SMERSH saved Moscow. Heroes of a secret war. Eksmo, 2013, ISBN 978-5-699-62994-7 .