Until 1944 he was deputy head of the personnel department of the NKVD of the USSR. After the reorganization of the Soviet secret services, the former 6th department of the NKVD of the USSR NKVD remained part of the NKVD of the USSR and was transformed into the Smersh Counterintelligence Department of the NKVD of the USSR for agent-operational service of border and internal troops, police and other armed formations of the people's commissariat, directly subordinate to the people's Commissioner L.P. Beria . In May 1944, the former deputy head of the personnel department of the NKVD of the USSR, V. I. Smirnov, became the head of the ROC Smersh. He personally participated in the action to clean up the rear of the 1st Byelorussian Front in the last days of the Great Patriotic War. Investigated cases of violations of the rule of command of the troops of the NKVD. So, from recently published documents it is known about the facts of illegal executions of both captured Germans and Soviet citizens, for example, five local residents of the Belarusian village of Berestsian in August 1944. After an investigation of the Smersh Design Committee , the materials of which V. I. Smirnov sent to command of the internal troops of the NKVD, the deputy commander of the company of the 277th rifle regiment of the 9th rifle division, Lieutenant Buynitsky, two more officers and a foreman , were sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. In 1945, 62 people were arrested, including one in the 105th regiment of the internal troops in Berlin as an agent of the American special services . Similar investigations took place in the border and escort troops , where it was especially bad with law and discipline. So, Siddzha's residents established the facts of the murder of a police officer in the 73rd division of convoy troops and the release of captured Polish officers in the 37th division for money.
Ranks
- State Security Commissioner , 12/14/1943;
- Major General , 07/09/1945.
Awards
Russian empire
RSFSR 
the USSR
