Volodymyr Shevchenko

Volodymyr Yakovych Shevchenko was born on July 15, 1897 in the village of Pisochyn, Pisochyn volost, Kharkiv povit. He graduated from the Odesa Artillery School (1917). He held the rank of ensign.

In 1918, Shevchenko was mobilized to the UPR Army. In 1920, he commanded a cavalry regiment of Otaman A. Volynets’s Haisyn-Bratslav Brigade, a light cavalry battery of the 9th Artillery Kurin of the 3rd Iron Division. In June 1922, he graduated from the academic courses of the General Staff of the UPR Army. Soon after, he retreated to Poland with Ukrainian units. Since 1923 he lived in Czechoslovakia, where in 1926 he was one of the creators of the Society of Former Soldiers of the UPR Army. He graduated from the Agronomy Department of the Ukrainian Academy of Economics in Poděbrady (1930).

At the end of 1929, Shevchenko was first appointed Head of the Third Sector of the Second Section, which carried out analytical work, studying printed sources of information for the needs of the propaganda activities of the State Center of the UPR in exile. In July 1934, he became the Head of the Intelligence Sector of the UPR secret service.

The gpu repeatedly tried to influence him through his close relatives who lived in Ukraine, including his brother, who worked at a metallurgical plant in Mariupol, and wrote letters about the “happy” and “prosperous” life of workers and peasants to persuade Volodymyr
to return home. But Shevchenko realized that those letters were written under the dictation of the chekists, so he did not succumb to the provocation.

After the liquidation of the UPR secret service, Shevchenko became an aide to the Minister of Military Affairs of the UPR government in exile, General V. Salskyi. In 1944 he found himself in Germany, and from there he emigrated to the United States. He passed away on July 17, 1966.