Archives reveal details of OUN leader Yevhen Konovalets's 1938 assassination in Rotterdam
Based on intelligence archives and testimonies, new details have emerged about the 1938 assassination of Ukrainian nationalist leader Yevhen Konovalets in Rotterdam, carried out by Soviet agent Pavel Sudoplatov. The documents expose a years-long Moscow operation that led to the fatal attack.
On 23 May 1938, a bomb exploded in central Rotterdam near the Lumière cinema, killing Yevhen Konovalets, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). A witness described the horrifying aftermath to a local newspaper — a body torn apart and shattered glass scattered across the street. Less than an hour passed between Konovalets stepping off a train, meeting his future killer, and his death.
The assassin, Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov, later became known for carrying out several political killings on the Kremlin's orders. Immediately after the attack, the public and diplomats were misled — early reports suggested the victim was himself a terrorist who had mishandled explosives he was transporting. As later research described, Moscow employed disinformation tactics, directing suspicion toward Poland, Germany's Gestapo, and internal Ukrainian rivalries.
Betrayal from within
A central role in the assassination belonged to Vasyl Khomiak, a former Sich Riflemen fighter turned NKVD/GPU agent codenamed "Lebed." He received a three-room apartment and cash payment for introducing Sudoplatov into Konovalets's inner circle. In 1933, Khomiak was sent out of the USSR to Belgium under the guise of a defector, and later introduced Sudoplatov to Konovalets, presenting him as a distant relative and fellow nationalist.
After months of vetting, Sudoplatov gained the OUN's trust. Konovalets met him in Berlin in 1936 and later in Paris, where, according to Sudoplatov's own later memoirs, the two visited the grave of Symon Petliura together. Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service notes, however, that some details in Sudoplatov's memoirs diverge from the documented reports he sent to Moscow at the time.
The operation to kill Konovalets spanned several years and involved multiple Soviet agents. In summer 2022, Russian occupation authorities in Melitopol erected a monument to Sudoplatov, Konovalets's assassin.
