This shirt from the collection of the Museum of Intelligence Officer Nikolai Kuznetsov belonged to Ivan Vasilyevich Belov — a courageous partisan and scout who shared a tragic fate with Nikolai Kuznetsov himself. The relic was donated to the museum by the hero’s sister, Raisa Vasilyevna Ruschenko.

Teodor Kirillovich Gladkov, a documentary writer and war correspondent, recounts in his book “The Legend of Soviet Intelligence — N. Kuznetsov” as follows:

On February 9, 1944, in Lvov, Kuznetsov shot and killed two high-ranking Nazi officials right on the street: General Otto Bauer, vice-governor of Galicia, and Colonel Schneider, head of the governor’s office. Soviet forces later confirmed this act through captured German documents.

The city was thrown into chaos. With a large reward announced for the capture of ‘Paul Siebert’ — Kuznetsov’s cover name — and his description circulated widely, Kuznetsov and his two comrades, Kaminsky and Belov, were forced to flee. They escaped Lvov and set out toward the front lines.

En route, their car was stopped near the village of Kurovichi by a German patrol specifically tasked with apprehending them. A firefight erupted, and though they managed to break free from immediate pursuit, they soon had to abandon their vehicle. Exhausted and hunted, the three scouts continued on foot toward the front.

In the early hours of March 9, 1944, starving and worn out, they reached the village of Boratin. They knocked on the door of Stepan Golubovich’s house. Kuznetsov and Kaminsky went inside, while Belov remained outside on watch. Their arrival did not go unnoticed. A local Bandera unit spotted them. The militants first murdered Ivan Belov in the courtyard, then stormed the house. Recognizing Kuznetsov as ‘Paul Siebert’ — the man the Germans were hunting — the gang leader, Chernygor, ordered to take him alive so that they could turn him over to the Nazis. According to one account, rather than face capture, Kuznetsov detonated a grenade he had concealed on his person, taking his own life.