The archives of the Ukrainian secret services correspond to the Polish IPN. They reveal the secrets of the activities of the NKVD, the KGB, the operational methods. According to Prof. Grzegorz Motyka, historian and director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy, the acquisition of these archives would be a great benefit and success for the Russians.
It is well known that securing public buildings, documents collected in ministries and production sites is the custom of war. This includes the archives.
“The Ukrainian secret services’ archives are the equivalent of the Polish IPN. There are many interesting materials about the history of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR. These materials reveal everything about the activities of the NKVD, the KGB, the methods of operation. From the point of view of the Russian power formations, simply taking over these archives and preventing them from being accessible, would be a success and a huge gain,” said Prof. Grzegorz Motyka.
He added that the structure of the Ukrainian archives also includes up-to-date documents of the secret services, making this the dream goal of all troop formations.
Asked why the archives were not digitized and exported from Ukraine since 2014 when the situation had become tense, Motyka pointed not only to the costly digitization process but also to the problems associated with publishing information.
“It was only in 2014 when Ukrainians had decided to digitize the files and make them available to the general public (…) This is a very expensive job,” Prof. Motyka said.
He also pointed out that digitization is linked to the sharing of important information.
“The digitization of Ukrainian archives may have been hampered by fears similar to those expressed in Poland because of the process of vetting. It was a matter of not making any mistakes and not hurting anyone by disclosing information about the actions of the KGB’s secret employees by publishing private matters or by premature or excessive prejudices about cooperation,” Prof. Motyka explained.