Aleksey Botyan was born on February 10, 1917 in the village of Chertovichi, Vilna province, into a Belarusian peasant family.

Following the results of the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921, his native village became part of Poland.

In 1939, Botyan, who by this time had managed to graduate from a pedagogical school, was drafted into the Polish army.

Scout and saboteur

In the autumn of 1939, Botyan, in the rank of a Polish non-commissioned officer, as part of an anti-aircraft artillery division, received his first combat experience against the German army.

Soon, his unit received a command to withdraw to the Romanian border, but ran into units of the Red Army and surrendered to her.

According to Botyan's memoirs, he was soon released home (some sources claim that the future scout fled from captivity).

As a result of the Liberation Campaign of the Red Army, his native village became part of the USSR.

Returning home, Alexei received Soviet citizenship and completed teacher training courses.  

After working for an incomplete year as the head of an elementary school, Botyan, on a Komsomol ticket, was sent to serve in state security agencies and entered the Higher School of the NKGB of the USSR in Moscow.

After the start of the Great Patriotic War, Botyan was included in the Special Group under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, which was engaged in conducting intelligence operations and organizing guerrilla warfare.

On the basis of the group, a separate motorized rifle brigade for special purposes (OMSBON) of the NKVD was created in the fall.

Being in its ranks, Alexei Botyan participated in the defense of Moscow and in raids behind the front line.

Together with his comrades, he derailed the Nazi echelons, mined enemy communications and burned bridges.

Botyan underwent special training and was thrown into the rear of the Nazi troops to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage tasks - both independently and as part of partisan detachments.

He fought against the invaders on the territory of Ukraine and Belarus, was the deputy commander for reconnaissance in the partisan detachment of the Hero of the Soviet Union Viktor Karasyov.

“Botyan actively participated in the “rail war” with the Nazis, which seriously complicated the position of the Wehrmacht during the Battle of Kursk, and in September 1943 he led the operation to blow up the Nazi Gebietskommissariat in the city of Ovruch, Zhytomyr Region, just at the time when there was an inspection from the Reich.

About 80 Nazi officers were destroyed there at the same time, ”said Maxim Sinitsyn, a graduate student at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in a conversation with RT.

Later, Botyan headed a group sent for reconnaissance and sabotage operations against the Nazis in Poland.

At the request of the local underground, he attacked the Nazi garrison in the city of Ilzha, freeing Polish anti-fascists from prison and seizing a significant amount of weapons.

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“Botian in Poland has established good relations with the local population.

He was not only brave, but also a kind, sympathetic person.

He knew the Polish language, Polish customs, respected the locals and inspired them with confidence, ”said Alexander Kolpakidi, a historian of the special services, who was personally acquainted with the intelligence officer, in an interview with RT.

According to Alexander Mikhailov, a specialist historian of the Victory Museum, the most famous operation carried out by Botyan's group was the explosion of ammunition and explosives depots created by the Germans in the Jagiellonian castle near Krakow.

The Nazi front-line units were supplied from these warehouses, and, in addition, explosives were stored on them, with the help of which the Nazis planned to destroy the cultural monuments of Krakow, the Rozhnov Dam and the bridge over the Dunajec River.

Botyan's group managed to obtain information about the operation of warehouses, and then infiltrate them under the guise of a loader of their own person.

The castle was mined and blown up on January 18, 1945.

“It was one of the biggest successes of Soviet saboteurs during the Great Patriotic War.

The German troops in the area were literally bled to death due to lack of ammunition,” Alexander Kolpakidi said.

The monuments and bridges of Krakow were saved, and the very next day units of the 1st Ukrainian Front of the Red Army entered the city.

And Botyan's group was transferred to the territory of Czechoslovakia, which was still occupied by the Nazis.

“Facts from the military biography of Alexei Botyan were used to create the heroes of several books and films.

The most famous of them is the protagonist of Yulian Semyonov’s novel “Major Whirlwind”, a collective image that included the features of several Soviet intelligence officers, including Botyan, ”Dmitry Surzhik, executive secretary of the Association of Historians of the Union State, said in a comment to RT.

secret war

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, Alexei Botyan continued to serve in the foreign intelligence of the NKGB (hereinafter - the MGB) of the USSR.

“It is known that Botyan, under the guise of a worker, was thrown into Czechoslovakia, went through naturalization there, worked in uranium mines,” Dmitry Surzhik said.

In 1955, Botyan was recalled to the Soviet Union and fired from the state security agencies as part of the cuts that were made in the security forces after Nikita Khrushchev came to power.

For about two years, a talented intelligence officer and saboteur worked as an administrator-translator in the Moscow restaurant "Prague".

However, in 1957 he was reinstated in the service and became an officer of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

“In the 1960s-1970s, Alexei Botyan participated in Soviet intelligence operations on the territory of the GDR and Czechoslovakia, but their details are still classified,” said Alexander Mikhailov.

In the future, according to the expert, Botyan served in the units of the First Main Directorate of the KGB and advised the first employees of the Vympel special forces group.

In 1983, Alexei Botyan was dismissed from military service with the rank of colonel due to age, but worked for six more years in the state security bodies as a civilian specialist.

Botyan repeatedly (according to some sources, three times) presented himself for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but never received it.

Some sources attribute this to the fact that in his youth he served in the Polish army.

Alexander Kolpakidi does not agree with such statements.

“If Aleksey Botyan had not been considered worthy of an award because of his Polish citizenship, then he would not have been entrusted with the service of an illegal intelligence officer.

In fact, in Soviet times, secret service officers, unfortunately, in principle, were rarely awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union due to the departmental specifics of the distribution of awards, ”the expert emphasized.

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During his service in the Soviet state security agencies, Alexei Botyan became a holder of two Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree.

In 2007, for the courage and heroism shown during the operation to liberate Krakow, he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia.

Alexey Botyan died on February 13, 2020.

“He was a real intelligence nugget - a man of a difficult fate, but at the same time bright, cheerful, optimistic, able to talk with a smile even about the most difficult things.

Unlike many of his colleagues, he entered the Great Patriotic War without a long theoretical background or experience of the Spanish Civil War, but he compensated for this with courage and ingenuity, quickly turning into a high-class professional in the special services,” summed up Alexander Kolpakidi.