Broadcast Interrupted by Explosion: Radio Aphrodite in the NKVD’s Secret Files

In honor of Journalist’s Day, the State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is publishing materials from criminal cases against underground activists who maintained Ukraine’s information front more than 80 years ago.

The case of Albert Gazenbroeks (“West”). A Belgian engineer who escaped from German captivity and became an English- and French-language radio announcer. His archive contains interrogation records, during which NKVD investigators attempted to determine how the foreigner ended up in the ranks of the UPA. Gazenbroeks was captured during a raid on his hiding place. Despite torture and 10 years in the Gulag, he survived, returned to Belgium, and spent the rest of his life telling the world about Ukraine.

The case of Valentina Gorbach-Gorbachenko, known as Zina. The main female voice of “Aphrodite,” who read out appeals in Ukrainian and Russian, is a classic example of Chekist cover-ups. In documents, she appears under various names and pseudonyms (Oksana Bozhikovskaya, Oksana Levkovich, Zina, Raya), as the underground skillfully covered its tracks. Soviet intelligence spent months trying to establish her real identity.

The station’s last broadcast was on April 7, 1945. At 1:20 PM, an NKVD reserve company launched an assault on the UPA radio center. Amid grenade explosions, “Aphrodite” went silent forever, but it remained in history.

The security services tried to bury the memory of this information breakthrough under the “Secret” heading. Today, the Gazenbrooks and Gorbach-Gorbachenko cases are open to investigators from the Main State Administration of the Security Service of Ukraine (GGA SBU).

On Journalist’s Day, we congratulate everyone who defends our information front daily! Truth is a weapon! Happy holiday!

Source: State Security Service of Ukraine, f. 6, op. 1, file. 75812-fp, file. 69843-fp.