Piotr Soprunenko

Piotr Karpovich Soprunenko (17 March 1908 – 23 June 1992) was a Soviet Major-General in the Red Army who carried out the Katyn Massacre in World War II. Soprunenko had 22,000 prisoners of war under his jurisdiction as head of a branch of the Soviet NKVD called the "Department for POW Affairs" that was created by Lavrenty Beria.^[1][2] He was of Ukrainian ancestry.

A mass grave at Katyn, 1943

Biography

Sporunenko was born near Kyiv in Ukraine, under the Russian Empire.^[1]

Soprunenko achieved the rank of captain of State Security in March 1940, major in 1942, colonel and then commissar in 1943, and Major General in 1945.^[2]

War Crimes

Soprunenko was reportedly responsible for the executions of nearly 22,000 Polish intelligentsia, military officers, and other prisoners of war during the Katyn Massacre in April and May 1940.^[3] This is considered by many to be a genocide.^[4]

In 1990, Nicholas Bethell, 4th Baron Bethell raised a question with the UK Government regarding Soprunenko's role in Katyn with a view to his possible prosecution as a war criminal.^[5]

In 1991, the Soviet Union declined to prosecute Soprunenko due to infirmity and old age and he never faced justice.^[3]