Information Bureau of the General Staff of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. Milestones in the History of Ukrainian Intelligence

During the period of the Directory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, the demand for intelligence information among the state leadership increased significantly. This was due to the intensification of armed confrontation both within the Republic and on external fronts, which required a regular flow of intelligence data on the enemy, first of all of  a military nature. Therefore, the emergence of another intelligence agency was quite natural. This agency was the Information Bureau (abbreviated as “INFIBRO”) within the General Staff of the Army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

The period of the Directory was the longest in the history of the Ukrainian national statehood formations of that time. At that time, the newly created, still insufficiently developed and strengthened special services had to operate in a rather tense military-political and operational situation. During 1919–1920, the territory of the Ukrainian People’s Republic became the arena of armed struggle against the intervention of soviet russia, together with the military units of the Ukrainian soviet republic, the “white” movement, and Poland, which was trying to seize part of Ukrainian lands, formed with its direct participation. All this was accompanied by foreign special services’ active subversive work and required the regular collecting of intelligence, primarily of a military nature.

The intelligence of the Directory period largely retained the directions, forms, and methods of obtaining secret information characteristic of the special services of the Hetmanate. At the same time, the potential of some of its varieties was higher.

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