Research on the topic of the dissertation was carried out during 2016-2020 in accordance with the plans of research work of the Department of Central and Eastern European History, Historical Faculty, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Peculiarities of international policy of interwar period of Eastern Europe, especially of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic are rather superficially investigated and presented in modern Ukrainian historiography. The period after the Ukrainian revolution of 1917-1921, particularly after signing of Peace of Riga in the context of history and activities of certain services in the region requires additional scientific research. In 1921-1932, despite of signing of peace treaty after the Polish-Soviet war, both warring forces remained in tense relations, the treaty did not satisfy all requirements any of the parties. Poland according to its geographical location military-economical potential became main opponent of newly formed socialistic state, which did not hide its expansionist pursuit in western direction. However, being in extreme tense relationship, states did not dare to start open hostilities, having a lot of reasons and reciprocal provocative acts.
Being in that condition, the one thing that the parties of potential conflict could do it is to prepare for it. One of the main means of training was information and diversion of both countries. Eventually, the period of “intelligence war” broke out. The focus of this study on Polish intelligence activities in the USSR is caused by various important factors. Firstly, there is no comprehensive research on this issue in the modern Ukrainian historiography, although there is a broad array of open sources, works of foreign scientists, and primarily Polish ones. Secondly, as derivative of the first, the extraordinary mythologizing of the topic, which is based on considerable work of Soviet historiography, where, as a rule, this phenomenon is greatly exaggerated to demonstrate the scale of the threat posed by an unfriendly country. Thirdly, the topic was significantly developed in Poland at the end of the last century, due to the opening of previously classified files, nowadays we have a quite significant formation of Polish historiography, which in some way interprets the issue, using mainly Polish sources, which also creates a one-sided picture in publicizing the scale, effectiveness and impact of intelligence activities on foreign and domestic policy of both countries.
