Pavlo Meshyk

Pavlo Yakovlevich Meshyk (Ukrainian: Павло Якович Мешик; Russian: Павел Яковлевич Мешик, Pavel Meshyk; 1910 – 23 December 1953) was a Ukrainian Soviet security operative and NKVD officer.

On 30 June 1953 Meshyk was arrested in Kiev. On 23 December 1953 he was sentenced by Special court presence (Russian: Специальное судебное присутствие, Spetsialnoye sudebnoye prisutstvie) of the Supreme Court of USSR to "VMN" (i.e. capital punishment) on the "case of Beria gang". Meshyk was executed by shooting. He was stripped of all awards and titles. Meshyk was partially rehabilitated when on 29 May 2000 the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation requalified corpus delicti (body of the crime) to "Excess of power and abuse of office that led to severe consequences", execution by shooting changed to 25 years of imprisonment without confiscation of personal property.

After finishing the OGPU College (1932–1933), Meshyk worked in the central office of OGPU–NKVD in Moscow in economic and counterintelligence departments (assistant commissioner of Division 1 of the GUGB (OGPU) Economic Department (EKO), 1933–1935; operational commissioner of Division 2 of the GUGB EKO, later Division 14 (Vneshtorg, trade offices) of the GUGB Department 3 (counterintelligence), 1935–1937).

Meshyk was born in a family of clerks in Konotop. After graduating from Konotop school, in 1925–1930 he worked as a repairman at Konotop Mechanical Factory. At the factory, Meshyk graduated the school of FZU and in 1930 in Kamianets-Podilskyi he finished university preparatory courses. In October 1931 Meshyk with a "Komsomol voyage ticket" enrolled into the Electrical Power Institute in Samara, but already in March 1932 on the party's selection he was directed to work at OGPU.