the Russian Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky had brought about its own downfall. When the legation was recalled in December 1918, Quisling became the Norwegian military's expert on Russian affairs. Travels Paris, Eastern Europe and Norway In September 1919, Quisling departed Norway to become an intelligence officer with the Norwegian delegation in Helsinki, a post that combined diplomacy and politics. In the autumn of 1921, Quisling left Norway once again, this time at the request of explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen, and in January 1922 arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kharkiv to help with the League of Nations humanitarian relief effort there. Highlighting the massive mismanagement of the area and the death toll of approximately ten thousand a day, Quisling produced a report that attracted aid and demonstrated his administrative skills, as well as his dogged determination to get what he wanted. On 21 August 1922, he married the Russian Alexandra Andreevna Voronina. Alexandra wrote in her memoirs that Quisling declared his love for her, but from his letters home and investigations undertaken by his cousins, it appeared that there was no romantic involvement between the two, Quisling merely seemed to have wanted to lift the girl out of poverty by providing her with a Norwegian passport and financial security. Having left Ukraine in September 1922, Quisling and Alexandra returned to Kharkiv in February 1923 to prolong aid efforts, with Nansen describing Quisling's work as "absolutely indispensable." In March 1923, Alexandra was pregnant, and Quisling insisted on her having an abortion, which greatly distressed her. Quisling found the situation much improved and, with no fresh challenges, found it a more boring trip than his last. He did however meet Maria Vasiljevna Pasetchnikova (), a Ukrainian more than ten years his junior. Her diaries from the time "indicate a blossoming love affair" during the summer of 1923, despite Quisling's marriage to Alexandra the year before. She recalled that she was impressed by his fluent command of the Russian language, his Aryan appearance, and his gracious demeanour. Quisling later claimed to have married Pasetchnikova in Kharkiv on 10 September 1923, although no legal documentation has been discovered. Quisling's biographer, Dahl, believes that in all likelihood the second marriage was never official. Regardless, the couple behaved as though they were married, claimed Alexandra was their daughter, and celebrated their wedding anniversary. Soon after September 1923, the aid mission came to an end and