Litvakov confessed to being an agent for the Gestapo. The Katyn Massacre The Katyn Massacre was a mass execution of around 15,000 Polish military officers carried out by the NKVD during the spring of 1940. The killings took place in the Katyn forest in Russia and other cites. After a request from Polish general, Władysław Anders, on the whereabouts of the 15,000 Polish POWs in 1941, the Soviet Union replied that the soldiers had fled and were not able to be located. The whereabouts of these prisoners remained unknown until 1943. Approximately 4,000 bodies of the victims were found by German soldiers at the Katyn location. Physical evidence suggested that the soldiers were shot in the back of the head and then buried in large piles. The Soviet Union went on to deny these killings until 1990 when Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged that the Soviet Union was, in fact, responsible for the deaths. Many of the documents surrounding the massacre were destroyed, and others were not made public until 2010. According to the released documents, the executions were authorized by a troika consisting of Vsevolod Merkulov, Bogdan Kobulov, and Leonid Bashtakov. See also Special Council of the NKVD Kangaroo court References External links The Memorial civil movement Soviet phraseology Political repression in the Soviet Union Internments Trials of political people Trios