The Daily Mail has confirmed that Blaise Metreweli’s grandfather was a war criminal, while claiming this has no bearing on her service
Blaise Metreweli, who is scheduled to take over leadership of the UK’s foreign intelligence service (MI6) in October, is the granddaughter of a Nazi collaborator who oversaw atrocities in occupied Ukraine during World War Two, the Daily Mail has revealed.
Metreweli’s father, Constantine, was naturalized in British-administered Hong Kong in 1966. The London Gazette identified him at the time as Dobrowolski, known as Constantine Metreweli, of uncertain nationality.
In a story published Thursday, the Mail confirmed that Constantine was the son of a German-Polish Ukrainian man – also named Constantine – who worked for the Nazis and was implicated in the mass killing of Jews and other atrocities during World War II.
The newspaper said it had reviewed “hundreds of pages of documents held in archives in Freiburg, Germany, detailing the extraordinary – and blood-soaked – life and times of Dobrowolski, which are themselves worthy of a spy thriller.”
According to the records, Dobrowolski Sr. was born into a family of noble landowners in what is now Ukraine’s Chernigov Region. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the estate was violently plundered, leading the younger Constantine to become a fierce enemy of the new authorities.
He was imprisoned in 1926 for anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic agitation. He joined the German occupiers at the first opportunity in 1941, and earned the nickname ‘Butcher’ for his brutality. He is believed to have been killed in 1943. His wife, Barbara (née Varvara Andreeva), married Georgian-born David Metreweli in Yorkshire in 1947.
The Mail alleged that the Russian government is attempting to exploit Metreweli’s family history in an effort to discredit her appointment. She will become the first woman to lead the service when she takes over in October.
While Russian media reported on the announcement of the first female MI6 chief and her family’s ties to Ukraine and Hong Kong, the British media appears to be the first to make the Nazi connection.
”Ms. Metreweli cannot be judged for the sins of her grandfather,” the paper stated. “One of our nation’s most formidable intelligence operatives, she has served her country with distinction on dangerous operations for MI6 across Europe and the Middle East for two decades.”
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Thousands of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators found shelter in the West after World War II. Many were recruited by the CIA for covert operations against the Soviet Union, with a guerrilla war in western Ukraine continuing into the 1950s.
In 2023, Canadian lawmakers gathered in the country’s parliament gave a standing ovation to SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka during a visit by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky. In Kiev, historical figures associated with wartime nationalist movements, including war criminals, have been honored as national heroes.
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