Amayak Kobulov

Amayak Zaharovich Kobulov (Амаяк Захарович Кобулов; 1906-1955) was a Soviet politician and member of the Soviet security and police apparatus during and briefly after the Joseph Stalin years, as was his older brother Bogdan Kobulov.

In the history of Soviet espionage he is noted for his stint in Berlin as chief of the Main Directorate of State Security Foreign Branch's rezidentura from September 1939 until June 1941. While in Berlin, in August 1940, he recruited a Latvian journalist, Orest Berlinks (codenamed by the Soviets "Litseist"), who, in fact, was used by the Germans as a channel of disinformation and might have played a role in solidifying Stalin's belief that Adolf Hitler did not intend to attack the USSR in the spring of 1941.

From July 1941 to January 1945, he was NKVD chief in Uzbekistan. In 1944, as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan, he made administrative and logistical arrangements for the reception of the deported Crimean Tatars in Uzbekistan.

He was arrested in 1953, sentenced to death on October 1, 1954, and shot on February 2, 1955.