Vasyl Meleshko
Ukrainian war criminal who participated in the Khatyn massacre
Vasyl Andriyovych Meleshko (Ukrainian: Василь Андрійович Мелешко, 26 April 1917 – 1975) was a Ukrainian war criminal who participated in the Khatyn massacre.
Biography
Pre-war years
Vasyl Meleshko was born in the settlement of Nyzhni Sirohozy, Taurida (now known as the Kherson Region, Ukraine) in 1917. He received a secondary school education after which he graduated from an agricultural technical school, specializing in agronomy. Beginning in 1938 he served in the Red Army. In 1940, he graduated from a course at the Kiev Infantry School, where he attained the rank of lieutenant. He was a member of the Komsomol from 1939 on.
Prisoner of war
By the beginning of the German invasion of the USSR, he served in the 140th separate machine-gun battalion, where he was a commander of a machine-gun platoon. The battalion was based at the Strumyliv Fortified District on the so-called Molotov Line. On the very first day of the war Meleshko was taken prisoner near the village of Parkhach, when his battalion was surrounded after the enemy's massive attacks on the Red Army positions. He was excluded from army lists as a missing person in September 1941.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vasyl Meleshko” as ukrainian war criminal who participated in the Khatyn massacre. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as ukrainian war criminal who participated in the Khatyn massacre. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55103260. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1975, 1938 and 1940.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Vasyl Meleshko”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Vasyl Meleshko primary sources, Vasyl Meleshko archive and Vasyl research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Vasyl Meleshko”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Vasyl Meleshko” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.