Throughout summer and autumn 1941, several underground communist organizations in Bessarabia were uncovered by the SSI, a success that is attributable to betrayal. Informants contributed to the destruction of partisan cells formed by Trikolich, Georgy Besedin, Anatoly Prokopets, and Shoil Rabinovich, with members either imprisoned or executed "(see Capital punishment in Romania)", and always tortured beforehand. At Corten, a member of the Bessarabian Bulgarian resistance cell crumbled under the psychological stress turned himself in, following which the local partisan leader, S. V. Malkov, was tried and executed. Other cases of betrayal and capture were attested throughout the former Moldavian SSR and the Budjak—in Bender, Budești, Cetatea Albă, Izmail, Tuzla. Partisan activity subsided after the fall of Odessa. According to historian Izeaslav Levit, regression was in part due to geographical factors: Bessarabia lacked the extensive forests found in other Soviet regions, and the Axis forces could easily clear the few existing ones. Consequently, between the autumn of 1941 and the end of 1943, the principal forms of resistance were anti-Romanian propaganda and sabotage, by underground groups acting locally.