Andrei Shkuro Andrei Grigoriyevich Shkuro ( Shkura ) ( Russian : " Андрей Григорьевич Шкуро " ( " Шкура " ) ; Ukrainian : " Шкуро Андрій Григорович " ) ( 19 January 1887 ( O . S . : 7 January ) – 17 January 1947 ) was a Lieutenant General ( 1919 ) of the White Army . Biography . Early life . He was born in the stanitsa of Pashkovskaya ( ) near the city of Yekaterinodar into a Cossack family . Shkuro graduated from Nikolayev Cavalry School in 1907 and served in the Kuban Cossack Host . In World War I Shkuro became the commander of a special guerrilla unit which executed several daring raids behind Austrian - Hungarian and German lines . During World War I , Shkuro was promoted to the rank of colonel . Russian Civil War . In the spring of 1918 , after the establishment of the Bolshevik régime , Shkuro organized an anti - Bolshevik Cossack unit in the area of Batalpashinsk in the Caucasus . In May and June 1918 he raided Stavropol , Yessentuki and Kislovodsk . After officially joining Denikin ' s White Army , he became the commander of the Kuban Cossacks brigade which soon increased in size and became a division . In May 1919 Shkuro , as a young lieutenant - general , had a whole cavalry corps of Cossacks under his command . Shkuro , though charismatic and audacious , showed bravery which often bordered on the reckless ; he received several wounds , and also acquired a reputation for his cunning . Many in the White Army ' s high command , however , considered him undisciplined and somewhat of a " loose cannon " . According to Soviet historians his forces were particularly cruel and prone to looting . In contrast , in his memoirs ( which Shkuro dictated in 1921 ) he describes many instances in which he spared the lives of enemies , including even Bolshevik commissar s ( whom the Whites usually summarily executed ) . Shkuro claimed that he saved from execution a Red Army battalion of Jewish volunteers taken prisoner by the Whites , and that he spoke out against and prevented pogroms against the Jewish population . When Denikin ’ s volunteer army took Kiev in August 1919 , however , it inflicted a large - scale pogrom on the Jews . Over 20 , 000 people died in two days of violence . After these events , Supresskin , the representative of the Kharkov Jewish community , spoke to Shkuro , who stated to him bluntly that " Jews will not receive any mercy because they are all Bolsheviks " . Although the White Army general Pyotr Wrangel valued initiative he also demanded discipline from his subordinates . Wrangel ended up disliking Shkuro , and upon reorganizing the army Wrangel did not give him a command position ; this prompted Shkuro ' s resignation . Shkuro claimed that to the detriment of the anti - Bolshevik cause , both Denikin and Wrangel did not sufficiently understand Cossack society , and that as a result some of their decisions alienated the Cossacks — even though the Cossacks in general remained deeply hostile to the policies of the Bolsheviks . In exile . After the defeat of the Whites , Shkuro lived as an exile , primarily in France and Serbia . For the first few years he and a few other Cossack partners , displaying their great horsemanship , performed in circuses as trick riders across Europe . In addition , he continued to conduct anti - Soviet activities . Russian émigré memoirs depict Shkuro as a very lively man who enjoyed social gatherings with plenty of dancing , singing , drinking , and vivid storytelling about times past . Second World War . In 1941 , Shkuro agreed to be one of the organizers of anti - Soviet Cossack units consisting of White émigrés and Soviet ( mostly Cossack ) prisoners of war in alliance with Nazi Germany . He , along with many other exiles , hoped that this would lead to the eventual liberation of all Russia from communism . Most of these exiles , Shkuro included , were not fascist , but because of their past experiences and of what they knew of the Soviet Union , they considered fascism a lesser threat than communism . In 1944 , Shkuro was placed in command of the " Cossack Reserve " , which were primarily deployed in Yugoslavia against Josip Broz Tito ' s partisans . In 1945 , Shkuro was detained by the British forces in Austria and handed over to the Soviet authorities in Operation Keelhaul . The Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Andrei Shkuro to death . On 17 January 1947 , he was executed , together with Pyotr Krasnov , by hanging .