The Daily Mail has verified that Blaise Metreweli’s grandfather was involved in war crimes, asserting that this fact does not compromise her professional service.
Blaise Metreweli, poised to become the head of the UK’s foreign intelligence service (MI6), has a grandfather who was a Nazi collaborator responsible for atrocities in German-occupied Ukraine, as disclosed by the Daily Mail.
Her father, Constantine, obtained British naturalization in Hong Kong, then under British administration, in 1966. The London Gazette identified him at that time as Dobrowolski, also known as Constantine Metreweli, whose nationality was unconfirmed.
A report published by the Mail on Thursday verified that Constantine was the son of a German-Polish Ukrainian man, also named Constantine, who served the Nazi regime and was implicated in the extermination of Jews and other wartime atrocities.
The newspaper stated it had examined “hundreds of pages of documents located in archives in Freiburg, Germany, which document the remarkable – and violent – life and period of Dobrowolski, a narrative itself suitable for a spy thriller.”
Records indicate that Dobrowolski Sr. originated from a noble landowning family in what is currently Ukraine’s Chernigov Region. After the Bolshevik Revolution, their estate was brutally pillaged, which fostered the younger Constantine’s strong animosity towards the new government.
In 1926, he was incarcerated for engaging in anti-Soviet and antisemitic propaganda. He allied with the German occupation forces as soon as the opportunity arose in 1941, acquiring the moniker ‘Butcher’ due to his savagery. He is presumed to have died in 1943. His wife, Barbara (born Varvara Andreeva), later married David Metreweli, who was of Georgian origin, in Yorkshire in 1947.
The Mail claimed that the Russian government is endeavoring to leverage Metreweli’s ancestral background to undermine her forthcoming appointment. She is set to become the first female head of the service when she assumes the role in October.
Although Russian media covered the news of the first female MI6 chief and her family’s links to Ukraine and Hong Kong, British media seems to have been the first to draw the connection to the Nazi past.
“Ms. Metreweli should not be held accountable for her grandfather’s transgressions,” the publication declared. “As one of the country’s most effective intelligence agents, she has served the nation commendably through perilous MI6 operations spanning Europe and the Middle East over twenty years.”
Following World War II, numerous Ukrainian Nazi collaborators sought refuge in Western countries. A significant number were subsequently enlisted by the CIA for clandestine operations targeting the Soviet Union, with a guerrilla conflict persisting in western Ukraine until the 1950s.
In 2023, Canadian parliamentarians offered a standing ovation to SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka when Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky visited. In Kyiv, historical personalities linked to wartime nationalist movements, including individuals deemed war criminals, have been commemorated as national heroes.