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.

One historian has commented that "the appointment of an individual who had no foreign intelligence experience, had never been abroad, and spoke no German was typical of the nepotism then prevalent in Beria's NKVD.

"[3] 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.

[1] The 'intelligence' he supplied included an assurance that Adolf Hitler was focused on defeating the United Kingdom and was restraining generals who wanted to invade the USSR, and that the build up of German troops on the Soviet border was purely defensive.

In this capacity, he visited Berlin twice to enforce Beria's policy of relaxing the dictatorship in East Germany, with a view to reunification.