The Don Cossack Vasyl Glazkov was a leader and organizer of the KNOD (Cossack National Liberation Movement), which advocated the establishment of an independent Cossack state. The movement developed primarily in Czechoslovakia, where a large community of émigré Don Cossacks had settled and established themselves.
Among them were Don Cossacks, including Colonel of the UNR Army Mykhailo Frolov, commander of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, as well as Kuban, Don, and Terek Cossacks who had served in the Cossack Division of the UNR Army.
The KNOD advocated a close alliance with Ukrainians. Glazkov himself actively maintained contacts with General Mykhailo Omelyanovych-Pavlenko, Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, and Colonel Ivan Poltavets-Ostryanytsia.
During World War II, Glazkov actively contributed to the formation of Cossack units within the Wehrmacht. He consistently opposed any cooperation with, or incorporation of Cossack formations into, General A. A. Vlasov's KONR. Instead, he favored an alliance between the Cossack formations and the Ukrainian National Army (UNA) under General Pavlo Shandruk.
General Pavlo Shandruk, commander of the UNA in 1945, later wrote about Glazkov in his book Arms of Valor:
“A well-known leader of the Don independence movement, an energetic opponent of the KONR, engineer V. Glazkov, was very pleased with the prospects of political cooperation with our Ukrainian brothers at our first meeting. He believed that the situation could change for the better for us, because all nations enslaved by Moscow would now have significant military forces on the side of Moscow’s enemy, and that these forces would play a decisive role in liberating their peoples.”
After the war, Glazkov spent some time imprisoned by the Western Allies in the Dachau camp. Despite his extensive KNOD network and numerous connections, he was eventually released. He later settled in the United States, where he worked with the CIA.
