Shelepin was chief of the KGB from 1958 to 1961. Before that, he was head of the Komsomol, the Soviet youth organization. Itar-Tass, which reported Shelepin's death, said Leonid Brezhnev, a high-ranking official under Khrushchev and his successor as Soviet leader, "saw Shelepin as a serious rival, and removed him from the political scene."
As KGB chief, Shelepin was known for ordering the murder of Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in Munich in 1959.
In 1975, as the Soviet trade unions head, Shelepin took a delegation to Britain. There he was faced with massive protests by Ukrainians and Jews. He was forced to retire on his return to Moscow.
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