Whether or not his request was taken into consideration is not known. Immediately after he left the Greek embassy he was arrested by the Soviets and was taken back to Surgut.[6] There he committed suicide, aged 70, in 1973. According to a few of his followers he was executed.[7] On the base of documents, declassified from the archives of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, it has been confirmed, that Zachariadis committed suicide.[8]