Russia’s intelligence illegals program: an enduring asset

ABSTRACT

This article explores the enduring value of Russia’s intelligence illegals program, concluding that Russia’s urgency to employ illegals is at least as great today as it has ever been. Technological advancements have made clandestine human intelligence operations increasingly risky. Nevertheless, the Russian illegals program has overcome challenges and compromises before, and Russian leaders today continue to glorify illegals from the past and present. Consequently, for a variety of reasons – historical and practical – it is highly unlikely that Russia will replace the intelligence illegals program that it still needs today.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Theresa May, Statement to the Commons; Mance, Bond, and Seddon, “US Blames Russia for Skripal Poisoning in Britain”; North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Statement by the North Atlantic Council on the use of a Nerve Agent in Salisbury.” For Putin’s reaction, see “Vladimir Putin: “Nonsense” to Think Russia Would Poison Spy in UK.”

2. Mitrokhin, KGB Lexicon, 74.

3. Ibid., 59.

4. Grenier, “Spies, Lies and Sneaky Guys.”

5. Brannen, “To Catch a Spy.”

6. Georgiades, “Open Source Data Jeopardizing Cleared Personnel,” 4.

7. Hosenball, “CIA to Make Sweeping Changes.”

8. “The GRU Globetrotters: Mission London.”

9. Stallsmith, “Blowback from a CI Triumph over Russia?”

10. Krutikov, “Russian Illegal Intelligence Remains an Object of Envy.”

11. INO=Foreign Directorate.

12. Antonov, Intelligence Began with Them, 133.

13. Krutikov, “Russian Illegal Intelligence Remains an Object of Envy.”

14. “Sergey Naryshkin: Illegals are the Golden Treasure of Foreign Intelligence.”

15. Duff, A Time for Spies, 123–4, 190.

16. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 72–5.

17. Sudoplatov, Special Operations, 188.

18. Suvorov, Aquarium, 100.

19. Korenkov, et al, Military Counterintelligence of the FSB of Russia 1918–2003.

20. Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB, 79.

21. Nikolskiy, “Putin Related that His Work in the KGB Was Connected to Illegal Intelligence.”

22. Krutikov, “Russian Illegal Intelligence Remains an Object of Envy.” The phrase ‘Without right to glory, in the glory of the state!” (“Без права на славу во славу державы!”) is a line from the SVR hymn.

23. “SVR Director Talks about the Work of Illegal Intelligence Officers.”

24. Kapitonov, The Egyptologist from Foreign Intelligence.

25. Sakharevich, “Andrey Bezrukov: The Intelligence Officer Does Not Have a Heavy Heart.”

26. Krutikov, “Russian Illegal Intelligence Remains an Object of Envy.”

27. Dolgopolov, “The Hid for Their Country: Illegal Intelligence Officers of Whom Their Country Is Proud.”

28. The FBI released selected, heavily redacted documents and videos related to Ghost Stories on the FBI Vault.

29. Grove, “Top Spy Defects after Betraying Ring in U.S.”

30. U.S. Department of Justice, USA vs. Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko, 3.

31. Fitzgerald and Noveck, “Vicky Pelaez: Can Someone be Married to a Russian Spy and Not Know It?”

32. Lefebvre and Porteous, “The Russian 10 … 11,” 447–66.

33. Lefebvre, “Russian Intelligence Activities in Canada,” 549–58.

34. Hackard, “Moscow’s Master Spy in Japan.”

35. Vanin, “Oh, My: They’ve Arrested a Russian James Bond!”

36. “German Court Convicts Couple of Spying for Russia”; “Germany Frees Russian Spy”; and “‘Andreas Anschlag’: Russian Spy Deported to His Home.”

37. Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation, “Establishing Foreign Intelligence (1921–1925).”

38. Feldbin is better known by his final cover name, Aleskandr Orlov, which he was using when he defected to the United States in 1938.

39. Duff, A Time for Spies, 77.

40. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, 111–3.

41. Smirnov, “Notes of a Razvedupr Agent.” See also Finnish Police (Valpo I) Files, Alexander Sipelgas File.

42. “Arrest of a Spy,“ 14; “How the Bolsheviks Send Their Spies,“ 3; and “GPU in the Baltics,“ 2.

43. MI5, Nerses Ovsepian, aka Agabekov File.

44. Agabekov, The ChK at Work.

45. Agabekov, OGPU: The Russian Secret Terror. The OGPU was the 1920s predecessor to the KGB.

46. Secret Intelligence Service, Intelligence report, 25 July 1930, Nerses Ovsepian, aka Agabekov File.

47. Secret Intelligence Service, Interrogation report, December 1930, Nerses Ovsepian, aka Agabekov File.

48. Metropolitan Police Special Branch, Investigative memo, 1 August 1930, Nerses Ovsepian, aka Agabekov File.

49. “Tombstone Calls Abel British-Born,” 8.

50. Duff, A Time for Spies, 148; and Poretsky, Our Own People, 150.

51. Duff, A Time for Spies, 159; Prokhorov and Lemekhov, Defectors Executed in Absentia, 47–8; and Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, 78–9.

52. Ginzberg’s debriefings are in MI5 files KV 2/804 and 2/805, TNA; see especially MI5, “Information Obtained from General Krivitsky During His Visit to This Country, January-February 1940.”

53. FBI, Investigative summary, 8 November 1940; FBI, Investigative Report, 30 December 1940.

54. Brandes arrived in the UK in about November 1936. See RCMP response to MI5 enquiry about Willy Brandes, 24 January 1938; MI5, Investigative summary, January 1938. Volodarskiy revealed the operation to obtain Brandes’s false passport in 1941; see FBI, Investigative Summary, 8 November 1940.

55. Vasilliev, “Black Notebook Translated,” 152; and Vasilliev, “White Notebook #1 Translated,” 138, 148.

56. Gestapo, Interrogation reports of Lidiya Yesenina.

57. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, 149.

58. Murphy, Kondrashev, and Bailey, Battleground Berlin, 110–2.

59. See note 57above.

60. Wise, Molehunt, 197.

61. Stockholm Police, Debriefing report, 11 October 1946; Granovski, “I Was Stalin’s Spy”; FBI, Legal Attaché Brasilia Memo, 29 May 1950; Granovsky, All Pity Choked; and Granovsky, I Was an NKVD Agent.

62. Counterintelligence Corps Region III, Investigative memo, 8 March 1948. Pečiulionis’s debriefing is an attachment to this memo.

63. “Migrant Tells of Promise to Work for Soviet,” 1.

64. Counterintelligence Corps, 66th Group, Investigative memo, 29 March 1954.

65. FBI, letter from Belmont to Boardman, 13 November 1957.

66. Vladislav Krasnov Writings file, “KGB Wanted List,” Entry number 27.

67. Martin, Wilderness of Mirrors, 92–3.

68. Ashley, CIA Spymaster, 127–31.

69. “The Stashynsky Verdict”; Anders, Murder to Order; and Plokhy, “How a KGB Assassin Used the Death of His Child to Defect.”

70. Volz, “Blame U.S. Envoy in Death of Soviet Informant,” 6.

71. CIA, Biography of Yevgeniy Yevgen’yevich Runge.

72. Binder, “Bonn Experts Say Defector was One of Soviet’s Ablest Agents,” E23; and “A Covey of Spies in Flushed in Germany,” 65–6, 68.

73. FBI, Press Briefing, 3 March 1980. See also Barron, KGB Today, 294–372.

74. Barron, “The Spy Who Would be Free,” 233–4.

75. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, 199.

76. See Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB, especially 72–111.

77. This estimate is derived from a database of illegals that the author has compiled from a variety of published and archival sources.

78. See note 24 above.

79. Ibid.

80. See note 14 above.

81. Massing, Personal History of Hede Massing, 15–7.

82. Granovsky, I Was an NKVD Agent, 138–42.

83. MI5, Nikolay Khokhlov debriefing report, “Organization of the 9th Otdel,” 8 May 1954.

84. Swedish State Police, Lindström debriefing report, 16 August 1954.

85. See note 30 above.

86. Vallarino, My Name is Patria.

87. Walsh, “George Koval: Atomic Spy Unmasked.”

88. Rafalko, CI Reader, 51–5.

89. FBI, Investigative memo, 11 March 1959; and Tuomi, Spy Lost: Caught Between the KGB and the FBI, 116–9.

90. CIA, Biography of Yevgeniy Yevgen’yevich Runge, 28.

91. “Branded Spy, Says Latvian Ex-Lawyer,” 6; Petrov, “The Petrovs’ Own Story,” 22.

92. See note 74 above.

93. Agabekov, Secret Terror, 5.

94. See note 17 above.

95. U.S. Department of Justice, Draft Indictment of Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, 3.

96. Valagin, “A Rare Pleasure for an Intelligence Officer – To Tell the Truth.”

97. “Vladimir Putin’s interview with CNN’s Larry King”; and Skabeyeva, “Putin Gave an Interview with Larry King.”

98. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and Shield, 252–61.

99. See note 30 above.

100. Krutikov, “Russian Illegal Intelligence Remains an Object of Envy.”

101. See note 14 above.

102. Krutikov, “Russian Illegal Intelligence Remains an Object of Envy.”

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Notes on contributors

Kevin P. Riehle

Kevin P. Riehle is an associate professor at the National Intelligence University. He has spent over 28 years in the U.S. government as a counterintelligence analyst studying foreign intelligence services. He received a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London, an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College, and a BA in Russian and Political Science from Brigham Young University. He has written on a variety of intelligence and counterintelligence topics, focusing on the history of Soviet and Eastern Bloc intelligence services.