Why didn’t Gorbachev send special forces to Viskuli? - this seems to be the main question that is tormenting us in the days of the 25th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR. And the KGB of the USSR collapsed on the same days as the country itself?
Indeed - why?
Since Mikhail Sergeevich himself avoids answering these questions, we decided to ask retired KGB colonel Mikhail Golovatov, who headed the Alpha group in December 1991.
Not just anarchy
— All interviews with you, Mikhail Vasilyevich, end with a story about how, after the storming of the Vilnius TV tower, you return to Moscow with the coffin of your comrade, Lieutenant Viktor Shatskikh, killed in Lithuania, and Gorbachev says his famous: “I didn’t send Alpha to Vilnius.” "...And what happened next?
“We understood that the Baltic states could not be returned, and in August 1991 we felt that the same thing was brewing in Moscow. We switched to round-the-clock combat duty. On my table was a list of 86 names of those people who should have been arrested by command of the State Emergency Committee, but no such command was received. On August 23rd I was summoned to the Kremlin to see Gorbachev. I was appointed commander of Alpha, Sergei Vasilyevich Goncharov was my first deputy. First, Gorbachev signed the decree, and then Yeltsin. That is, I was subordinate to two presidents at once - the USSR and the Russian Federation.
— On December 8, 1991, the country had no idea that Yeltsin, Shushkevich and Kravchuk had gone hunting. You were probably better informed?
- No. The fact is that that period was not just anarchy - no one could clearly give an order. The Minsk group “Alpha” was headed by Colonel Lopanov Alexander Mikhailovich, he was sent there from Moscow. He reported that the Chairman of the KGB of Belarus, General Shirkovsky, set him the task of going to Viskuli and ensuring a meeting of high-ranking officials. We were then on the staff of the Main Security Directorate, the head of the Main Directorate of which was Rarebeard Vladimir Stepanovich, whose task was to ensure the security of top officials - USSR President Gorbachev and Russian President Yeltsin. I reported to Rarebeard, and he said: you know exactly what needs to be done, so do it! This is the level of attention in Moscow to this event... None! Lopanov reported to me that everyone was coming to Viskuli by road, there were no helicopters, and he named the top officials. I can only talk about the Russian delegation from his words, since I was not there myself. The main role in Boris Nikolaevich's entourage was played by Gennady Burbulis. He was like the main manager. Korzhakov was responsible for security. Sergei Shakhrai was also present there, the man who mostly prepared the documents for signing. The name of Lyudmila Pikhoy was also mentioned - she later became Yeltsin’s speechwriter. The Minsk group “Alpha” ensured their safety, but as such there was no movement of protected persons; everything happened indoors. According to Lopanov, Shushkevich’s guests signed the papers - they signed and washed them well... And there was another incident related to the fact that they spent a very long time looking for one of the documents that was intended for the Russian delegation.
-Where did he go?
— You see: Boris Nikolaevich went on vacation a little earlier than the others and one of the agreements, which existed in three or four copies, was slipped under his door. And this document got between the floor and the carpet. He was found only after the maid began cleaning the room.
There was no order
— Is it true that the Moscow Alpha was allegedly sitting on duffel bags, preparing to fly to Belarus?
“The fact is that, starting from August 1991, we constantly kept two departments in combat readiness, because with our transfer to the system of the Main Security Directorate, we provided security for both Yeltsin and Gorbachev. Therefore, one department was constantly located in the Kremlin, so that, if necessary, it would be at hand for both presidents. This was introduced after August 24, at the urgent request of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, which he expressed when I reported to him about the staffing and position sheet of the personnel of group “A” of the former seventh directorate of the KGB, and now the Main Security Directorate.
- So you still thought that you swore allegiance to whom? Yeltsin or Gorbachev?
- Both. And both presidents approved both the report card and the regulations for group “A”.
- But this is a nightmare!
- Nightmare.
— That is, if Gorbachev had given the order to arrest the conspirators, the Alpha group would have stumbled upon another of its units in Viskuli, which was lying under the Christmas trees, having received the order to guard Yeltsin... Right?
“Here I am sitting in front of you and telling it like it is: we did not receive any instructions from Redkoborody, or from Korzhakov, or from the head of the security service, Gorbachev Medvedev.
— But if Gorbachev did do what everyone expected of him, would he give this order to whom exactly?
- No one! He didn't need it. He knew what was happening in Viskuli. INazarbayev knew, who was also invited there, but he did not fly. Gorbachev went with the flow and this scenario suited him.
To nowhere from nowhere
- This is not the end of the story, is it?
- Not the end... When the signing had already taken place, we were informed that the units of the Alpha group were being transferred to the republics in accordance with the agreement that was signed in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
Our ordeals, which began after the State Emergency Committee, continued - because if a unit is transferred out of staff, then a new staffing arrangement is made, all documents for personnel are reissued, and wages are not accrued. This happened several times. The first time in August 1991, after the coup, the second in October and the third in December, when the Union collapsed. During this time, 37 officers left the unit. Going nowhere. Because there was nothing to live on. I had to take money against a receipt from the mutual aid fund and distribute it to people.
— Why were you constantly removed from staff?
- Reassigned. First, he was transferred from the seventh directorate of the KGB to the commandant of the Kremlin. Then - under the main security department, under two presidents. After the Belovezhskaya Accords, the courier brought an envelope from Yeltsin, which said “open immediately”: it was written there that Yeltsin, by his decree of December 14, 1991, reassigned Alpha to himself.
- He's fast, though!
— The next staffing arrangement was already in February. The Minsk group "Alpha" went to Belarus, the Kiev group to Ukraine, the Alma-Ata group to Kazakhstan. It was necessary to transfer all property, personal affairs and weapons. Accordingly, I gave orders to the personnel to prepare personal files; the employees who were supposed to transfer weapons, property, and transport began to travel to units in Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. There were no cards or bank transfers. I equipped an officer and a commandant who carried cash in order to pay the salaries of our officers in those republics that became independent. The situation was incomprehensible - no one knew what would happen next, because the conversation was about the fact that the peripheral units of Group A were not needed at all - neither in Krasnodar, nor in Yekaterinburg, nor in Khabarovsk. I insisted that these units, created in 1984-1985, made it possible to shut down the entire country in the event of a threat of terrorism. And he was right! When the hijackings of planes and hostages began in the south of Russia - events in Chechnya, these units would have been very useful. But by that time they had already been disbanded. Therefore, in 1992 he retired due to health reasons.
- Was this a reason?
- Yes, a reason. Plus, starting with every visit of Vytautas Landsbergis to Moscow, Yeltsin was asked the question - why is Alpha headed by Golovatov? That I need to quit because Lithuania insists on it. It sounds, of course, paradoxical, but it is a fact: in that period of time, the conditions of Russia could be dictated by everything. And they dictated...
“Now Russia has no friends in the world at all... Putin has now made everyone his enemies.” Former intelligence colonel of the KGB of the USSR about the threat of the Putin regime to democracy and freedom in Ukraine. And also about how the invasion of Ukraine will turn out for Russia.
The regime of “managed democracy” from the Kremlin stood in the way of the bloody Ukrainian struggle for freedom. The naked unilateral military aggression against the people of Ukraine under the command of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, means that Ukrainian democracy has become a direct threat to the KGB regime of the Kremlin.
Indeed, in Russia, Vladimir Putin and his colleagues from the KGB (FSB) established a vertical system of state government of the special services (FSB, GRU, other special forces) in combination with the organized criminal world in the economy and locally.
In Ukraine, even worse has happened in recent years - criminal forces seized power and established their control over the intelligence services and security forces of the state, as well as over the economy and finance, when on average more than 40 billion US dollars were transferred out of Ukraine per year.
Spanish special prosecutor Jose "Pepe" Grinda Gonzalez, who spent 10 years studying the activities of the Russian mafia in Spain, notes that Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are effectively ruled by dictatorial regimes that base their power on intelligence services in alliance with organized crime clans.
We talk about the threat to such regimes of democracy and freedom in Ukraine and other European countries in our program with Oleg Gordievsky, a former colonel in the foreign intelligence department of the KGB of the USSR and an agent of the British intelligence services (1974-1985). In the USSR, Oleg Gordievsky was sentenced to death, which has not been abolished in Russia today. Putin’s colleagues from the FSB believe that Gordievsky was an agent of Western intelligence services, who inflicted perhaps the greatest damage on Moscow in the entire history of the totalitarian regime and intelligence services here.
Therefore, I asked Mr. Gordievsky, first of all, what he thinks about the role of intelligence agencies like the KGB and FSB in the confrontation with democracy and freedom in society.
- Russian intelligence services, because the Ukrainian ones were insignificant under the heel of the KGB, Russian intelligence and counterintelligence, both actively worked throughout Ukraine and Crimea and collected information about all, even the smallest, aspects of the life of Ukrainians, politics, diplomacy, etc.. And despite the fact that their numbers were very large (hundreds of KGB and GRU officers), they were unable to keep Ukraine and other republics of the former USSR under the rule of the totalitarian regime. And today we have, as a result of the long-term activities of these special services and their regime, a huge catastrophe in the foreign policy of Putin’s Russia, which affects both Ukraine and threatens Europe.
The fact that Putin seized Crimea will not go away so easily for him, since Western countries, the USA and Europe depend very little on Russia. And their threats of sanctions and pressure will completely discredit Moscow. This is a huge mistake by Putin and his company. They planned to seize Crimea, and possibly other Ukrainian territories, if not all of Ukraine. Now it turns out that this plan will not be able to be implemented due to the extremely harsh and unanimous international reaction. And the Kremlin has already realized that they are playing with fire. And Ukraine is now moving towards democracy, and Putin's attempts to restore something like a new USSR will never be realized.
— Mr. Gordievsky, Putin apparently spent a long time preparing for such a plan of action in Ukraine?
- Well, of course a long time ago. This has been in preparation for more than 5 years, if not all 10 years. Putin was especially active in developing this with his company after the first Maidan in 2004. The first Maidan scared them terribly and showed that this could happen anywhere. Although in Russia, after Stalin’s repressions, the people became so cowardly that, it seems to me, the majority of them are not yet ready to go to any Maidan. And it is unlikely that there will be any kind of Maidan in Russia in the near future. But they, Putin and company, still began to prepare a strike on Ukraine. And today this is happening.
— Mr. Gordievsky, are representatives of Moldova warning Europe that they, too, face the threat of Putin’s invasion?
“It’s even difficult to specifically foresee this.” Moldova is located between Romania and Ukraine. But this is possible.
— Although the occupation of such large territories requires huge funds, and this could hit the Russian economy?
- Certainly. I am now looking at various analytical materials and reviews indicating that all this will turn into a huge humiliation for Russia. Because its economy is weak. As one of the Western authors wrote about his stay in Russia, he went to buy a screwdriver, and there was not a single one that was made in Russia. Everything is imported. Russia relies on Western imports and imports from China. The economy is going downhill today. And after the Winter Olympics in Sochi cost more than $50 billion, it’s hard to say how Russia can recover from this.
— Do you think that this system of Putin’s rule in Russia, with the help of special services and local criminals, will be imposed on the territories he occupied?
- Yes, sure. It is even stronger in the occupied territories. There will also be military personnel there. You see how in Crimea they are trying to capture one base after another. It will be the same in Moldova if they extend their hand there too. But Putin's regime will lose all confidence of the whole world. Their only friends will be North Korea and Nicaragua. Now Russia has no friends in the world at all.
— But Russian television, propaganda is now showing someone from Great Britain, London, who is talking about some historical rights of Russia to Crimea, calling against sanctions against Moscow?
— These are often half or completely bought people. But the agents, or those who were invited to Russia every year to Putin’s dachas, where they were freely fed, watered, treated to caviar, and other delicacies. They gave gifts, jars of caviar. There is such a group of people here. But they are, compared to the social thought of Britain, insignificant. Because there are many articles in newspapers, in particular in the Times, against Russia. So this time, three huge articles condemn Putin and his actions. And this is a very influential newspaper here, even throughout Europe. And so every day. And those who are trying to say something to justify Russia, they do not have any significant weight in the UK.
— Can Putin use nuclear blackmail against Europe?
- This blackmail will not work. Because by doing this, Putin completely discredits himself. I think that no nuclear weapons will ever be used. Even countries like India, Pakistan, which have nuclear weapons, as well as North Korea, they are not going to seriously use nuclear weapons. Because it's actually suicide. Imagine if Russia drops at least one nuclear warhead on Europe! So then Moscow and all the industrial cities of Russia will cease to exist. Because there will be retaliatory American nuclear strikes. This is a toy that is actually impossible to use.
— Doesn’t Putin understand that even his closest neighbors, the Ukrainians, will now be his enemies?
- Certainly. He has now made everyone his enemies. It has already turned out that Russia has no friends anywhere in the world. And now, after this, Ukraine will be hostile, all Ukrainians, to the same Russia. I've met so many of them there in my life. And they all had very warm feelings for their Fatherland. I remember my childhood: Ukrainian culture was a second culture for us Russians.
06/13/2007, Petrov's nest chicks
Ilya Barabanov
The Twentieth Trust Corporation can be called the most successful Russian business project of the 20th century. It is unlikely that any other company in the world can boast such an impressive career growth of its founding fathers and their assistants. Among them: the president of the country, the first deputy prime minister of the government, the minister of finance, the director of the largest defense institute, the former head of a federal agency, etc. The New Times celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of the Twentieth Trust corporation together with its creators, who now occupy high Kremlin and ministerial offices.
From Vladimir Putin’s message to the Federal Assembly dated May 10, 2006: “Both a billion-dollar businessman and an official of any rank should know that the state will not carelessly look at their activities if they derive illegal benefits from special relations with each other. I am talking about this now because, despite the efforts made, we have still not been able to eliminate one of the most serious obstacles to our development - corruption. I believe that social responsibility should be the basis of the activities of both officials and business representatives. And they must remember that the source of Russia’s well-being and prosperity is the people.” (Applause.)
15 years ago, the Twentieth Trust corporation was created in St. Petersburg. On October 20, 1992, the Chairman of the Committee for External Relations (KBC) of the city mayor’s office, Vladimir Putin, signed the corporation’s registration certificate. The company was headed by Sergei Nikeshin, who currently sits in the legislative assembly of St. Petersburg and represents United Russia. In 1999, in connection with the activities of the corporation, criminal case No. 144128 was opened, which was closed on August 30, 2000 (after Vladimir Putin came to the Kremlin). Soon, one of the investigators working on the corporation’s case, Oleg Kalinichenko, went to a monastery. Another, Andrei Zykov, was sent into retirement. As the investigation was able to find out then, in 1993 alone, about $4.5 million went from the city budget, as well as from a special extra-budgetary fund created by the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank, to the corporation’s accounts. According to data that investigators were unable to prove, the amounts laundered amounted to tens of millions of dollars. Novaya Gazeta wrote about the Twentieth Trust case and the involvement of representatives of the current Russian leadership in the financial fraud of the company in the early 2000s. She reported that the corporation, officially engaged in the construction, reconstruction and repair of facilities in Russia and abroad, was groundlessly allocated large loans by the mayor's office of St. Petersburg, which then disappeared in the accounts of almost 30 subsidiaries of the Twentieth Trust. The response to the publication was silence.
Dacha, apartment, disappeared budgets
The investigation materials into the activities of the head of the KVS, Vladimir Putin, in the 1990s concerned not only the work of the Twentieth Trust corporation. At various times, scandals arose around the name of the future president related to the illegal acquisition of a dacha near St. Petersburg, fraud in the housing sector, and the theft of budget money allocated for the purchase of food. The greatest resonance was caused by the disappearance of government quotas for the purchase of food abroad by the city administration. In a report prepared in 1992 by a parliamentary group led by Marina Salye and Yuri Gladkov, quite unambiguous conclusions were made: “The PIC of the St. Petersburg City Hall, ignoring the decree of the Russian government, exceeded his powers... the given... facts are quite sufficient for a well-founded conclusion about the incompetence of the leadership of the PIC of the St. Petersburg City Hall in the decisions of the entrusted questions for them." The document ends with recommendations to other deputies of the legislative assembly to transfer the collected materials to the prosecutor's office and remove Vladimir Putin from his position. But in 1992, deputies failed to remove Putin. The mayor of the city, Anatoly Sobchak, openly patronized him and did not offend his assistant.
From the materials of the criminal case provided to The New Times by Andrey Zykov, a former senior investigator of the Investigative Department of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg, the head of one of the groups in the investigation of the criminal case of the Twentieth Trust corporation, who was sent into retirement after case No. 144128 was closed:
“Sources said about Putin that he currently works in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office and is the head of the committee for foreign economic relations. He is usually busy throughout the day at work, leaving home around 8:00 and returning at various times in the evening. Where and how he spends his free time is unknown. To travel to and from work, he uses a foreign-made company car with a driver. During his stay at the check address, Putin established himself as a calm, secretive person. He communicates with the residents of the house only when necessary, when meeting with them he limits himself to greetings, he enters into conversations reluctantly, answers questions in monosyllables, and does not talk about himself. He did not have friendly, trusting relationships with anyone around him. Unauthorized persons rarely visit the verification address. They stay in the apartment from 1 to 4 hours. Sources suggest that these people are either Putin’s colleagues at work or related to him by occupation. Their installation details are unknown. The family being inspected is well-off financially. Before moving into the apartment, expensive repairs were made and imported furniture was brought in...”
"Strangers" in ministerial offices
Many officials associated with the Twentieth Trust corporation made rapid careers. The New Times has already written about one of them (see No. 15 of May 21), associated with First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who was involved in serious financial flows controlled by the Committee on External Relations. A source who wished to remain anonymous told The New Times that it was Medvedev who carried out Vladimir Putin’s instructions to transfer funds to various construction projects. In those days, as they say, the head of the corporation, Sergei Nikeshin, could easily call the future president of Russia and inform him of the need to transfer an amount of several million dollars to restore an Orthodox church in Greece. Medvedev controlled this transfer. Nothing is known about the further fate of this money. The money went through the famous Rossiya Bank of the Kovalchuk brothers. The bank's office was located on the ground floor of Smolny, and, as sources tell The New Times, investors who approached Vladimir Putin could get the go-ahead for their project only under one condition: everything had to be carried out through Rossiya Bank.
The list of VIPs involved in the affairs of the corporation does not end there. The documents on the allocation of city hall loans to the Twentieth Trust bear the signature of the current Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin, who then headed the Finance Committee of the St. Petersburg Administration. As follows from the materials of the criminal case, the corporation received loans on preferential terms, and transferred the funds received to the accounts of various foreign companies. Together with Kudrin, his deputy Dmitry Pankin, who in those distant years put his signature on payment orders for which money was allocated, also moved to Moscow for a promotion. At the moment, Pankin still works in conjunction with Kudrin, holding the post of director of the department of international financial relations, public debt and state financial assets of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.
Not only Kudrin’s subordinates, but also employees of Putin’s Foreign Relations Committee made rapid careers. The charter documents of the Twentieth Trust Construction and Financial Corporation, which are at the disposal of The New Times, bear the seals of the PIC. The corporation's charter was registered by the head of the registration department of the KVS, Albert Stepanov. Having moved to the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin did not forget about this colleague. Currently, Stepanov heads the finance department and is a member of the permanent Committee of the Union State of Russia and Belarus. Director of the Registration Chamber of the St. Petersburg City Hall Sergei Movchan, who re-registered the corporation's constituent documents in 1996, until recently headed the Federal Registration Service. In April 2007, however, Vladimir Putin dismissed Movchan. According to information in a number of media outlets, Movchan should become the first (that is, chief) auditor of the Accounts Chamber, but so far the official has not received a new appointment.
The corporation's executives were less fortunate. Apart from Nikeshin, who sits in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, traces of most members of the leadership are lost. Evgeniy Yurkevich, who was part of the leadership of the Twentieth Trust in 1993, chose to leave business, concentrating on a scientific career. Now Yurkevich is a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, a candidate of technical sciences, a member of the International Academy of Informatization and Forecasting. Vladimir Gaidei, who was on the board of the trust, after Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency in June 2000, became deputy chairman of the finance committee of the administration of St. Petersburg, and is currently first deputy chairman of the housing committee. Only one of the leaders of the Twentieth Trust remained directly in the construction industry. At one time, the corporation became famous for its promise to build the Peter the Great Tower on Vasilievsky Island, which was to become the first skyscraper in St. Petersburg, more than a decade ahead of the scandal that is flaring up today around the construction of the Gazprom City tower in the city. There is nothing left from that project now except a fence around an empty construction site and memories of the missing two and a half billion rubles allocated from the city budget. But construction cannot be considered stopped. One of the leaders of the Twentieth Trust, Ravil Kamaletdinov, is now building “elite residential complexes”, being the director of economics and business processes of the RBI holding. On the company’s official website in the “Golden Thoughts” section, the visitor can read a quote from Friedrich V.-I. Schelling: “Architecture is frozen music.” But if little is known about frozen music, then all participants in the “Twentieth Trust” operation know very well how and in whose accounts the allocated budget funds freeze.
He ended up in the same prison with Konon Molodoy. Ancient, gloomy Wormwood Scrubs, an English prison. Conon received 25 years and Blake received 42 years for espionage. They did one thing...
He ended up in the same prison with Konon Molodoy. Ancient, gloomy Wormwood Scrubs, an English prison. Conon received 25 years and Blake received 42 years for espionage.
They did the same thing, but Konon was a foreigner. And Blake is an Englishman who betrayed his homeland. Once, while walking, Konon whispered to Blake that they would still see festive Moscow.
This turned out to be true, although none of them believed that such a possibility existed. Young was exchanged for Greville Wynn, and Blake himself managed to free himself. And both stood side by side on the podium on the day of the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution.
Friends did not leave Blake in trouble. After leaving prison, he secretly reached Europe, and then Berlin. The intelligence officer who turned out to be the most mysterious among those revealed is still of interest to us today. And for a moment, he is already 95 years old.
The road to Russian intelligence
He received an accelerated military education, and his ability for languages led him to work at SIS (Secret Intelligence Service MI6). A thorough check was carried out, and after an interview, he was accepted into MI6 intelligence.
J. Blake, Naval Academy Cadet, 1943
Blake knew the German language very well, and began to train saboteurs to work behind German lines. As an expert in several languages, he took part in Operation Overlord. Military intelligence accompanied the Allied forces in Normandy.
Who is the enemy?
The victory brought him a new appointment. He leaves for The Hague, where he is busy creating an intelligence network. Then he leaves for Hamburg and collects information about Soviet troops.
Having created two groups of former fascists, he transfers them to the territory of the GDR. But Soviet counterintelligence... In 1947, he joined the diplomatic corps. This is a legal cover for an intelligence officer.
An excellent expert in the Russian language is preparing personnel who can work against the USSR. Once in Seoul, he is tasked with creating an intelligence network to work against the Soviets.
The outbreak of the Korean War changed the worldview of the British intelligence officer. American planes bombarded the cities and villages of Korea. Questions arose unexpectedly and immediate answers were required.
Who is he? Whose side is the truth on? Where to take part in the battle?
When Korean troops and Chinese volunteers launched an attack on the capital, only three employees remained at the embassy. Blake was among them.
They were interned and ended up in Pyongyang. The camp where the internees were housed had a huge library. Blake began to become acquainted with the works of Marx and Lenin.
He was an inquisitive man. Politics pulled him into it. Rethinking his life, the political course of England... He handed the letter to the resident of Soviet intelligence. Blake knew the service.
Colonel Loenko came to the meeting. They talked for a long time. George offered to provide services to USSR intelligence, but flatly refused any remuneration. He believed that this way he could realize democratic dreams.
And he immediately transmits valuable information about the special service. After carefully discussing all options for cooperation, they parted, satisfied with each other. Returning from Asia, he calmly passed through security control.
A new appointment awaits him - the head of the “Igrek” department, which carries out wiretapping using technical means. The leadership believed that Blake would be most successful in using weapons against the USSR. His knowledge of the language was decisive.
"Gold"
Austria became the country where they decided to launch a technical operation against Soviet troops. It was assumed that there was a need and opportunity to connect to the USSR communication line. This was done in 1952.
But the negotiations were encrypted. So the wiretapping was pointless. But Lann, an SIS resident, received a promotion anyway and left for West Berlin.
And he proposed to conduct the experiment in Berlin. But it was necessary to dig a tunnel more than half a kilometer towards the Soviet zone.
The operation was given the name “Gold”. Of course, she lived up to the name. So much money to bury in the ground... A meeting was held about this, and a report about it was placed on the table of the building on Lubyanka.
Moscow also found its own interest in the operation - through this communication channel it is possible to deliver “disinformation” to a potential enemy without spending any money for this.
The tunnel took two years to build. And the kings of Western espionage were very happy about this event. In one year, many conversations were listened to, a lot of “necessary” information was recorded.
They listen to "misinformation". But the operation had to be completed. And the tunnel was discovered. When the metal door was blown up, the wiretapping operators fled in panic, abandoning their secret equipment.
The scandal was enormous. Many diplomatic notes were written and diplomats were expelled.
The main character of the operation was not injured. He continued to work hard for the benefit of the USSR. SIS in Germany worked under the complete control of the Soviet intelligence officer. 200 agents were exposed by GDR intelligence officers at his instigation.
Judas
All diplomats are under the control of foreign intelligence. The US attache suddenly met a man in military uniform and with a badge on his hat. Counterintelligence tracked the man.
Popov Pyotr Semenovich, a GRU officer, came from Kaliningrad. He was “caught” during an intimate meeting. The Soviets were strictly forbidden to do this.
P.S. Popov after his arrest
Popov’s connection with US intelligence lasted for quite a long time. But in 1958, Popov returned to his homeland, and the connection remained with intelligence. He supplied the United States with information about the structure of troops and the activities of the GRU.
From him, the Americans learned how selection for intelligence service is carried out, who trains employees and how, who goes abroad and to which countries. He even ratted out his agents. Blake found the traitor.
Popov agreed to take part in the operational game. This was required because it was necessary to immediately remove the station from attack. The scouts discovered by Popov were urgently recalled to their homeland.
Counterintelligence played with the United States. Popov handed over documents from a secret missile program. Here it was decided to detain Langelli (US attaché). Everything looked very impressive. The military attache left the USSR in disgrace.
By this time, intelligence officers had been replaced in Western countries. Blake, as always, was unharmed.
Failure
Mikhail Golenevsky, a resident of Polish intelligence, “went” to the West. He knew about Blake. Blake was recalled to London from Lebanon. There were suspicions, but... Blake returned and was immediately interrogated.
Counterintelligence officers tried for two days to get something out of him. On the third day it became clear that there was no evidence. The court will not take into account Golenevsky's unfounded statements. What was needed was a confession from the accused himself.
When he was accused of treason out of fear and self-interest, Blake flared up. He said furiously that he had voluntarily offered his services to the USSR.
Many believe that Blake acted unprofessionally. But even today he claims that he acted in the only way acceptable to him. He says his beliefs led him to work for Soviet intelligence.
The KGB destroyed enemy intelligence in the Warsaw Pact countries in one fell swoop.
The court found the daring Blake guilty. And he sentenced him to 42 years in prison. That is, for life. But Blake was a sociable and intelligent man. Having made friends in prison with the Irishman Sheen Burke, he fled England.
In Berlin, they were very surprised by a guest from a crib box. But a Soviet resident rushed in and took him away with him.
Blake considers Russia his homeland.
