List of KGB defectors

During the Soviet era, hundreds of intelligence and state security officers defected to a foreign power. Their motivations varied, from fear of arrest, to dissatisfaction with the tasks assigned to them, to a change of heart about the regime they served.^[1]

Aleksei Myagkov in 1977

While there were defections in the other direction too, the number from the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc was significantly greater. This was particularly true of intelligence and state security personnel.^[2]

To defect, a Soviet officer needed to make contact with a foreign power. A Soviet officer had three ways to do that. 1) A defector could approach a foreign power while already outside the Soviet Union on official business, like diplomatic cover. 2) A defector could cross a border to a country neighboring the Soviet Union and request asylum. 3) Unique to World War II, when a foreign power—German troops—occupied large portions of Soviet territory, a defector could approach a foreign power that came to him or her.^[3]

Many Soviet intelligence and state security defectors are relatively obscure. Before World War II, Soviet officers often were discussed only in Europe-based Russian émigré newspapers.^[4] In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States and United Kingdom, which were the primary recipients of Soviet intelligence and state security officer defectors, did not publicize defections as broadly.^[5]

After Stalin’s death in 1953, intelligence and state security officer defectors became more prominent and were offered public forums, such as press conferences and publication venues to reveal their stories.^[6] That resulted in prominent defectors like Nikolay Khokhlov, Petr Deryabin, and the Vladimir and Yevdokiya Petrov.

The rush of Soviet intelligence and state security officer defectors that followed Stalin’s death waned in the late 1950s, settling to a few per year until the Soviet regime was approaching its end in the 1980s. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw another wave of intelligence and state security officer defectors, as they became disgruntled with the tasks they were given to perform.

Although post-Soviet Russian laws changed, opening the opportunity to travel abroad freely, intelligence and state security officers faced still restrictions preventing them from traveling abroad. Thus, the defection of intelligence and state security officer has continued, even accelerating since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.^[7]

The folliwing is a list of Soviet intelligence and state security officers and agents who have defected.

Name	Defection date	Country of defection	Comment
Petr Mikhailovich Karpov[8]	August 1924	Weimar Germany	Also known as Mikhail Georgiyevich Sumarokov
Mikhail Yakovlevich Hendler[9]	April 1926	Cuba	Immigrated to USA in about 1927
I. I. Kravets[10]	August 1926	Iran	Moved directly to France
Stefens[11][12]	August 1926	France	Also known as Ivan Vasilyevich Gavrilchenko
Yevgeniy Mikhailovich Kozhevnikov[13]	May 1927	China	Also known as Yevgeniy Pik, Hovans, Kluge
Ivan Nikitin[14]	October 1927	Latvia	OGPU Border Guard intelligence officer
Yevgeniy Vasilyevich Dumbadze[15][16]	June 1928	France
Semen Aleksandrovich Bryantsev[17]	January 1929	Weimar Germany	Defection questioned
Eduard Martinovich Miller[18]	March 1930	Latvia
Fedor Pavlovich Drugov[19]	March 1930	Finland	Immigrated to France. Redefected, February 1934
Georgiy Sergeyevich Agabekov[20][21][22]	June 1930	France	Real surname, Arutyunov. Disappeared around August 1937. Body never recovered.
Nikolay Ignatyevich Kiselev[23][24]	June 1930	Finland	Surname sometimes rendered Kiselev-Gromov
Ignace Reiss[25]	July 1937	France	Real name, Ignatiy Stanislavovich Poretskiy. Gunned down in Switzerland by an NKVD hit squad on 4 September 1938
Walter Germanovich Krivitskiy[20][26]	October 1937	France	Real name, Samuel Gershovich Ginzberg. Found dead in his hotel room on 10 February 1941 with a gunshot wound to the temple. Suspected foul play
Iosif Vulfovich Volodarsky[27]	April 1938	Canada
Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov[28]	June 1938	Japan	Executed by Japan in 1945 to prevent his recapture by the Soviets
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov[20][29]	July 1938	United States	Real name, Leyba Lazerevich Feldbin
Lev Borisovich Helfand[20][30]	July 1940	Italy United States	Immigrated to the United States
Aleksandr Yakovlevich Zhigunov[31]	August 1941	Germany
Ivan Georgiyevich Bessonov[32]	August 1941	Germany	Repatriated, executed in 1950
Aleksandr Vladimirovich Anokhin[33]	September 1941	Germany	Published the book "Школа Опричников" under the pen name Aleksandr Brazhnev
Ivan Matveyevich Grachev[34]	September 1941	Germany
Nikolay Fedorovich Lapin[35]	October 1941	Germany
Petr Vasilyevich Kashtanov[36]	February 1942	Germany
Lidiya Pavlovna Yesenina[37]	October 1942	Germany
Vyacheslav Pavlovich Artemyev[38]	September 1943	Germany
Boris Alekseyevich Morozov[39]	September 1943	Germany
Igor Grigoryevich Orlov[40]	October 1943	Germany	Real surname, Kopatskiy. Re-recruited as Soviet agent in 1949
Aleksandr Fedorovich Chikalov[41]	November 1943	Germany	Kidnapped, returned to the Soviet Union in October 1949
Gasan Artemovich Arabadzhev[42]	November 1943	Germany
Viktor Andreyevich Kravchenko[20][43]	April 1944	United States	Not an intelligence officer
Mikhail Dmitriyevich Mondich[44]	August 1945	Germany
Konstantin Dmitriyevich Volkov[45]	September 1945	Turkey	Offered to defect, but was caught after Kim Philby informed the NKVD
Michael Pines[46]	December 1945	Austria
Sergey Naumovich Perlin[47]	March 1946	Germany
Anatoliy Mikhailovich Granovskiy[48][49]	September 1946	Sweden	Resettled in Brazil; later immigrated to the United States
Aleksandr Stepanovich Kravchenko[50]	June 1947	United States
Boris Ivanovich Baklanov[51]	July 1947	Austria United Kingdom
Vasiliy Mikhailovich Sharandak[20][52]	August 1947	Austria
(Aleksandr Nikolayevich?) Rebrov [53]	1947	Germany
Simas Pečiulionis[54]	April 1948	Germany
Aleksandr Nikolayevich Mikheyev[55]	August 1948	Germany
Boris Kupriyanovich Gurzhiev[56]	November 1948	Germany
Georgiy Ivanovich Samusev[57]	December 1948	Germany
Olga Yakovlevna Bentsianovskaya[58]	February 1949	Germany United Kingdom
Rafail Illych Goldfarb[59]	July 1949	Germany
Nikolay Ivanovich Bondarev[60]	July 1949	Germany
Ivan Matveyevich Grigoryev[61]	October 1949	Germany
Georgiy Vasilyevich Salimanov[62]	May 1950	Germany
Viktor Aleksandrovich Dubkov[63]	November 1952	Germany	Captured on the battlefield in 1943; withheld his intelligence affiliation until 1952
Grigoriy Stepanovich Burlutskiy[64]	June 1953	Afghanistan	Immigrated to Germany
Grigoriy Fedorovich Pavlov[65]	August 1953	Norway
Yevgeniy Vladimirovich Brik[66]	November 1953	Canada
Yuriy Aleksandrovich Rastvorov[20][67]	January 1954	Japan	Brought to the United States
Petr Sergeyevich Deryabin[20][43][68]	February 1954	Austria	Brought to the United States
Nikolay Yevgenyevich Khokhlov[69]	February 1954	West Germany	Immigrated to the United States. Victim of thallium poisoning in 1957. Survived[70]
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov[20][43][71]	3 April 1954	Australia	Real name, Afanasiy Mikhailovich Shorokhov. Led to the Petrov Affair in Australia[72]
Yevdokiya Alekseyevna Petrova[73]	19 April 1954	Australia	Real name, Yevdokia Alexeyevna Kartseva. Led to the Petrov Affair in Australia[72]
Lars Edvin Lindström[74]	August 1954	Sweden
Reino Häyhänen	March 1957	France	Died in a York, PA hospital.[75] Rumors of his death in a suspicious auto accident are erroneous.
Anatoliy Mikhailovich Golitsyn[43]	15 December 1961	Finland
Bohdan Mykolayovych Stashynsky	August 1961	West Berlin
Yuri Vasilevich Krotkov	September 1963	United Kingdom	KGB agent, not an officer
Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko[76]	February 1964	Switzerland	Authenticity of defection disputed[43]
Yuriy Aleksandrovich Bezmenov[77]	February 1970	Canada	Intelligence agent, not an officer
Sergey Nikolayevich Kourdakov	4 September 1971	Canada	Intelligence agent, not an officer
Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin[43]	September 1971	United Kingdom
Imants Lešinskis[78]	September 1978[79]	United States
Aleksei Alekseyevich Myagkov[43][80]	February 1974	West Berlin
Stanislav Aleksandrovich Levchenko[43][81]	October 1979	Japan
Ilya Grigoryevich Dzhirkvelov[43][82]	May 1980	Switzerland
Viktor Ivanovich Sheymov[83]	May 1980	United States
Vladimir Anatolyevich Kuzichkin[84]	June 1982	Iran
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky[85]	19 July 1985	United Kingdom	Suspected poisoning in 2007. Survived[86]
Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko	August 1985	Italy	Disputed (later returned to USSR)[43]
Oleg Agraniants[87]	May 1986	Tunisia
Igor Nikolayevich Cherpinskiy[88]	April 1990	Belgium
Sergey Sergeyevich Illarionov[89]	February 1991	Italy
Viktor Alekseyevich Oshchenko[90]	July 1992	United Kingdom
Vasiliy Nikitich Mitrokhin	September 1992	Latvia
Aleksandr Nikolayevich Poteyev	26 June 2010	United States	KGB colonel, later SVR officer. Multiple assassination attempts[91][92][93]

See also

• List of Cold War pilot defections
• List of GRU defectors
• List of Soviet and Eastern Bloc defectors
• Petrov Affair
• Soviet Defectors Database