This is a list of Soviet secret police officers and agents who have defected.
Name | Defection date | Country of defection | Comment |
---|---|---|---|
Georgiy Sergeyevich Agabekov[1] | 1930 | ![]() |
Disappeared around August, 1937. Body never recovered. |
Ignace Reiss | 1937, July | ![]() |
On September 4, 1938, Reiss was gunned down by an NKVD hit squad. |
Walter Germanovich Krivitskiy[1] | 1937, October | ![]() |
Found dead in his hotel room on Feb. 10, 1941 with a gunshot wound to the temple. Suspected foul play. |
Genrikh Samoilovich Lyushkov | 1938 | ![]() |
Executed by Japan in 1945, to avoid his recapture by the Soviet Union. |
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov[1] | 1938 | ![]() |
Authenticity of defection disputed[2] |
Lev Borisovich Helfand[1] | 1940 | ![]() |
|
Igor Grigoryevich Orlov | 1943 | ![]() |
Re-recruited as Soviet agent in 1949 |
Viktor Andreyevich Kravchenko[1][2] | 1944 | ![]() |
Not an intelligence officer |
Anatoliy Mikhailovich Granovskiy | 1946 | ![]() |
|
Petr Sergeyevich Deryabin[1][2] | 1953 | ![]() |
|
Nikolay Yevgenyevich Khokhlov | 1954 | ![]() |
Victim of thallium poisoning in 1957. Survived.[3] |
Yuriy Aleksandrovich Rastvorov[1] | 1954 | ![]() |
|
Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov[1][2] | 1954, April 3 | ![]() |
Led to the Petrov Affair in Australia.[4] |
Yevdokiya Alekseyevna Petrova | 1954, April 19 | ![]() |
Led to the Petrov Affair in Australia.[4] |
Reino Häyhänen | 1957 | ![]() |
Died in an automobile accident in 1961. Accident considered suspicious.[5] |
Anatoliy Mikhailovich Golitsyn[2] | 1961, December 15 | ![]() |
|
Bohdan Mykolayovych Stashynsky | 1961 | ![]() |
|
Yuri Vasilevich Krotkov | 1963 | ![]() |
KGB agent, not officer |
Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko[6] | 1964, January | ![]() |
Authenticity of defection disputed[2] |
Yuriy Aleksandrovich Bezmenov[7] | 1970 | ![]() |
Intelligence agent, not officer |
Sergey Nikolayevich Kourdakov | 1971, September 4 | ![]() |
Intelligence agent, not officer |
Oleg Adolfovich Lyalin[2] | 1971 | ![]() |
|
Imants Lešinskis[8] | 1978[9] | ![]() |
|
Aleksei Alekseyevich Myagkov[2] | 1974 | ![]() |
|
Stanislav Aleksandrovich Levchenko[2] | 1979, October | ![]() |
|
Oleg Agraniants[10] | 1986 | ![]() |
|
Ilya Grigoryevich Dzhirkvelov[2] | 1980 | ![]() |
|
Viktor Ivanovich Sheymov[11] | 1980 | ![]() |
|
Vladimir Anatolyevich Kuzichkin | 1982 | ![]() |
|
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky | 1985, July 19 | ![]() |
Suspected poisoning in 2007. Survived.[12] |
Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko | 1985 | ![]() |
Disputed (later returned to USSR).[2] |
Igor Nikolayevich Cherpinskiy[13] | 1990 | ![]() |
|
Sergey Sergeyevich Illarionov[14] | 1992 | ![]() |
|
Vasiliy Nikitich Mitrokhin | 1992 | ![]() |
|
Viktor Alekseyevich Oshchenko[15] | 1992, July | ![]() |
|
Aleksandr Nikolayevich Poteyev | 2010, June 26 | ![]() |
KGB colonel, later SVR officer. Multiple assassination attempts.[16][17][18] |