5 spies executed in the USSR

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

January 12, 1950 in the USSR by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the application of the death penalty to traitors to the Motherland, spies, demolition saboteurs" "at the request of the working people" reintroduced the death penalty for treason, espionage and sabotage. Today about the spies executed in the USSR.

Adolf Georgievich Tolkachev

Adolf Tolkachev was born on January 6, 1927 in the city of Aktobe, Kazakh SSR. Since 1929 he has lived permanently in Moscow. He got married at the age of 30. Tolkachev worked as an employee of the Research Institute of the Radio Industry and had access to highly classified military-type data. Adolf Georgievich was one of the developers of the stealth plane. He took the path of betrayal for financial reasons.

In September 1978, Tolkachev left a note under the windshield wiper of the car of an employee of the American Embassy in Moscow. In the note, he said that he could transfer extremely secret data to the United States that would change the balance of power on the world stage. The note got to the station of the Moscow intelligence department, where they demanded instructions from the Center. The center ordered the Moscow residency not to react in any way to Tolkachev's proposal. The CIA also did not respond to Tolkachev's two subsequent attempts to establish contact, because it feared provocations by Soviet counterintelligence. Tolkachev achieved success only for the fourth time. A CIA officer called on the phone number he had left and indicated the location of the cache. The first meeting took place on January 1, 1979.

For 6 years of his treasonous activity, Adolf Tolkachev handed over to the United States 54 top secret developments, among which were the electronic control system of MiG fighters and devices for bypassing radar stations. Tolkachev filmed top secret documents and handed them over to American intelligence officers. In return, he received cash, imported medicines, rock and roll cassettes for his son, books. In total, Tolkachev received 789.5 thousand rubles, and about 2 million rubles were accumulated on a foreign deposit in a foreign bank in case Tolkachev fled abroad. However, the traitor tried to live modestly, despite the enormous financial possibilities. Of the riches he had only a country cottage and a VAZ-2101, in shops "Birch"where goods were sold for currency, he did not go. This helped the traitor to conduct his activities for a long time.

The KGB was able to get on the trail of Tolkachev quite by accident. In 1985, Edward Lee Howard, Tolkachev's curator, was fired from the CIA for drug addiction and embezzlement. The offended Howard gave the KGB of the USSR a lot of top secret information, including the name of Adolf Tolkachev. On June 9, 1985, Tolkachev was arrested. During the investigation, he confessed everything and begged him not to pass the death sentence on him. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to capital punishment - death by firing squad. On September 24, 1986, the sentence was carried out.

Pyotr Popov - double agent

Pyotr Popov was born in 1923 near Kostroma into a peasant family. He fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, had awards, ended the war as a supply officer. When the war ended, Popov became a guarantor under General Ivan Serov, Deputy Chief of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany for Civil Administration Affairs and concurrently Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD of the USSR. In 1951 he graduated from the Military-Diplomatic Academy and was assigned to Austria, to the contingent of Soviet troops. While serving in Vienna, his main task was to recruit agents from among Austrian citizens to work against Yugoslavia, with which in those years the USSR was in conflict.

Since 1954, Popov began to actively cooperate with the CIA as a Grayspace agent. The United States created a special CIA unit SR-9 (Soviet Russia) to work with Popov, which subsequently directed the actions of all agents in the Soviet Union. The CIA generously paid for the services of the lieutenant colonel, and he turned over all known agents in Austria, revealed the training system for the GRU and the KGB of the USSR and the structure of these departments, passed on a number of valuable information about Soviet weapons and military doctrine, schemes for organizing motorized rifle and armored divisions in the Soviet Army … The CIA received through Popov a report on the holding in 1954 of the first military exercises in the USSR using nuclear weapons in the Totsk region.

On December 23, 1958, the CIA made a mistake that cost Popov his life. The secretary misunderstood the instruction and sent instructions to Popov to his home address in Kalinin. After that, Popov was recalled to Moscow and closely watched over him. During January-February 1959, the KGB recorded several meetings between Popov and CIA agents. On February 18, he was detained at the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow. At Popov's house, they found 20 thousand rubles, codes, a Walter pistol and instructions for communicating with the US station. Popov was charged with treason. On January 7, 1960, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR announced the verdict - the capital punishment. The sentence was carried out in 1960.

Leonid Poleshchuk - twice a traitor to the USSR

Leonid Poleshchuk (born in 1938) joined the foreign intelligence service of the KGB of the USSR in the early 1970s. He was sent to Kathmandu. There he became addicted to gambling and alcohol. Having lost about $ 300 taken from the box office at the casino, Poleshchuk began to think about how to avoid punishment and did not find anything better than to offer his services to American residents in Nepal. John Bellingham, a CIA resident, agreed immediately. For certain information Poleshchuk received an impressive amount of money. In 1974 Poleshchuk was recalled from Kathmandu to Moscow. He told his curators that he no longer cooperated with the CIA, and contacts between him and American intelligence ceased for 10 years.

In 1984, Lieutenant Colonel Poleshchuk was sent to Nigeria, and after about a year he decided to contact the CIA. In the department store, he pretended to sprained his leg. To the doctor who arrived from the American embassy, Poleshchuk gave the password: “I am Leo, from the country of high mountains. Hello Bellingham. Just 10 days later, Poleshchuk was contacted by Richard Ball, a CIA resident in Nigeria.

Poleshchuk handed over to the CIA all Soviet intelligence officers and agents in Nigeria, and after returning to the USSR he continued to work for the Americans. In the spring of 1985, Soviet counterintelligence went on the trail of Poleshchuk. His connections with the staff of the American embassy were revealed, the laying of a cache disguised as a stone was recorded. It contained money and instructions. On June 12, 1986, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR announced the sentence - the death penalty by firing squad. The verdict was carried out.

Oleg Penkovsky is the most successful Western agent in the USSR

Oleg Penkovsky was born on April 23, 1919. In the fall of 1960, Colonel Penkovsky, an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the USSR Ministry of Defense, offered his services to British intelligence, subsequently collaborating with MI-5 and the CIA.

From his first London trip in May 1961, Penkovsky brought back a transistor radio and a miniature Minox camera. He managed to transfer 111 Minox tapes to the West with 5500 filmed documents totaling 7650 pages. During his business trips to Paris and London, he was interrogated for a total of 140 hours, and the interrogation reports fit into 1,200 typed pages. According to the documents published in the West, 600 Soviet intelligence officers "burned" at Penkovsky's tip, 50 of them were GRU officers.

In 1963, Oleg Penkovsky was charged with espionage for the United States and Great Britain and treason. He was deprived of all awards and sentenced to capital punishment - execution.

Information about Penkovsky, about his work in the GRU and cooperation with Western special services is still considered secret today.

Vladimir Vetrov - killer and traitor

In 1965, Vladimir Vetrov visited France as a representative of the trade mission and met Jacques Prevost, a responsible employee of the Thomson TsSF firm, which was engaged in the manufacture of electronics. It turned out that he was cooperating with the French counterintelligence DST, and Vetrov became an object for recruitment. When Vetrov crashed a company car intoxicated, he, wanting to avoid proceedings at the embassy, turns to a new French friend for help. Prevost helped him, but warned counterintelligence that now Vetrov had something to hide. Then cooperation did not work out, since Vetrov's business trip ended. A Soviet citizen remembered his French friend in 1981. At that time, he worked in the "T" department of the KGB PGU, which was engaged in the analysis of scientific and technical information received from abroad.

For 2 years, the agent "Farewell", such a nickname was assigned to Vetrov in the DST, transferred to the West 4 thousand secret documents, including a full official list of 250 Line X officers deployed under the guise of diplomats around the world. He also revealed the names of 450 Soviet intelligence officers who were collecting scientific and technical information.

In February 1982, while intoxicated, Vetrov killed a KGB officer. The tribunal found him guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced him to 15 years in a strict regime colony with deprivation of awards and military rank. But after 2 years, Vetrov was transferred to the Lefortovo prison (Moscow) and charged with treason. The verdict of the court - the death penalty was carried out on February 23, 1985.

In the previous article, you can read about achievements and secrets of the USSR.