List of KGB defectors information

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

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h FBI, Soviet Defectors: A Study of Past Defections from Official Soviet Establishments Outside the USSR, January 1955.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Knight, Amy (2004) "Defectors, Soviet Era" in Encyclopedia of Russian History
^ "Meeting with past (Russian)". Archived from the original on 27 July 2006. Retrieved 19 November 2006.
^ ^a ^b "Petrov Affair". Defining Moments. National Museum of Australia. 2023. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
^ New York Times[1]
^ Rosenbaum, Ron (2007-02-12) The Spy Who Came in From Geneva: Nosenko, the K.G.B. Defector. observer.com
^ Bezmenov, Yuri; Griffin, G. Edward. (1984). Soviet Subversion of the Free Press: A Conversation with Yuri Bezmenov [Videotape]. Westlake Village, CA: American Media. OCLC [45810551] – Soviet subversion of the free press: a conversation with Yuri Bezmenov
^ Shifting interpretations of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, Prof. Emeritus Dr. Andrew Ezergailis, retrieved 1-January-2015.
^ Richey, Warren. "KGB defector talks about former job in 'ethnic espionage'", The Christian Science Monitor. 1984, June 14.
^ Associated Press (June 20, 1986) Key Soviet Spy in N. Africa Defects to U.S.
^ Sheymov, Victor (1993) Tower of Secrets: A Real Life Spy Thriller, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
^ Gray, Sadie (6 April 2010). "Double agent Gordievsky claims he was poisoned by the Kremlin". The Independent. London. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
^ Richelson, Jeffrey (January 1999). The U.S. Intelligence Community. Westview Press. pp. 337–. ISBN 978-0-8133-6893-1.
^ Prokhorov, Dmitriy Petrovich (2005) Сколько стоит продать Родину? (What is the Cost of Betraying One's Homeland?) Moscow, OLMA-Press, pp. 463-466.
^ Savill, Annika (1992-08-13) 'Missing' Russian spy defects to Britain. independent.co.uk.
^ "More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead". The New York Times. September 13, 2018.
^ "The attempted assassination of a Russian spy defector". Newsnight. October 2, 2018 – via YouTube.
^ "Russia Sought to Kill Defector in Florida". New York Times. June 19, 2023.

[fbidefectorstudy-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h FBI, Soviet Defectors: A Study of Past Defections from Official Soviet Establishments Outside the USSR, January 1955.

[encyclopedia-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Knight, Amy (2004) "Defectors, Soviet Era" in Encyclopedia of Russian History

[3] "Meeting with past (Russian)". Archived from the original on 27 July 2006. Retrieved 19 November 2006.

[nma-4] "Petrov Affair". Defining Moments. National Museum of Australia. 2023. Retrieved 17 February 2024.

[5] New York Times[1]

[6] Rosenbaum, Ron (2007-02-12) The Spy Who Came in From Geneva: Nosenko, the K.G.B. Defector. observer.com

[7] Bezmenov, Yuri; Griffin, G. Edward. (1984). Soviet Subversion of the Free Press: A Conversation with Yuri Bezmenov [Videotape]. Westlake Village, CA: American Media. OCLC [45810551] – Soviet subversion of the free press: a conversation with Yuri Bezmenov

[8] Shifting interpretations of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, Prof. Emeritus Dr. Andrew Ezergailis, retrieved 1-January-2015.

[9] Richey, Warren. "KGB defector talks about former job in 'ethnic espionage'", The Christian Science Monitor. 1984, June 14.

[10] Associated Press (June 20, 1986) Key Soviet Spy in N. Africa Defects to U.S.

[11] Sheymov, Victor (1993) Tower of Secrets: A Real Life Spy Thriller, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.

[IndepDouble-12] Gray, Sadie (6 April 2010). "Double agent Gordievsky claims he was poisoned by the Kremlin". The Independent. London. Retrieved 18 December 2010.

[us-int-13] Richelson, Jeffrey (January 1999). The U.S. Intelligence Community. Westview Press. pp. 337–. ISBN 978-0-8133-6893-1.

[14] Prokhorov, Dmitriy Petrovich (2005) Сколько стоит продать Родину? (What is the Cost of Betraying One's Homeland?) Moscow, OLMA-Press, pp. 463-466.

[15] Savill, Annika (1992-08-13) 'Missing' Russian spy defects to Britain. independent.co.uk.

[New_York_Times-16] "More of Kremlin's Opponents Are Ending Up Dead". The New York Times. September 13, 2018.

[Newsnight-17] "The attempted assassination of a Russian spy defector". Newsnight. October 2, 2018 – via YouTube.

[NYTimes_Assassination_Attempt-18] "Russia Sought to Kill Defector in Florida". New York Times. June 19, 2023.

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