Yuri Drozdov (general)

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In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Ivanovich and the family name is Drozdov.

Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov
Drozdov in the 1970s
Native name
Юрий Иванович Дроздов
Born(1925-09-19)19 September 1925
Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union (now Belarus)
Died21 June 2017(2017-06-21) (aged 91)
Moscow, Russia
Buried
Troyekurovskoye Cemetery, Moscow
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service/branchRed Army (1943–1956)
KGB (1956–1991)
Years of service1943–1991
RankMajor-General
Known forOverseeing the "Illegals Program" during the Cold War
Battles/wars
Awards Order of Lenin (1981)
Alma materMikhailovskaya Military Artillery Academy
Spouse(s)
Lyudmila Yudenich
​
(after 1943)​
Children2

Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov (Russian: Юрий Иванович Дроздов; 19 September 1925 – 21 June 2017) was a Soviet security official. In 1979, he led Operation Storm-333, formally triggering the Soviet–Afghan War.[1][2] Later, as a high-level agent of the KGB, he oversaw the execution of the "Illegals Program" in the United States from 1979 until 1991.[1] Drozdov was a recipient of the Order of Lenin, which was conferred to him in 1981.[3]

Early life

Yuri Ivanovich was born in

Lepel, Belarus
, and Ivan Dmitrievich Drozdov (1894-1978).

His mother, Anastasia Kuzminichna, was a

Great Patriotic War falling ill and dying at over 90 years old in 1943 near his home next to the Lepel Cemetery where he had been a guard since the Revolution.[5]

His father, Ivan Dmitrievich, was a professional

Kazan University. He and his wife spent their final years in Kazan where he first started his military career.[7]

Career

In 1940, Yuri Ivanovich began his military training at the 14th Special Artillery School in

52nd Guards Rifle Division which victoriously entered Berlin in the spring of 1945.[3][6] He served with distinction receiving the Order of the Red Star (Russian: Орден Красной Звезды).[9] Following the War, he continued his service with the Red Army and later the Soviet Army in Germany and the Baltics.[4] In 1952, Drozdov began his studies of German and English at the Soviet Army's Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow and then, in 1956, graduated as a German and English linguist and transferred to the KGB.[4][10]

In the spring of 1957 until August, he began his illegals career posing as a

GDR, was a KGB liaison officer to the Stasi, living in West Berlin to increase his fluency and become more convincing in his alias.[4][6][11] He had several roles as an illegal including the violent SS man Baron Hoenshtein, who received valuable intelligence information from his connections, and then as Inspector Kleinert, who obtained cover documents for other Soviet illegals.[4] This was merely the beginning of the most illustrious person in the history of the KGB's First Chief Directorate.[10]

On Glienicke Bridge between Potsdam and Berlin during the February 10, 1962, prisoner exchange of Francis Gary Powers, who had been shot down during the 1960 U-2 incident, and KGB Colonel Vilyam Genrikhovich "Willie" Fisher (alias Rudolf Abel), who had been convicted of espionage activities against the West during the Hollow Nickel Case, Drozdov (alias Jurgen Drews, Abel's purported German cousin) facilitated the transfer with Abel's attorney, James B. Donovan.[6] The classic 1968 Soviet film, The Shield and the Sword depicting the prisoner exchange, inspired Russian President Vladimir Putin to join the KGB.[11]

In 1963, he returned to Moscow for graduate studies.

Communist China which also was a time of increased Sino-Soviet tensions.[11] In New York in 1975–1979, he became the Soviet Union's deputy representative to the United Nations as the KGB resident.[6][11]

Paving the way for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 as the new KGB Chief of Directorate S,

embassies and espionage cell activation in case of war.[12]

After his resignation from the KGB, he worked for his company, Namakon (Namacon in the West), to provide security and logistics to foreign businessmen, political analysis, and finding office space and performing background checks for Western businesses in Russia.[1][6]

Personal life

Drozdov in 1998

Drozdov met his wife, the former Lyudmila Yudenich, during World War II.

Fall of Communism.[13] He died in Moscow on 21 June 2017 and was buried with military honors at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.[4][5]

Awards and decorations

Soviet Union and Russia
Order of Lenin (1981)
Order of the October Revolution (1980)
Order of the Red Banner (1978)
Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (1985)
Medal of Zhukov
Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1966)
Medal "For Labour Valour" (1959)
Medal "For Battle Merit"
Order of the Red Star (1945)
Medal "For the Liberation of Warsaw" (1945)
Medal "For the Capture of Berlin" (1945)
Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)
Medal "For Strengthening of Brotherhood in Arms"
Medal "For Impeccable Service", 1st class
Medal "For Impeccable Service", 2nd class
Badge "Internationalist Warrior"
  • Honorary State Security Officer
  • jubilee medals
Foreign
Order of the Red Banner (Afghanistan)
Medal "From a grateful Afghan people" (Afghanistan)
Medal “For Strengthening Friendship in Arms”, Golden class (Czechoslovakia)
Brotherhood in Arms Medal, Gold (East Germany)
Order of the Red Banner of Labor (Mongolia)
Order of Friendship (Mongolia)
Medal "50 Years of the Mongolian People's Army" (Mongolia)
Medal "40 Year Anniversary of the Battle of Khalkhin Gol" (Mongolia)
Medal "For Warsaw 1939-1945" (Poland
)

Books he authored

  • Yuri Drozdov (2016). No Fiction: Notes of the Chief of Illegal Intelligence.
  • Fartishev, Vasily, and Drozdov, Yuri. Юрий Андропов и Владимир Путин. На пути к возрождению in Russian. translated title: Yuri Andropov and Vladimir Putin: on the path for revitalizing. Moscow. Olma Press. 2001. 352 pages.
    ISBN 5-224-01933-8
    .

Notes

  1. ^ Directorate S is the illegals section of the KGB. Previously from 1974 to 1979, Vadim Kirpichenko headed Directorate S.
  2. ^ Storm-333 was part of the much larger Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan code named Operation Baikal-79 which began at 3pm on December 25, 1979.[4] The Soviet leadership intended to stop the CIA from establishing a new Great Ottoman Empire with the Soviet Union's central Asian republics, secure this southern Soviet region, which lacked proper air defenses, from possible Pershing-type missile attacks, prevent Pakistan and Iran from gaining Afghan uranium deposits, stop the CIA's support of the Basmachi movement, and to prevent the United States from gaining the precious resources of Tajikistan and the Pamirs.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Smith, Harrison (21 June 2017). "Yuri Drozdov, Soviet spymaster who planted agents across the West, dies at 91". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  2. Rossiiskaya Gazeta
    . Translated by Hackard, Mark. Retrieved 6 December 2017 – via espionagehistoryarchive.com.
  3. ^ a b c d e "ДРОЗДОВ Юрий Иванович" [The history of domestic special services and law enforcement agencies: Drozdov, Yuri Ivanovich]. История отечественных спецслужб и правоохранительных органов (in Russian). Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Антонов, Владимир Сергеевич (7 July 2017). "Генерал особого назначения: Юрий Дроздов до последнего дня находился на острие атаки" [A General for special purposes: Yuri Drozdov until the last day was at the forefront of the attack]. nvo.ng.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d Drozdov, Yuri Ivanovich. "Кто заказывает молодежь? Откуда "оппозиция, "скинхэды"..?" [Who orders young people? Where is the opposition, the skinheads ..?] (in Russian). litresp.ru. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  6. ^
    New York Times
    . Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  7. ^ a b c ДРОЗДОВ, ЮРИЙ (15 May 2017). "2 ВМЕСТО АНКЕТЫ". Записки начальника нелегальной разведки [Notes of the Chief of Illegal Intelligence] (in Russian). OLMA-PRESS. Retrieved 8 December 2017 – via litra.pro.
  8. ^ "Дроздов Иван Дмитриевич". pamyat-naroda.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  9. ^ "Дроздов Юрий Иванович". pamyat-naroda.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  10. ^ a b Ponniah, Kevin (23 June 2017). "Yuri Drozdov: The man who turned Soviet spies into Americans". BBC. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  11. ^
    Associated Press News
    . 21 June 2017. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  12. ^ Barry, Ellen (29 June 2010). "'Illegals' Spy Ring Famed in Lore of Russian Spying". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  13. ^ "Interview with a Soviet Spymaster". espionagehistoryarchive.com. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
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