Moskovsky Komsomolets: Interview of Lyudmila Nuykina, Veteran KGB Illegal Intelligence Officer

On February 21, 2020, one of the most popular semi-tabloid Russian newspapers Moskovsky Komsomolets published an interview of Lyudmila Nuykina, veteran KGB illegal intelligence officer. The interview was conducted by a well-known Russian journalist Eva Merkacheva who frequently writes about the Russian foreign intelligence service. Below is my translation available only on this website.

Declassified in 2017, Nuykina gave her first major public interview to the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti on March 7, 2018. The translation of this interview is also available on my website and can be accessed here.

Eva Merkacheva: Russian Illegal Intelligence Officer Described How She Gave Birth Abroad

Moskovsky Komsomolets February 21, 2020

The director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, recently declassified seven illegal intelligence officers. This was a unique event: never before have so many names of illegal officers been made public. One of the officers, Vitaly Nuykin, worked in tandem with his wife Lyudmila. “The Redhead” - as he called his faithful comrade at home - revealed to us the secrets of their joint work.

- To make the interview interesting, one needs to be frank. Are you sure that I am allowed to do that? - Lyudmila Nuykina doubtfully asked her “handlers” from the SVR before the interview.

And, yes, she was. In honor of the centenary of the foreign intelligence service, she was allowed to share her most deeply hidden stories: how they got computer secrets, how they exposed enemy spies, how [Oleg] Gordievsky betrayed them.

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Vitaly Nuykin was born on April 5, 1939 in the village of Mokhovskoye in the Parfenovsky District of the Altai Region. In 1960, he graduated from the Faculty of International Relations at MGIMO. After that, he was employed in the state security services.

Until 1986, he and his wife operated in more than 18 countries. Nuykin obtained very valuable information on the political strategies of the leading Western countries. The Nuykins were recalled from their last assignment due to Gordievsky’s betrayal. After returning to the USSR, they worked in a number of analytical departments of the Center. Lyudmila Ivanovna was declassified in 2017 and Vitaly Alekseyevich in 2020.

Dressed in the Military Jacket and Boots

Lyudmila Ivanovna looks very classy. Her clothes, her manners, her quiet melodic voice. She often mixes Russian words with the French ones, but this gives her even more charm. Addressing the interlocutor, she says: “Monsieur,” “Mon Sire.” She tells jokes and likes to laugh. But when it comes to serious topics, she transforms before one’s eyes, becomes sad, and sometimes even cries…

Being oneself is difficult for an intelligence officer. But, even when they worked under false names, Nuykina and her husband did not lose the sense of who they were as people. It is no coincidence that the friends they had made in different countries who contacted them afterwards (after the betrayal of Gordievsky, their photographs were seen around the world) did not stop being their friends!

- It is inappropriate to ask a woman about her age. But perhaps you’d tell me what your birthday is?

- Which birthday? I have several of them. (Laughs.)

- The real one, not according to the cover story.

- I even have two real birthdays. I was born in September, but in my birth certificate they wrote down that it was October. I come from a Siberian village. And people there believed that the exact date of birth was not that important.

- It is difficult to imagine that the village like that is the birthplace of someone who will later work as an illegal intelligence officer abroad.

- Vasily Shukshin was also born in a Siberian village. But we are from different regions. That even a village girl can become an illegal intelligence officer is a fact. You have a living example before you.

I am proud that I am not a professor’s daughter, for instance, and that I come from a rural area. I remember my childhood well: isolation, post-war poverty, ruin, but such a vibrant desire to live and such a passionate interest in learning! We (the village families) would collect 5 kopecks each in order to buy mittens for someone, or a hat, or boots, so he or she can attend school. And at school we used charcoal to write on newspapers.  

By the way, my husband also came from a poor family. When he studied at MGIMO, he attended lectures in a military jacket and boots that he had inherited from his father, a WWII veteran. His fellow students laughed at him, but he didn’t really care.

When we were children, we didn’t know much about anything. It was so interesting to study. And now children don’t want to. We would buy somebody a hat or mittens, so that they could go to school. And now they are taking the child to school by car, even then he doesn’t want to go. He is still “a nobody,” but he has everything at his disposal.

- You are a medical doctor by training? What can a physician and an intelligence officer have in common?

- Yes, I am really a doctor, an obstetrician-gynecologist by profession. I even worked as a village doctor for a while.

First, they sent me to the taiga. Former convicts with axes in their hand would come to my first-aid post and say: “Give me some alcohol!” But I was not afraid of them. My patients were interesting. One day an elderly man with a thick beard, a painted sash, in a traditional blouse came to see me. He said that his ear hurt. I prescribed him a powder (at that time, pills were rarely used, we often had powders only) and I told him to take it every day. Three days later, he came back: “Young woman, I did everything as you ordered. My ear doesn’t hurt anymore, but I can’t hear anything.” I looked and it turned out that he poured powder into his ear! [Sometimes] I rode a horse to visit my sick patients. Oh, those were the times ... A woman gives birth and I deliver the baby and I am the first to see it! Do you understand? What a joy!

- You talk about your profession with so much love... Why did you leave it behind for the job in the intelligence service?

- If you love somebody, then you will do everything for him. Vitaly chose the career of an intelligence officer first. We were friends since I was 16. But I didn’t find out what his profession was right away. Here is how it happened. We moved to Moscow, got married, and our son was born. Then one day he asked me: “What do you think about living with someone else’s passport?” And I said: “Why do I need someone else’s passport?! I have my own!”

I kept asking the people from the intelligence service: “Tell me, what am I supposed to do?” They wouldn’t tell me anything specific. Later on, I understood why. Had they told me everything right away, I would have been scared. But I would not have said no. I was ready to go even into the fire for my husband. I loved him so much.

But, in general, since I was a child, I realized that you do not live only for yourself. My husband felt the same. When entering the foreign intelligence service, we were not interested in how much money we would make or what benefits we would get. This never even crossed our minds.

- What languages did you study?

- French, English, Spanish... I studied mainly by watching films. That’s the most effective method.

My husband focused on English. Konon Molody came to our house. He taught my husband English swear words. He said: “You must know them! Otherwise, they will swear at you, and you will smile.” The future traitor Gordievsky taught my husband Danish.

The course of study included a lot of things that are still classified. But, in general, we received wartime military training, so we even learned how to plant bombs, how to clear mines, etc. The program included martial arts and rifle training as well. I went through the same exercises that my husband went through. This was done so that I could replace him at any time if need be. But working in tandem was easier and less stressful.

- Do remember your first trip abroad?

- Of course! But at first we went separately. I remember I rented an apartment from a woman who was a local resident and who turned out to be employed by the local intelligence service! I realized this much later and it all happened by accident. Once she said to me: “Let’s have lunch in the cafeteria at my workplace.” I said: “Fine.” I went to the address she indicated, and there was the analogue of our current FSB. It turned out that I stepped right into the lair of the enemy. My husband also had some “adventures” on his first trip, and, after he came back, he told me: “I am never again going by myself.”

“You are doing the procedure wrong”

- What is the most difficult thing in the work of an illegal intelligence officer?

- “Settling down.” You have to settle down in a foreign country, to find your niche. Even if you have a good cover story, all the right documents, and the money for the initial time period, you still have to prove yourself there and get a stable occupation.

- Which one?

- Well, my husband and I enrolled in school, then got jobs. My husband became an engineer, a great specialist in the field of technology. Then he opened several firms in different countries. One of them - can you believe it - is still operational and makes a profit!

- And what did you study? Something related to medicine?

- No, I studied basic bookkeeping and typing and received a diploma. But I always missed medicine very much. Once I almost blew my cover. I had to have a small surgery and I blurted out on the operating table: “You are doing the procedure wrong. That’s not how it’s done.” I immediately justified my statement by saying that I had a friend who was a professor of medicine, and I learned about the correct procedure from her.

- Technical intelligence collection raises a lot of controversy. It means that a country, instead of developing its own scientific potential, uses intelligence officers who “borrow” ready-made scientific discoveries from others.

- “If something is not attached well, why not pick it up?” - said one foreign [non-Russian] intelligence officer. And I agree with him. We save the time and the resources of our own country. And they can then be more profitably directed to something else. You see, it is an eternal cycle.

- Did you get only the documentation or the equipment as well?

- Both. Several times we took with us large bags full of equipment. [For instance] we obtained the first computers. In general, we were able to transport [to the Center] so many valuable things, but we always worried that some of them would end up in the garbage. After all, a lot depends on those who later use this equipment, who make decisions what to do with it.

“Somehow You Kiss like a Russian”

- Were there situations similar to those in the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring when the narrator says: “Shtirlits has never been so close to failure as now”?

- The risks were constant. Once we went through the passport control at the border and the policeman asked my husband: “What is the name of your wife?” He said my name, but from the previous cover story (which we used on another trip based on different documents). Oh, God, how I pretended to be angry at him! It was so convincing that the policeman himself turned everything into a joke: “Don’t worry,” he said to me “all men are like this, we are all forgetful.”

Once during our wedding ceremony (and we got married several times!) the registrar asked my husband: “What is the last name of the mother of your future wife?” And my husband only remembered the Russian last name. Thank God he stayed silent. He behaved in such a way so that everything could be attributed to his excitement before the ceremony.

But those were all trifles. There were cases when they asked us uncomfortable questions directly. Here are a couple of examples. In one small African country, there was a cafe called “Ali Baba,” whose owner most likely worked for the local intelligence service. In fact, the cafe itself was specially set up so that intelligence agents from different countries would meet there. One day the owner of the café said to my husband: “You are a Russian spy!” Directly, to his face. And my husband replied: “And you are an American spy! So, what’s the problem?” He laughed and never brought up the issue again. One must never lose one’s cool. I realized this right away when I started working in intelligence.

And here’s an anecdote from another country: a wine festival was held at a restaurant, everyone was having a good time, and I drank with a German for eternal brotherhood. He said to me: “You kiss like a Russian.” I quickly replied: “I don’t know how it is with you, Russians, but we, the French, kiss like this.”

- Who were you according to the cover story?

- I had a lot of cover stories. Once we rented an apartment as Spaniards, and the owner had a friend, who was a former French counterintelligence officer. And he decided to test whether we were spies. First, he pretended to thrust into my hands some kind of a red book in Spanish accidentally. I answered him with a tirade in Spanish. He didn’t expect that. Then, he arranged for the second test: he invited a real Spaniard to dinner. I passed that exam as well.

Once we got into a situation on the verge of being exposed and, had it been not for my insolence and daring (in the good sense of these words), we could have been caught. Here’s what happened: In one of the countries, they told us: “Go to your embassy and bring a document that your passport is valid.” The passport was made by our service. It was a Saturday, the end of the working day. We went to “our” embassy. The ambassador came out and I told him a tearful story about how some “bad” people demanded additional papers. He said to me: “Please, don’t get upset, I’ll make them regret what they did to you.” And he himself sat down at the typewriter (everybody had already left) and typed what was needed. And there was also a case about which I will say this: a country changed one of its laws because of me, after I wrote a very touching letter to the government.

“I forgot the password!”

-Some intelligence officers claim that it is safer to work alone than in pairs.

- I don’t think so. It sometimes happens that one intelligence officer gets too carried away and then makes mistakes. The partner can notice that and correct it on time. I would tell my husband: “Do not forget who you really are.” And he repeated the same thing to me.

If my husband and I went to some kind of a cocktail reception, we kept an eye on each other. [For example, we monitored] who approached him, who approached me, what questions they asked us. Then, we analyzed everything together. Once my husband said that the second secretary of an embassy, ​​with whom he had danced, jokingly said while teasing him: “You are not really a Dane!” I insisted that we inform the Center about it. The Center’s reply was: “Never have any contacts with that woman again, she is a spy.”

The Center guides the intelligence officers in the field.  It is like a guardian angel. We can’t know everything. But it also happens sometimes that the Center does not know something. Although this may seem to concern a trifling matter, it nevertheless may lead to exposure.

- For example?

- When we left on our assignment abroad, we were told: “Do not stay in the same hotel room, because, according to your cover story, you are only engaged and not married yet.” Well, we took two separate rooms and immediately fell under suspicion. In that country, this was not the appropriate thing to do.

- Was working as a couple often helpful?

- On one occasion when we carried bags with equipment, we saw a telephone booth, and, for some reason, there was a policeman in it. What was he doing there, who was he calling? Maybe he was waiting for us! We immediately threw away our bags, hugged, and started to kiss. And it all looked so natural.

- Were there also some funny situations?

- Yes, of course. Once when we also had bags full of equipment with us, we were waiting for our contact. We began to worry. The contact came but was silent. Everyone started to get nervous. And then he told us in a pleading voice: “I forgot the password!”

It was also easier to work when having a small child. Imagine this situation: a mother is walking and pushing her baby in a stroller. Who will pay attention to her? Then she wipes her baby’s nose or perhaps gives the baby a pacifier, while, with the other hand, she passes on something to somebody imperceptibly. The husband stays at a distance and makes sure that nobody was watching. So even children can “take part” in intelligence work.

My husband and I developed a special language; we had words which were signals and warnings. When he was awarded a medal by a secret decree, I told him about it using these words. We came home, poured ourselves a drink, and drank it up. We celebrated in this way, without saying a word about the medal.

“While giving birth, I yelled out in French”

- You gave birth abroad. Was there a risk that you would yell out in Russian during childbirth? Remember the episode from the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring where Shtirlits said to the radio operator Kat: “Are you going to yell out ‘mommy’ in Russian?”

- I gave birth to our second child abroad. I yelled out in French. When on a mission, I made Russian my enemy number one. My husband and I never used it when we were abroad. We even quarreled in a foreign language.

But there were moments when we really missed the Russian language. Then we went to the airport (we knew when the flights from the Soviet Union were arriving) and walked unnoticed behind a group of Russians. How happy we were when they swore in Russian! For us, it was like a music. It was such a relief, it seemed as if we had visited our homeland. I taught myself to think in French. I still see my dreams in that language.

- What was the scariest thing while you lived abroad?

- For me personally, it was scary to get sick. In your homeland, your loved ones will call you an ambulance and will come to the hospital to visit you. Abroad, everything is much more difficult. Once I was admitted to a Catholic hospital in serious condition. I lost consciousness. I opened my eyes and a nun was standing in front of me. I thought: “Lord, I already crossed over.” I lost a lot of blood, and our friends who lived in the neighborhood donated blood for me. So now I have Irish, Australian, and English blood in me.

“Your son is taking ballet lessons”

- Did you take your first son with you on intelligence missions abroad?

- No. We left him here. That caused me the biggest suffering. True, we knew that everything was fine with him, that he was under the supervision of his grandmother. But it was very difficult (Lyudmila Ivanovna cries). I was not even allowed to have his photo with me. And what would they say about him in the radiogram? “At home, everything is all right.” Well, that sounds very general, doesn’t it? Once they wrote: “Your son is taking ballet lessons.” That was something concrete, we could follow his progress in life. We were so happy.

Our second child was born abroad. We returned to Moscow for the first time when he was 4 years old, and at first he cried a lot. He did not speak Russian and did not understand anything. “Where is Coca-Cola? Where did all these relatives come from? Why do they speak in a strange language?!” The children in the neighborhood were saying, “Let’s not take this American spy into our circle.” And I was foolish to translate that for him. He was so upset.

Then I said: “I will join my husband and take the child along.” And I left for another assignment, from which I returned after the betrayal of Gordievsky.

- Do you regret that intelligence work has deprived you of the joys of motherhood?

- There is no point in regretting anything. Once I had a dream that my husband and I were detained and put in jail. We were placed in different cells, but at some point they brought us together for interrogation, and I told him: “It’s so good that the baby is not with us.”

“Gordievsky sold out everything”

- What feelings do you have about Gordievsky? It was because of him that you had to stop doing your work.

- I remember that the Center said: “Both foreign and our journalists are looking for you. Call your relatives to tell them to say that they don’t know you.” Gordievsky even revealed our Moscow telephone number and our address.

He had visited us at home. Later, after his betrayal, I often remembered how I made coffee for him. Recalling this, I wanted to turn back the clock and throw a hot drink in his face. Well, if you don’t like something in your country, you should just leave. Why ruin the lives of others, too?

- Why did he betray you in particular?

- Well, he betrayed everybody he knew. He needed to provide for his livelihood abroad, so he sold out everything and everyone. Then he began to make up stories. And what else could he do? He was paid to provide information. No information, no need of you. And who needs traitors anyway?

- How does he live now, do you know?

- He has a wife and two daughters. But I do not envy such people. That’s not life, but bare existence. He lives in fear all the time. They say that sometimes he is seen with a wig and sometimes with a glued-on mustache and a beard. His eyes are always on the lookout. He lives in constant tension.

- Is there any reason for him to be afraid? [Sergey] Skripal was poisoned.

- What has to be feared is one’s conscience. And why would he [Skripal], well-known by our service, be eliminated? That’s not our method. Once, at an international conference on intelligence, a legendary intelligence officer refused to sit with him on the podium. And he said: “I am not sitting at the same table with traitors.”

The last assassination of a political enemy by our intelligence service was in 1959. There is an unspoken agreement between the countries not to take revenge on the intelligence officers who defect. Well, he got caught, served time, and was freed. And nobody is supposed to go after him.

Can you imagine what level of protection would have to be provided to George Blake, Kim Philby [while he was alive], so that, God forbid, they would not be poisoned? Not so long ago, when Blake had a medical emergency in a Moscow suburb, an article about this appeared in a British newspaper. The point I am trying to make is that he is accessible to the media and gives interviews.

“I was the third after Gorbachev”

- Did you continue working in the intelligence service even after you returned from abroad?

- Yes, but in a different capacity. An interesting point: I was a bit afraid to return. This was a purely psychological matter because I’ve lived so many years abroad. Everyone around us was talking about how horrible the USSR was and that was very difficult on me, although I understood that it was not true. I asked my husband: “What if we did have the villains in power at home and they put us in prison?” And he said: “Redhead, what’s with you, you started to believe the Western media?” We came back and I breathed a sigh of relief.

When I returned, I did not speak Russian well. But that didn’t bother me. By the way, I was busy with the work in the service and with social activities. I was elected to the party committee to represent the interests of women.

In 1989, for the first time in the history of the intelligence service, a woman who was an illegal intelligence officer was appointed to the presidium at the All-Union Congress in honor of March 8. They didn’t even tell me exactly what I was supposed to do, just that I needed to show up at the Bolshoi Theater! I came to the Lubyanka first. I pressed the button: “Where are you going, comrade?” I replied: “To the meeting.” The guard on duty tried to frighten me: “You made a mistake, once you enter here, you won’t come out any time soon.” If he only knew who he was trying to scare, who he was talking to!

The party committee instructed me to sit quietly and try to remain unnoticed. And that I can reveal my identity to one person only if he asked me. Only one person…

- Gorbachev!

- Yes, exactly!

I was seated in such a way so as not to be visible, even though I was the third after Gorbachev. But as the anthem started playing, I stood up, and it looked like as if I was standing behind the podium and giving a speech. When the anthem ended, I sat down, and was not visible again. However, in the morning when I showed up at work, I was summoned to my supervisors right away. “What were you doing at the podium?” And they show me the picture on the front page of the Pravda. We had a good laugh.

There were many very serious things, but there were sometimes funny things, too.

When I retired, I still “remained” in the intelligence service, because one can’t really be a former intelligence officer. But what I missed the most was the opportunity to tell young people about the profession of an intelligence officer, about the people I knew, about my husband, about all those heroes I worked with. Though of course we never forget the motto of our service: “Without the right to glory, for the glory of the State!”

 

 

RIA Novosti: Interview of Vyacheslav Trubnikov, Former SVR Director

On April 25, 2019, Russia’s state-owned news agency RIA Novosti published an interview of Vyacheslav Trubnikov, a veteran KGB officer and SVR director from January 1996 to May 2000. In 2000, Trubnikov was appointed to the position of a deputy foreign minister and in 2004, he became Russia’s ambassador to India, the post he held until his retirement from government service in 2009. The occasion for the interview was Trubnikov’s 75^th birthday. Below is my translation available only on this blog.

Vyacheslav Trubnikov: I Am Proud that SVR Helped Turn Around Russian Foreign Policy

RIA Novosti April 25, 2019

- Vyacheslav Ivanovich, could you please explain the following puzzling fact from your biography? You graduated from the physics and mathematics oriented high school with a gold medal. And then, suddenly, you enrolled at the MGIMO [Moscow State Institute of International Relations], our main university for diplomats. How did this seemingly illogical turn come about?

- Here I immediately have to make a correction. Someone made an inaccurate statement in the past and I have to correct it every time. I graduated from the high school No. 87 in the Krasnopresnensky district of Moscow with a gold medal. What is called the physics and mathematics orientation was only relevant in the ninth or tenth grade and it was an elective course in the evenings. In other words, my gold medal had nothing to do with it.

- But, in any case, you had an affinity for the exact sciences.

- Not just an affinity, I was very fond of them. I planned to follow in the footsteps of my first cousin and enroll in the Dzerzhinsky Higher Naval Engineering School in Leningrad. I had already sent my documents there. But, suddenly, I got a call from the high school director – “Slava, tomorrow morning you need to go the district committee of the Komsomol!” I had no idea why. And then, the window of opportunity opened up. The Komsomol was making the selection of high school graduates for the MGIMO.

- They were making the selection? Wasn’t the decision where to enroll voluntary?

- Let me explain. That was in 1961. That year a large number of servicemen were demobilized from our armed forces - one million two hundred thousand people, including officers. And the doors of all universities were open for them. This included even the most prestigious universities. The universities allocated up to 80% of all open spots for the former military people, and it was enough for them just to pass the entrance exams. The grades they received were irrelevant. But for the high school students who were admitted for the remaining spots, it was necessary to pass all the exams with the highest grades. In particular, to get into the MGIMO, you had to score 25 points out of 25.

In addition to that, the selection was based on one’s social origin. They tried to take high school students from the working-class families, the families like mine - my father was an assembly fitter. Those who were smart and who wanted to study. So that is what happened.

However, I wanted to get out of all that and I said to the “old men,” the members of the commission of the district committee of the Komsomol: “My documents are already on their way to the Higher Naval School in Leningrad.” But they replied: “That is not a problem. The documents can be returned easily. The entrance exams must be taken now, after your high school graduation. And if it does not work out, you will have plenty of time in August to take entrance exams for any other place you want.”

- However, everything worked out and you enrolled at the MGIMO.

- Yes. I applied for the study of Arabic language. The Middle East was popular then. Especially Egypt with its president Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was considered the leader of the Arab world. Later he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

- Exactly. But when in August I came to the institute to take a look at the posted lists of those who were admitted, I immediately saw that I was not in the Arabic language study group. I went to the dean’s office and explained what I did and where I applied and that I was not on the list. Then, the head of the program - a man in riding breeches and boots, who at an earlier time worked in the NKVD – said: “How so? It can’t be that you were not on the list. Let’s take a look again.” He flipped through the lists and exclaimed: “Well, here you are - Hindi, English.” I asked, “Why Hindi?” He replied: “Well, do you think that only idiots should study Hindi? You will study Hindi.” And that’s how I ended up on the path to my later much beloved India.

- In other words, you had no special affinities for India back then?

- Absolutely not. Of course, I knew that there was such a country. The old German film “The Indian Tomb” was shown in the local movie theater. Although the film was in black and white, it still conveyed the Indian charm. However, that charm was far from seducing me at that time.

- In the 1950s, the Indian national soccer team came to Moscow. They say that it left a memorable impression on the locals not because of their play, but because of another detail.

- They played barefoot.

- Yes.

- I did not see it with my own eyes, I was still a small child. But in my neighborhood in the Presnya district, that’s all they talked about, how they played without soccer boots. I remembered that.

- When did you go to India for the first time?

- In 1966. I was still a student and I went for a 6-month pre-graduation training.

- What impressed you the most?

- That India is a country of absolutely colossal contrasts!

- And yet, any country, in principle, can be called a country of contrasts.

- Not really. Because not in every country will you see in the center of the capital city the poor kids lying in the mud, begging from the passers-by, against the backdrop of a gorgeous villa with a luxurious palm garden. And that was how it was then in Delhi.

At that time, after descending from the plane, a European was immediately surrounded by a whole group of such kids. And it was really difficult to get away from them. 

By the way, they immediately picked out the Russians – they knew we were sentimental. They would not accost an Englishman. An Englishman would instantly hit them with a stick on the hands or on the head. And a Russian would give them money, though he himself may not have known whether it was too little or too much.

- And what about the sacred animals, the cows? They are also considered one of the symbols of India.

- At that time, the streets were full of cows. They were present everywhere, including in the diplomatic enclave. They were miserable, skinny animals with protruding ribs, chewing cigarette boxes or newspapers - in general, everything that had any cellulose in it.

And here’s a story involving animals. When I flew to India in 1967, our TU-114 plane, huge and beautiful like a crane, was forced to land in Karachi. We stayed at the airport hotel there. While I sat in a chair in the lobby, I suddenly noticed with horror a huge shadow of a crocodile on the ceiling. What was that?! It turned out it was just a small lizard called gecko, but it reflected the light in such a way that it seemed as if the crocodile was crawling. I still remember that quite well.  

In India, you never stop being surprised. If you really pay attention, you can discover something new every day. And the longer you live there, the more you come to understand that it is impossible to get to know it completely. I had a friend there, an American journalist, and he once told me: “Slava, don’t you think that a tourist who comes to India for a week or two will definitely write a book about it? And a person who lives here for a year will only write a newspaper article. But those who have lived here for more than a year won’t write anything at all, because they realize that they really don’t know anything.”

India is really a separate civilization with its own philosophy. Moreover, it is an extremely innovative civilization. The game of chess came from India. Also, the concept of zero was invented there, a key concept for mathematics, which also made physics possible. Craniotomy surgeries were carried out there even before the new era. Starting with Ayurveda and ending with surgery, medicine was put on the modern path of development in India two or three thousand years ago.

One can’t be neutral toward India. You either really love it completely or not at all. But those who fall in love with India are completely mesmerized.

When my friends and I get together, beside raising one toast to our Homeland, we also raise a toast to Bharat Mata - Mother India. Because it brought us all together, it introduced us to each other. We lived there according to our laws but were enriched with the Indian views of the world.

I worked in India with great pleasure. It has never been a burden for me. And later, when I left the foreign intelligence service [SVR] and entered the Foreign Ministry and was offered to choose from a list of countries where to work as an ambassador, as soon as I heard “Delhi,” I had no dilemma whatsoever.

- And when you returned as an ambassador, how did India look to you? Did you see any changes?

- I saw a great deal of progress! I remember one place in particular, a suburb of Delhi. When I was in India decades ago, I ran over many snakes there. Towards the nightfall, snakes would creep out of the “jungle” to warm themselves on the highway, which had absorbed the heat of the day. You would drive and suddenly something would make a creaking sound – that meant that the snake got under the wheel. Now there are malls there, a complex of buildings four kilometers long where all the world’s major firms are represented. This whole complex is air-conditioned. There are cars of all brands [on the parking lot], it’s no worse than in Russia.

The pace of development in India is striking. It is also striking that all the changes in the political leadership and the coming to power of the opposition happened in a democratic way. Even when the voting process from the standpoint of – let’s say – “European” political culture seems like some kind of a circus. For instance, since illiterate people also take part in the voting, they are brought to the polling stations in [open] trucks and mark the ballot with their fingerprint in the place of a signature.

The modernization of the country is proceeding very quickly. The industry that the Soviet Union helped build is still going strong. The plant in Bhilai, the first steel plant in India, which was built with the participation of our [Soviet] specialists and with the loan from our government, is now producing alloy steel for export.

- By the way, that plant is also the main producer of structural steel and steel rails in India.

- Yes. But we shouldn’t assume that we were doing charity work in India, as some journalists used to claim. It wasn’t like that at all. True, we built these things with our government loans, but India paid us back with traditional goods - tea, jute, spices, and so on. And those are the goods sold on the world market for hard currency. In other words, this was a mutually beneficial collaboration.

In addition, India is the largest software exporter in the world. What does this mean?

- It means that the country has a high level of education.

- And not only education. They also produce the computer chips themselves. They are not importing them from somewhere else.

I want to highlight the sector in which the desire of Indians to produce on their own territory is especially clear. When our defense industry was practically on its deathbed in the 1990s, it was brought back to life by the military-technical cooperation with China and India. But what was the qualitative difference in their approaches? The Chinese bought our weapons and technological equipment in massive quantities. They bought everything we had. On the other hand, the Indians wanted only the latest technology. And now they have made their requirements even stricter.

We used to say to them: “You buy from us, because you take into account the ratio of the price and the quality, and yes, you demand extra-quality, but we give you a better price than we do to other countries.” But the Indians have been telling us lately: “This ratio is not really what we care about. We are ready to pay you as much as you ask, but only for the things we really want to have.” Moreover, they do not want to buy the newest items, which, perhaps, we don’t even have in our own military yet. The Indians say to us - we do not want to be your “guinea pigs,” we want to buy what you already have in your military, but it has to be the most advanced. 

- In addition, our atomic industry was saved at the turn of the century by the contract for the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, along with the orders for the construction of nuclear power plants in China and Iran.

- That’s true. I have been to the Kudankulam plant many times. I saw with my own eyes how the plant was being constructed. In that case, too, India got something based on the utilization of the most advanced technologies.

- The program for the development of the Indian national atomic industry has a certain local peculiarity: India has very few uranium reserves, but there is a lot of thorium, which can be used for nuclear fuel. And this is the focus of Indian nuclear research.

- Yes, they are working on that, but it is no easy task. But, potentially, India can have its own raw materials for nuclear fuel. This also shows their creativity.

I want to say that we must stop considering India a kind of country that has yet to attain “its maturity,” as some may still think in a condescending manner. This is not the case at all.

At this time, under the policy of “Make in India,” they are seeking partners to create joint venture investment projects on Indian territory. “We will buy a certain number of planes from you, but you need to give us a license to manufacture a certain number by ourselves, [in other words] give us the technology and we will make them ourselves” - this principle, the desire of Indians to produce what they need by themselves, is not always taken into account by us. And, as a result, in some areas we have, let’s call it, friction. After all, how many years have we been talking about a joint program to construct the fifth-generation jet fighters? And then, excuse me, why do we offer them only the option of purchasing our Su-57? Doesn’t this immediately cancel the entire joint venture? And, besides, it doesn’t enable the Indians to take part in the manufacturing of the Su-57. It brings them no new jobs. So, I repeat, we must talk to India on equal terms.

- What is your opinion regarding the Indian caste system?

- I specifically studied this social phenomenon. You open the main Indian newspapers on Sunday and you see marriage proposals, the announcements of the wish to marry a daughter or a son. And in every case the last name indicates the belonging to one caste or another. But this is the case only with the elite. In the hinterland, the caste system persists in a more severe form.

Of course, due to the fact that the lower castes are at the margins of society, their basic needs are far from being satisfied. Children are malnourished. And how can a growing child’s brain develop without nutrients? The Indian state makes a lot of effort to eliminate poverty. In India, there are the so-called “fair price stores,” something that is not found anywhere else in the world. If there is a large family but its income is below a certain level, then the state allows this family to buy the foodstuffs at subsidized prices and sustain its basic diet.

- This is probably something that other countries can learn from India.

- In fact, the whole world can do so. In India, social problems do not remain on the sidelines and are at the center of the government attention.

And, to go back the caste system, oddly enough, it seems that the Indian state itself now perpetuates it in a certain way. For instance, in the entrance examinations for the civil, diplomatic or other state jobs, a certain percentage of spots are reserved for the representatives of the lower castes and tribes.

- But there can be very gifted individuals among the lower castes. And it is beneficial for the country to let them develop their talents.

- That’s true. The caste system is not an obstacle to the advancement in the fields of politics and science. Jagjivan Ram was a very talented minister of defense in India in the 1970s. And he was from the caste of the “untouchables.”

What is very, very important is that when you look at the presidents of India, all castes were represented, starting with the highest caste of Brahmins. And this is done intentionally. The Indian National Congress has always followed this policy. At the head of the country, there is a Muslim for one term, then a Hindu, then a Buddhist, then a Sikh, etc.

- This is a democracy in the Indian way?

- Yes. It is a regulated democracy, not an ochlocracy [a government by the masses]. And this is its strength since the system is based on democratic voting. The internal structure of India is much more flexible than the internal structure of China. And although today’s China is firmly ruled by the Communist Party, with the further deepening of the market economy and foreign trade relations, the role of the CCP will decrease.

As for the Indian castes, over time they will be disappear as the result of India’s rapid technological and socio-economic progress. But, at the same time, this progress will cause a lot of challenges in the country from the perspective of environmental protection. We are already seeing massive deforestation to provide for arable land. And this leads to environmental imbalances.

As an intelligence officer, I generally see environmental problems as the main real threat to humanity. Nuclear weapons? They are a threat, but people have taken steps to reduce the threat coming from them.  

- And yet, the United States withdrew from the INF Treaty.

- That’s reckless and it is a worrying development, but there will be new agreements in the future. I am much more concerned about the relations between India and Pakistan, where, for instance, cutting off the water supply to Pakistan might have a lot of destructive potential. It would have an effect of several atomic bombs dropped on the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

I was once interviewed by a lady from the American RAND Corporation. She asked me: “Mr. General, what do you think is the most terrible threat to the world?” And I replied: the disappearance of humanity as the result of an ecological catastrophe. So, I was glad when our President Vladimir Putin announced at the recent Arctic Forum that we will develop the Arctic, but that this must be approached very carefully and delicately. That is the correct approach. We must not disrupt the “immune system” of that region; there is a good reason why the Arctic is called the “weather kitchen” for the whole world. We must look far ahead. If we focus only on the short-term threats, we might overlook the most terrible threat, the extinction of humanity, when nature gets so disrupted that people simply can’t survive.

- Vyacheslav Ivanovich, what can you say about the U.S. attempts to influence India and make it a counterweight to the cooperation between Russia and China?

- The Americans are doing this, and very actively. The United States is relying on India as the main counterweight to China. They need the framework of ​​the Indo-Pacific region - not just the Asia-Pacific region, but wider - in order to engage India in constructing “a fence” around China. Washington proceeds from the assumption that India and China are, objectively speaking, geopolitical rivals.

At the moment, I am thinking about what kinds of new security structures can arise in our changing world. And it is absolutely clear to me that China wants to lead the construction of the security architecture in Asia by actively promoting the “One Belt, One Road” project, including both those who are near and those who are more distant. This is why, for example, it has built transport corridors to the Pakistani ports of Karachi and Gwadar.

We [Russia] strive to build a security architecture by developing the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as its economic basis. But, as the economic ties become stronger, the joint tasks such as the fight against terrorism also come into existence. And it is from this position [of collaboration] that one can more confidently face new challenges and threats.

The Americans, on the other hand, construct the security architecture based on the U.S.-Japan-Australia-India rhombus (diamond). However, India doesn’t really want to be a part of it. And, in its attempts to acquire new technologies from the Americans, India is going to move carefully in order not to become dependent on the United States, while, at the same time, taking what it needs from them.

I don’t mean to say that India’s politics is egoistic. It is pragmatic. And I am personally convinced that the current leadership of India understands very well what it means to be dependent on the United States. This is why we see something which seems like a multi-vector approach in the Indian foreign policy. So far, India has been successful in pursuing it. But it’s a very difficult balance.

In my opinion, it would be much more interesting if there existed a non-aligned movement headed by Russia and India. And this is not only my opinion. Many experts believe that if the world turns towards bipolarity, toward the U.S.-China confrontation, then it would be beneficial for us and India to be, as the Chinese would say, in the position of a monkey sitting on a mountain and watching how two tigers fight each other.

- Vyacheslav Ivanovich, if we now turn to your work in the intelligence field – you worked under the cover of a journalist and not just for any newspaper, but for the [Soviet] Novosti Press Agency - the forerunner of RIA Novosti. Since that time, you have been a member of the Journalists’ Union. Did you have an area specialization or you wrote on all kinds of subjects?

- I wrote about everything. And I did it with pleasure. I have always done a lot of research on the topics I was writing about. I even wrote for the Soviet “Medical Newspaper.”

I remember very well how the famous ophthalmologist Svyatoslav Fyodorov came to India and performed surgical demonstrations. I went to his hotel room, and he yelled from the shower – “Make yourself comfortable, I’ll be out right away!” And then, the man came out was without a leg. For me, that was a shocking surprise. I didn’t know anything about his personal tragedy. He later told me how he had dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot and how he studied at a special school. But, jumping off the tram one day, he slipped and his foot fell under the tram. Fedorov admitted that he wanted to die [after being injured] but over time became fascinated by the art of medicine. And, in his gratitude to medicine, he managed to transform his pre-existing technical knowledge into an absolutely unprecedented thing, into making [surgical] cuts on the lens with a razor blade to change the eye’s focal length. Now such surgeries are commonplace.

- He was certainly an outstanding person. And another outstanding person was Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov who became the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service [SVR] in 1991. In his memoirs, he recalled the manner in which the decision was made to appoint him the director of the SVR, and how President Boris Yeltsin came to the “Forest,” to the headquarters of the service at Yasenevo. Moreover, Primakov wrote that he noticed the existence of different points of view among the intelligence leadership regarding his appointment. How do you remember that time and the attitude of the intelligence collective toward the new director? Although Primakov was a brilliant scholar of the Middle East, he was still a civilian, after all.

- Of course, there were different views. That was also a period when the service was undergoing major changes, I would say, at the level of the morale and the ideology. But the decision to make the intelligence service nonpartisan was absolutely correct. The credits go Leonid Vladimirovich Shebarshin, the former head of the First Main Directorate of the KGB.

- After the events of August 1991, he served as the chairman of the KGB for two days only. But, in one of his books, he wrote that he signed the order banning the activities of party organizations in the state security services.

- Yes. And that was absolutely the right decision to make. We are working not for any political party, but for the state, for the security of the country and its people. I myself have always been guided by that principle. And that’s not a mere slogan.

Back then, in 1991, there was a period of confusion and vacillation. After Shebarshin, Vadim Bakatin was appointed the chairman of the KGB. Bakatin apparently did not understand what he was doing when he handed over to the wiretapping scheme of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to the Americans. They even got scared - why did he do that? They thought that there was something else behind this, for which a price had been paid in advance. It seems to me that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was short-sighted in these matters. As were many others. They destroyed the KGB without thinking about who would guarantee the security of the country.

- What kind of director was Yevgeny Maksimovich? What new things did he bring to the foreign intelligence service?

- First of all, [he brought] the elements of real democracy in the quasi-military organization in which there is a strict chain of command. It may sound a bit strange, but everyone got the right to express their point of view and not to be punished or fired for it. Of course, the final decision was still made by the director. And Yevgeny Maksimovich taught us to do this.

Yevgeny Maksimovich also wanted to live and work closely with the intelligence collective, to get to know its problems, and do everything in his power to resolve them. For example, during this period of time, he was able to keep the housing units controlled by the service in order to offer them to the personnel. After all, the people who came from the other regions of Russia had nowhere to live.

Also, during the most difficult period, we acquired two trucks and would go to one of the regions to get the meat. That was a great deal both for that farm and for us. In our cafeteria, the meal prices were so low that our guests often joked – “This is impossible. You must be kidding!” And when Yevgeny Maksimovich transferred to the Foreign Ministry, the first thing he did was to improve the work of the cafeteria in which, in the earlier period, they even had cases of food poisoning.

Then, we set up our own bakery. We made our own dumplings [pelmeni]. The women who worked at the bakery had to cross the highway to get from the metro to the entrance to the headquarters. He also took care of that. 

This is a small indication that Primakov was not just a mere director. Due to his colossal political experience and expertise, he was able to establish rapport with everybody. And he was respected for it!

Yevgeny Maksimovich had a unique quality: he not only knew how to listen, but also how to really hear the interlocutor. And he was willing to change his mind.

At first, however, there was some skepticism as to whether Yevgeny Maksimovich could successfully direct the operative personnel of the service. But he made a very wise decision. He appointed me as his deputy and we divided the responsibilities: the operative matters were in my hands, and he concerned himself with the status of the intelligence service, the reports to the country’s leadership, and the external contacts. This division of labor turned out to be very successful. We helped each other. He became more of an operative, and I became more of a politician. It was a mutually enriching experience.

Yevgeny Maksimovich was very successful in strengthening the foreign intelligence service so that it survived and proved its usefulness. He made the service open to a certain extent, so that the taxpayers could see that our service was not taking their money for nothing. He created the Bureau for Public Relations. Essays on the History of the Foreign Intelligence Service were published - a unique collection of several volumes. Later, the British intelligence service MI6 published a book about its history, but with a lot of fictional additions, whereas we provided the narrative based on documentary evidence. I was the editor of one of the volumes of Essays.

We all as a collective performed the tasks set by Yevgeny Maksimovich, compensating for the blunders in the foreign policy of our country in the first half of the 1990s.

- The symbol of the turn of Russian diplomacy towards our national interests is often represented by the turning of the plane of then Prime Minister Primakov in the skies over the Atlantic in March 1999 when NATO forces began bombing Yugoslavia.

- That reversal was already a consequence of the changes that Yevgeny Maksimovich brought to our foreign policy when he became Foreign Minister in January 1996. And all the time, while he headed the Foreign Ministry, and then worked as Prime Minister, we - and I was the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service - worked in close cooperation and contributed to the U-turn of our foreign policy.

Therefore, I am proud of Yevgeny Maksimovich. And when he took the reins of the government after a terrible economic collapse, he was able to do something in a short period of time that no other prime minister had ever thought possible. The situation in the economy improved dramatically. That was his doing.

For me, Yevgeny Maksimovich will always remain a mentor and a comrade. And a real presence in our lives. People of that caliber are born, probably, only once in a hundred years.

- In January 1996, you succeeded him as the director of the SVR. This probably did not come as a surprise to you?

- Yes, it did. But Yevgeny Maksimovich supported my candidacy for the post of the director, and he told me that it was necessary to say yes.

But what was very difficult for me and even to a certain degree unpleasant was that I had to become a public person. That is to say, it was announced publicly that I was an intelligence officer. And I thought about the fate of the people who were my contacts abroad. I was very worried that they would be exposed.

- What situation do you consider the most difficult during those years that you headed the SVR?

- I will say that being the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service is always difficult. And it is difficult to identify any particular situations. There were a lot of cases when one had to report directly to the president.

One example. February 1994. Aldrich Ames was arrested in the United States as a Russian agent in the CIA. It’s nighttime in Moscow. A call came from the U.S. Yevgeny Maksimovich was then on a business trip abroad. I was woken up in the middle of the night. I lived in the government dacha in Yasenevo, and, five minutes later, I was on the phone. They told me what happened. But without mentioning the name of Ames. And for me, that message was like a cold shower! At that time, I didn’t know who Ames was because that was above my pay grade! The sources like are known only by the director.

The representatives of the CIA immediately flew to Moscow. They came to Yasenevo, and, among them was their Moscow station chief, James Morris. They made demands. They said that our station chief in Washington, Alexander Lysenko, must leave the United States. At that moment, it was not possible to reach Yevgeny Maksimovich, but a quick decision had to be made. And I made it. I said: “As sorry as we may be, Mr. Morris, but you and I will also have to part company.” They were stunned! They said: “How can you make such a decision? Such a decision can only be made by your president!” I replied: “The President will approve of my decision! And Yevgeny Maksimovich even more so.” I called Boris Nikolayevich [Yeltsin] and reported what I had said and done. And the President said: “Great job!”

And when Yevgeny Maksimovich returned, he asked me: “How did you endure all that? Perhaps I would have lost it. And you so tactfully put them in their place.” And that’s the end of the story.

That period was very difficult for me. It was even harder than the period of NATO’s strikes against Yugoslavia.

- Vyacheslav Ivanovich, what do you think led to the arrest of Ames?

- It seems to me that what happened was the following. Ames exposed the intelligence network that the Americans had created on our territory. And the KGB counterintelligence began to capture these agents one by one and quite quickly. This not only drew the attention of the CIA and the FBI, but they also at some point realized that there was a source leaking information. The circle around Ames was slowly getting tighter and tighter. And, in the end, they got him.

- Was it possible to arrest some of the identified American agents less quickly? Of course, the damage they did could not be undone, but perhaps they could have been covertly denied access to the classified information, a certain pause could have been made, and then they could have been taken off the list?

- Probably, but at the time we [USSR] tried to show everybody how strong we were and how good we were at uncovering spies. And yet, the sources of information must be protected like the apple of one’s eye.

- In your opinion, how did you contribute to the development of our foreign intelligence service when you were the director?

- Among many other things, I spent a lot of time on strengthening the morale of the service and on enabling the evaluation of its work by the public. In any case, the first Heroes of Russia in the history of the service were selected during my tenure - the husband and wife Morris and Leontine Cohen, Leonid Kvasnikov, Vladimir Barkovsky, Alexander Feklisov, Anatoly Yatskov. Our legendary intelligence officers who acquired atomic bomb materials. That was a big deal.

- A little later, Alexey Kozlov, an illegal who obtained information about the existence of nuclear weapons in South Africa, also became the Hero of Russia.

- Yes. Moreover, I learned about Alexey Mikhailovich from the head of South African intelligence service, who, for the first time took a foreigner, that is, me, to their service’s museum. There was the equipment, the things that Kozlov used in his work. He was a professional of the highest class. But he was awarded the title when I was already in the process of retirement from the service.

- Vyacheslav Ivanovich, since then, you also became the Hero of Russia. Can you tell us why you were awarded the title?

- This star of the Hero was awarded to the entire intelligence service. The director is not awarded as an individual, but as a representative of the entire service. I am proud that the service has grown and that many young people joined the ranks. There have been certain intelligence operations that I am proud of. And I am also proud that I did my part in the resolution of some important issues for our country.