Vasili Mitrokhin
1922 – 2004 Soviet-British KGB archivist, defector
KGB archivist who smuggled out a vast secret archive.
- Religion
- Not publicly specified.
- Affiliations
- Former KGB archivist; defected to the United Kingdom in 1992.
Vasili Mitrokhin worked for decades as an archivist in the KGB's foreign intelligence archive. Disillusioned with the Soviet system, he secretly copied thousands of files over many years and hid them. In 1992 he defected to Britain with the material, which became the Mitrokhin Archive and exposed Soviet agents and operations worldwide.
In the timeline
- 1992 Vasili Mitrokhin brings the KGB archive to the West central figure