Story perspectives

KGB Defector Warned of Putin's Tactics, Ignored by West

1/11/2026

Summary

Story summary

On November 7, 1992, Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), defected to Britain.
His escape from Klaipeda, Lithuania, was tense as his son Vladimir Mitrokhin resisted.
Mitrokhin spent years compiling an archive detailing KGB operations and spies.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he approached British intelligence, which supported an exfiltration plan and noted that his warnings about KGB-like tactics under Vladimir Putin went largely ignored.

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Story summary

On November 7, 1992, Vasili Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), defected to Britain.
His escape from Klaipeda, Lithuania, was tense as his son Vladimir Mitrokhin resisted.
Mitrokhin spent years compiling an archive detailing KGB operations and spies.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, he approached British intelligence, which supported an exfiltration plan and noted that his warnings about KGB-like tactics under Vladimir Putin went largely ignored.