Legendary Soviet spymaster who headed KGB illegal intelligence for 12 years
"We don't want this, but we must." — Yuri Andropov to Drozdov on the telephone, just before the assault on Amin's palace, 27 December 1979
A leading Soviet intelligence officer, Yuri Drozdov joined the KGB in 1956 and built the USSR's overseas intelligence network through postings in East Germany, China, and the United States. From 1979 to 1991 he headed Directorate S, the KGB's illegal intelligence arm within the First Chief Directorate, overseeing the global network of deep-cover 'illegals' operating under false identities. In December 1979 he commanded Operation Storm-333, the 43-minute special forces assault on Afghan president Hafizullah Amin's Tajbeg Palace that opened the Soviet-Afghan War; drawing on that experience, he founded the elite KGB spetsnaz unit Vympel in 1981. He is also remembered for posing as the 'German cousin' of captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel to facilitate the famous 1962 prisoner exchange on the Glienicke Bridge for downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.
Career Timeline
- 1943–1945Red Army, 1st Belorussian Front; entered Berlin
- 1945–1952Soviet Army artillery officer, Germany and Baltic Military District
- 1952–1956Graduated Military Institute of Foreign Languages (German, English)
- 1956–1957Transferred to KGB; illegal intelligence training
- 1957–1963KGB liaison to Stasi, East Berlin; illegal operative roles
- 1964–1968KGB resident in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution
- 1968–1975Central apparatus of PGU; deputy chief of Directorate S
- 1975–1979KGB resident in New York, under cover as deputy UN representative
- 1979–1991Deputy chief of PGU KGB; head of Directorate S (illegal intelligence); founded Vympel