Latvia publishes list of KGB agents

On December 20th, The National Archives of Latvia opened access to the KGB archives containing lists of agents of the Soviet special services.

 The files in PDF format can be found at kgb.arhivi.lv.

The files of KGB agents in the Latvian USSR (a total of 10,612 files) have been published in alphabetical order. The archive includes the names of both active agents in the late 1980s and the excluded ones.

In this archive, there is also general information, which was entered by the First Division of the KGB (intelligence), on persons who planned on leaving the USSR abroad as well as names of potential candidates for recruitment, in case of war or an unforeseen situation.

The archive also contains files of “foreign KGB operatives,” who provided the KGB with “assistance in counterintelligence activities in transport, industrial facilities, as well as individual institutions of the Ministry of Defense.”  There are 75 files in the archive. Foreign operatives were not given code names; instead, they were given acronyms created with the first letter of their name, surname, and patronymic.

“In these “Cheka [KGB] bags” there were names of politicians who, as it turns out, were not publicly mentioned before. For example, Seimas deputy Igor Pimenov (recruited in 1978, codename: Krivichev) former deputy Romauld Rajs (in the category of “candidate for recruitment”), former MP Arvids Platpers (recruited in 1981, codename: Verdi), former mayor of Daugavpils Richard Eigims (recruited in 1985, codename: Edgars), and ex-premier Ivars Godmanis (codename: Pugulis), Delfi  reoirts.

Some of them stated in court that they were not working with the KGB.

This KGB file is incomplete; the second part will follow next year.

  Latvia, KGB, USSR, Russia

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