Yuri Drozdov, handler of Soviet undercover spies during Cold War, dies at 91
June 26, 2017 Leave a comment
General Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov, who held senior positions in the Soviet KGB for 35 years, and handled a global network of Soviet undercover officers from 1979 until 1991, has died at the age of 91. Drozdov was born in Minsk, Soviet Belarus, in 1925. His father, Ivan Dmitrievich Drozdov, was an officer in the tsarist army who sided with the communists in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. After serving in World War II, Yuri Drozdov joined the KGB in 1956. Following his training, he was appointed liaison officer between the KGB and East Germany’s Ministry of State Security, commonly known as the Stasi.
His knowledge of East German intelligence affairs prompted his involvement in the famous 1962 spy-swap between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets surrendered the American pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had been captured in May 1960, when the U-2 spy plane he was piloting was shot down over Soviet airspace. In return, they received Rudolf Abel (real name Vilyam Fisher) a Soviet undercover spy who was captured in New York in 1957, posing as an American citizen. From 1964 until 1968, Drozdov was stationed in Beijing, China, where he served as the KGB rezident, effectively the agency’s chief of station. He returned to Moscow and in 1975 was posted under diplomatic cover in the United States, where he commanded the KGB’s station in New York until 1979.
Upon his return to the USSR, Drozdov was promoted to chief of the KGB’s Directorate S, which handled the agency’s worldwide network of so-called illegals —intelligence officers serving abroad without official cover or formal connection to the Soviet Union. Shortly after his return to Moscow, Drozdov also headed Operation STORM-333, a daring attack on the presidential palace in Afghanistan, during which Soviet special forces killed Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and essentially fired the opening shots of the decade-long Soviet-Afghan war. The experience prompted Drozdov to recommend to his superiors the establishment of a new KGB special-forces unit. It was created in 1981 under the name Vympel (Pennant) and headed by Drozdov himself. He commanded several Vympel missions in and out of the USSR before resigning from the KGB in 1991.
Little is known about the specifics of Drozdov’s death. It is believed that he died on June 21, surrounded by his family. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), a successor agency of the KGB, issued a brief statement commemorating Drozdov’s service. It was followed by a statement issued by the office of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, which praised Drozdov as “a legendary spy, outstanding professional […], incredible person and true patriot”.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 June 2017 | Permalink
intelNews.org 
Investigation uncovers previously unknown Russian covert action unit
March 16, 2026 by Joseph Fitsanakis 6 Comments
By mid-2023, Center 795 was “fully staffed”, with its ≈500 officers coming mostly from the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General staff (known as GU or GRU). Other Center 795 officers came from ALPHA and VYMPEL—covert action units belonging to the Special Purpose Center of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). A smaller number of officers came from the Russian Armed Forces, the Federal Protective Service, and from the ALPHA Group of the Belarussian security service, known as KGB.
The structure of Center 795 features three directorates: Intelligence, Combat Support, and Assault Operations. The Directorate of Intelligence consists of nine distinct departments tasked with—among other things—collecting and analyzing intelligence from social media platforms, conducting reconnaissance using satellite networks and drones, carrying out signals intelligence, as well as executing human intelligence and covert operations, including assassinations and abductions.
The Directorate for Combat Support is staffed with explosive, air defense, armored warfare, and artillery operatives. It also maintains combat units that conduct technical maintenance, logistics, fortification, and other specialized tasks. The Assault Operations Directorate consists of four departments, which appear to conduct strictly compartmentalized functions that include airborne tasks.
Notably, unlike other special activities units in Russia’s intelligence arsenal, Center 795 does not appear to reside within the GRU. Instead, it appears to operate independently of military intelligence oversight and to report directly to General Valery Gerasimov (pictured), Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff of and First Deputy Minister of Defense, or to one of his subordinate deputy defense ministers.
According to the investigative reports, the existence of Center 795 was revealed when one of its officers, Denis Alimov, used Google to translate a message sent to him by a Serbian operative living in the United States. This allowed the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation to use a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrant and access the Google Translate transcripts. Alimov was eventually arrested in Bogotá, Colombia, on February 24, 2026, after arriving there on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, Turkey. He is currently awaiting extradition to New York.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 March 2026 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Center 795, covert action, Denis Alimov, GRU, News, Russia, Unit 75127, Valery Gerasimov, Vympel