The archivist who smuggled the KGB's darkest secrets through Lithuania
British author Gordon Corera's new book reveals how former KGB archivist Vasily Mitrokhin tried to hand over the agency's most secret files to the West in 1992, with Lithuania playing a pivotal role after the US initially turned him away. He eventually defected via the UK embassy in Vilnius.
A new book by British journalist Gordon Corera, 'The Spy in the Archive,' tells the story of Vasily Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who spent over a decade secretly copying the agency's most sensitive documents before defecting to the West — a journey that passed through Lithuania at a pivotal moment.
From failed spy to archive keeper
Born in 1922 in rural Russia, Mitrokhin was recruited by the KGB as a foreign intelligence officer but, after a series of failed operations, was reassigned to the archives. According to Corera, this move — combined with growing awareness of Soviet crimes against its own citizens and the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring — turned Mitrokhin's personal resentment into an obsession to destroy what he saw as a three-headed beast: the KGB, the Communist Party and the ruling elite.
When the KGB relocated its headquarters to Yasenevo in 1972, Mitrokhin was tasked with overseeing the move of all archival documents, giving him access to material dating back to 1918. For twelve years he secretly hand-copied thousands of documents, smuggling notes out in his shoes and storing them at his dacha.
Lithuania's role in the story
After the Soviet collapse opened the Baltic states to Western diplomats, Mitrokhin made several attempts in 1992 to hand his archive to US intelligence in both Riga and Vilnius, but American officials dismissed the shabbily dressed elderly man with handwritten papers. The FBI later called his collection the most complete intelligence material ever received from a single source.
After the missed opportunity with the Americans, Mitrokhin approached the British embassy in Vilnius, where a young Russian-speaking diplomat recognized the potential value of his documents. Following an assessment by two MI6 officers, an agreement was reached to relocate Mitrokhin, his wife and his ill son to the United Kingdom in exchange for the archive and permission to publish it in full. The family was secretly moved from Klaipėda to the UK that same year.
An unheeded warning
Mitrokhin's first book of KGB documents was published in 1999, alerting Russian intelligence to the scale of the leak. He died in London in 2004. Corera argues that the West largely treated the archive as a relic of the Cold War rather than heeding its warning that Russia's aggressive intelligence practices — including assassinations and interference operations — would persist long after the Soviet Union's collapse.
