Col. Vladimir Vetrov
code name: Farewell
Edited and updated by Catherine Cauvin-Higgins
Col. Vladimir Vetrov was a KGB officer working at KGB headquarters. His job was to evaluate the intelligence collected by Directorate T.
Between March 1981 and February 1982 he supplied the French DST over 4,000 secret documents and revealed the names of more than 200 Line X officers stationed in 10 KGB posts in the West.
Col. Vetrov supplied a list of Soviet organizations in scientific collection and summary reports from Directorate T on the goals, achievements, and unfilled objectives of the program.
He was arrested on February 22, 1982, for killing a Soviet policeman in murky circumstances.
In March 1983, he was sent to a penitentiary in Irkutsk for this "ordinary" crime.
Following the expulsion of 47 "diplomats" from France in April 1983, the KGB figured out Vetrov's role as a double agent and brought him back to Moscow in the fall of that same year.
He was executed on January 23, 1985. No grave.
Col. Vetrov's contribution led to the collapse of a crucial Soviet collection program at the time when the Soviet military needed it.
The life and fate of this unconventional spy are told in details in a new book which is the only repository of the facts known to date, enriched with insightful analyses and hypotheses by the authors Sergei Kostin and Eric Raynaud. (See link below)