Declassified messages of Soviet intelligence officers available on the Presidential Library’s portal

Documents from the Archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation have entered the Collection of digitized archival documents, film and photo materials dedicated to World War II which are now available on the Presidential Library’s portal subordinate to the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation.

The documents are intelligence messages (cipher telegrams) from London, Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, Harbin, Stockholm, as well as reports, certificates and special messages from the Intelligence Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR to the top Soviet leadership for June 1941 - November 1942.

A significant part of the documents is devoted to military plans of Germany, its allies and satellites. Intelligence reports spotlight the reaction of the German military command to the first difficulties faced by the Wehrmacht in the USSR. Already in August 1941, the German General Staff recognized that the plan for the rapid defeat of the Red Army had been thwarted. Of interest are reports on disagreements within the military-political leadership of Germany on the issue of conducting military operations against the USSR, on attempts at peaceful negotiations between the military opposition of Germany and Great Britain for the period from April 1941 to June 1942, on the transfer of troops, the activities of German intelligence and etc.

A large number of intelligence reports contain information about the military plans of Japan in relation to the Soviet Union, the attempts of Nazi Germany getting the Japanese to enter the war against the USSR.

Intelligence reports show true activities of countries that formally remained neutral, but in one form or another provided assistance to Nazi Germany and its allies. This means, among other things, the production in Sweden and Switzerland of weapons for Germany and Finland.

Soviet residents regularly sent information to Moscow about the moods and intentions of the USSR's allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. These reports testify to the discussion by the British in the summer of 1941 of the possibility of bombing the Soviet oil fields in Baku if the Germans approached them. The documents contain information about military plans of Great Britain in relation to the Axis countries, including in the event of a Japanese attack on the USSR, about the attempts of Great Britain and the United States to persuade (at the insistence of the Soviet side) Finland, Romania and Hungary to conclude a separate peace.

The documents tell of Japanese-American negotiations leading up to Japan's attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and subsequent US attempts to persuade the USSR to declare war on Japan.

The project features intelligence reports of the NKVD of the USSR on the internal situation in Great Britain, its relations with the USSR, the USA and other countries (for January - September 1942). They paid close attention to the moods and disagreements in British government and military circles regarding the expansion or limitation of cooperation with the USSR, including after the end of the war. The documents reflect the issue that was of particular interest to the Soviet leadership - the possibility (or rather the impossibility) of opening a second front in the West in 1941-1942, as well as the opening of a front by the allies in North Africa in the autumn of 1942.

One of the most important topics in the reports of the London agents is the development of uranium work in Great Britain and the adoption in 1941 of a decision on the industrial production of uranium (atomic) bombs for their use in military purposes.

In accordance with the List of instructions for the implementation of the Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation dated January 15, 2020, the organizers of the Collection of Digitized Archival Documents, Film and Photo Materials "World War II in Archival Documents" are the Federal Archival Agency (Rosarkhiv), the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation and the Presidential Library.

The Collection is carried out by Rosarkhiv and federal state archives with the participation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, the state archives of Belarus and others.

Today, the volume of the Collection exceeds 9,5 thousand materials including maps, diagrams, periodicals, photographs, newsreels for the period from January 1933 to November 1942.

Archival documents of the Collection World War II in Archival Documents are available from anywhere in the world thanks to the Presidential Library’s portal. Especially for the foreign audience, the titles and annotations to the documents as well as the texts of the accompanying articles are also available in English.

In addition to digitized archival documents the Collection contains a list of the main Internet projects, databases, other thematic Internet publications of documents, virtual tours of the history of World War II, developed by government agencies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and various organizations.