Vitaly Shlykov
Виталий Шлыков

Born|

Vitaly Shlykov

4 February 1934

Kursk, USSR

Died| 19 November 2011

Moscow, Russia

Burial place| Troyekurovsky Cemetery
Occupation| Spymaster
Awards| Order of the Red Star
Espionage activity
Allegiance|  Soviet Union
Russian Federation
Service branch| GRU
Service years| 1958–1988
Rank| Colonel
Codename| Bob[1]
Codename| Nikolaev Vasilyevich

Vitaly Shlykov (Russian: Виталий Васильевич Шлыков; 1934–2011) was a spymaster in the GRU, Russian deputy minister of defence and founder of the influential Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.

## Spying career[edit]

Shlykov was arrested in Switzerland in January 1983 following his betrayal by Dieter Gerhardt under U.S. Central Intelligence Agency interrogation. Gerhardt was a South African national who spied for the Soviet Union for 20 years before his position was compromised by the Farewell Dossier. Shlykov was arrested when he travelled to Zurich under the false name Nikolaev Mikhail Vasilyevich to meet with Gerhardt's wife, Ruth, who acted as a courier. Despite not disclosing his real name or any other details to Swiss authorities, he was jailed for three years for spying for the Soviet Union.

After his release from prison in 1986, he started the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, an influential think tank that provides advice to the Kremlin on security issues.[2]

He later rose to the position of deputy minister of defence in the Russian Federation under Boris Yeltsin.

## Analysis of the demise of the Soviet Union[edit]

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

|

Shlykov argued with his superiors that the Soviet Union was basing its military and economic policies on faulty assumptions, inherited from the Joseph Stalin era.

Namely, he posited that the Soviet war plans were based on the assumption that the upcoming military conflict between the USSR and NATO would strategically and technologically resemble World War II.

To prepare for this contingency, it was planned to mobilize between 4 and 8 million soldiers and to continuously supply them with enormous quantities of material: tanks, cannon, planes etc., since it was expected that the materiel (and the soldiers) would be constantly attrited at a high rate.

Therefore, most industrial plants in the USSR were required to set aside significant production capacities during peacetime, in order to "mobilize" them when war broke out and to produce the requisite enormous quantities of war materiel. This had the effect of severely undermining the Soviet economy.

Shlykov argued that the assumption that World War III would resemble World War II was wrong and that the above-described approach was ruining the Soviet economy without actually preparing it for possible future conflicts. He pointed out that the Western powers opted out of the World War II-era approach and were actively developing "smart" weapons in order to counter the Soviet preponderance in manpower and classical materiel.

For his efforts he was summarily dismissed from the Soviet Army. He later published his arguments after the fall of the Soviet Union in the open press.

## Further reading[edit]

* Панкин, Алексей Борисович (December 5, 2012). "Наш разведчик-нелегал пытался спасти СССР, но ему Гайдар помешал". Pravda. Archived from the original on 2022-10-15.
* Mlechin, Leonard (24 Apr 2006). "Our Man in a Swiss Prison". Retrieved 4 January 2013.
* Рыковцева, Елена (2 May 2006). "What Occupied the Russian Secret Services Abroad". Retrieved 4 January 2013.

## Footnotes[edit]

1. ^ Pilyatskin 2005.
2. ^ Isacbenkov 2011.

## References[edit]

* Pilyatskin, Boris (26 December 2005). "Loaf of bread and "The Gates of Hell"". Izvestia. Retrieved 12 January 2012.
* "Vitaly Shlykov". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 13 January 2011.
* Isacbenkov, Vladimir (22 November 2011). "Vitaly Shlykov, 77; Soviet Spy, Top Kremlin Security Adviser". Associated Press via boston.com.

## External links[edit]

* Obituary
* In military Reconnaissance Departed (in Russian)

* v
* t
* e

Soviet and Russian spies

In the US|

| 1940s and before|

* John Abt
* Joel Barr
* Elizabeth Bentley
* Earl Browder
* Boris Bukov
* Whittaker Chambers
* Lona Cohen
* Morris Cohen
* Judith Coplon
* Noel Field
* Klaus Fuchs
* Harold Glasser
* Harry Gold
* David Greenglass
* Theodore Hall
* John Herrmann
* Donald Hiss
* George Koval
* William Malisoff
* Hede Massing
* Boris Morros
* Isaiah Oggins
* William Perl
* Victor Perlo
* J. Peters
* William Ward Pigman
* Lee Pressman
* Vincent Reno
* Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
* Alfred Sarant
* Saville Sax
* Morton Sobell
* Alexander Ulanovsky
* Nadezhda Ulanovskaya
* Julian Wadleigh
* Harold Ware
* Bill Weisband
* Nathaniel Weyl
* Harry Dexter White
* Maria Wicher
* Nathan Witt
* Flora Wovschin
* Anatoli Yatskov

|

Cold War|

* Rudolf Abel
* Aldrich Ames
* David Sheldon Boone
* Christopher John Boyce
* Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh
* Jack Dunlap
* James Hall III
* Robert Hanssen
* Reino Häyhänen
* Edward Lee Howard
* Robert Lee Johnson
* Karl Koecher
* Andrew Daulton Lee
* Robert Lipka
* Clayton J. Lonetree
* Richard Miller
* Ronald Pelton
* Earl Edwin Pitts
* Jack Soble
* Myra Soble
* Robert Soblen
* Oscar Seborer
* Robert Thompson
* George Trofimoff
* John Anthony Walker
* Jerry Whitworth

Post-Soviet|

* Evgeny Buryakov
* Anna Chapman
* Peter Debbins
* Robert Hanssen
* Harold James Nicholson
* Illegals Program

In the UK|

| Cambridge Five|

* Anthony Blunt
* Guy Burgess
* John Cairncross
* Donald Maclean
* Kim Philby

|

Portland Spy Ring|

* Lona Cohen
* Morris Cohen
* Ethel Gee
* Harry Houghton
* Konon Molody

* Michael Bettaney
* George Blake
* David Crook
* Litzi Friedmann
* Klaus Fuchs
* Percy Glading
* Melita Norwood
* Alan Nunn May
* John Peet
* Geoffrey Prime
* Goronwy Rees
* Michael John Smith
* Dave Springhall
* John Alexander Symonds
* Edith Tudor-Hart
* John Vassall
* Arthur Wynn

In Canada|

* Sam Carr
* Jeffrey Delisle
* Igor Gouzenko
* Elena Miller
* Gerda Munsinger
* Stephen Joseph Ratkai
* Fred Rose

In Japan|

* Hirohide Ishida
* Yotoku Miyagi
* Sanzō Nosaka
* Hotsumi Ozaki
* Ryūzō Sejima

Elsewhere /
in combination|

* Alexander Gregory Barmine
* Stig Bergling
* Dieter Gerhardt
* Walter Krivitsky
* Kerttu Nuorteva
* Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov
* Fyodor Raskolnikov
* Alfred Redl
* Ignace Reiss
* Vitaly Shlykov
* Herman Simm
* Siddiq Ghouse
* Richard Sorge
* Arne Treholt
* Stig Wennerström

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF

National|

* United States

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template