The head of the SVR – Russia’s main secret intelligence service – Sergei Naryshkin, a former classmate of the president, always says that Western partners should look to “the facts” in their rewriting of history. Nikolai Dolgopolov, himself formerly in operations and now a popular historian of the service, asked Naryshkin whether he had documents that gave “an absolutely accurate picture” of what was going on during the Second World War. Could he see them? Naryshkin said that “in time” he would.

Николай Долгополов, Российская газета, 3 августа 2020 года

The puzzle is that a secret service with such an amazing reach as the SVR should be so utterly ignorant of what has been published in the West on secret intelligence operations during the Second World War. When articles are published on the subject in Russia, all too frequently they claim major new finds that have in fact been well known here for over forty years. To his credit Naryshkin, compared with his predecessors, has been a trail-blazer in terms of releasing material butthe SVR is still way behind the curve.

It is time to catch up!