Kozlov, Alexey Mikhailovich

Born in the village of Oparino, Kirov region (now Kirov region ). In the family, besides him there were four children, and Alexei from 1936 raised a grandmother and grandfather in Vologda ^[2] .

In 1943 he entered the Vologda school number 1, which he graduated with a silver medal. At school, his teacher of the German language was the famous teacher Zelman Shchertsovsky ^[3] . He entered the Moscow Institute of International Relations , where he studied German and Danish. A fellow student of A. M. Kozlov was the future First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Yu. A. Kvitsinsky ^[2] . In the last year of the institute, he was sent to practice at the consular department of the Danish Embassy.

After graduating from the institute in 1959, he received an offer from the First Main Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the KGB of the USSR and after a short dive was sent to Denmark to acquire the profession of technical draftsman. Since 1962, he worked as an illegal intelligence officer. He married his second wife for cover in Germany in 1965, in the same year his son and daughter were born. He worked under the guise of an employee of dry cleaners and an entrepreneur in Western Europe (Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium), Africa and Asia. After the death of his wife in the 1970s, leaving children in the USSR, he worked alone at crisis points. At the same time, he visited and performed a special task in dozens of countries around the world. On his account, he worked in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia, Iran. He worked many times in Israel during the severance of diplomatic relations with him. He worked successfully in Taiwan, with which the USSR did not have diplomatic relations at all, and for Taiwan, the USSR was the worst enemy after China. The only Soviet intelligence officer who worked in Portugal during the fascist dictatorship. In total, according to the intelligence officer, he visited 86 states and was on foreign missions for 37 years.

In 1979, he was given the task to establish the fact of conducting secret tests of his own atomic bomb in South Africa and the fact of developing enriched industrial uranium in Namibia then occupied. Completed the task completely, after which he was arrested in South Africa by counterintelligence on charges of terrorism due to the betrayal of Oleg Gordievsky, who fled to Britain. Under the laws of the Republic of South Africa, the article “terrorism” deprived of the right to legal defense and legal proceedings, forbade any communication with the outside world and receiving information.

For two years he was in a solitary confinement prison in Pretoria and was subjected to interrogations and sophisticated torture. He spent six months on death row, during which even his conclusion to execution was staged. Prime Minister Peter Botha only in December 1981 made a statement that Alexei Kozlov was in the counterintelligence prison in Pretoria. In May 1982, with the participation of German intelligence services, Alexei Kozlov was exchanged for ten German intelligence officers arrested in the German Democratic Republic and the USSR, and one South African army soldier captured in Angola. Upon arrest, he weighed 90 kilograms, after imprisonment and torture - 58. He did not disclose any information in two years of imprisonment.

In 1982-1986 he worked in the central apparatus of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR . Then he made a request for a secondary direction on a permanent mission for illegal work. Being an illegal illegal, he worked abroad from 1986 to 1997. Information about this period is still classified. After retiring, he continued to work in the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia , was engaged in teaching, advisory and analytical work (he was fluent in German, English, Danish, French and Italian). He lived in Moscow , was declassified in 2005.

Documentary evidence collected by Alexei Kozlov in South Africa in 1979 for testing the atomic bomb with Israel and the development of enriched industrial uranium in occupied Namibia enabled the USSR to persuade the United States and several Western European states to strengthen the regime of international sanctions against South Africa. The result of the work of Alexei Kozlov was the announcement of the South African embargo by all countries, which led to a change of government. Thanks to the work of Alexei Kozlov , South Africa became the first state to voluntarily renounce nuclear weapons.

By a decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 7, 2000, for the courage and heroism shown during the performance of a special task, retired colonel Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov was awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation with the Golden Star medal.

He died on November 2, 2015 ^[4] . He was buried in Moscow at the Troekurovsky cemetery.

• Father - Mikhail Alekseevich Kozlov, before the war he worked as the director of a machine and tractor station (MTS), in the war he was commissar of a tank battalion in the 5th Guards Tank Army of General P. A. Rotmistrov and participated in the battle of Kursk . After the victory, he returned without a leg, was appointed deputy head of the prisoner of war camp for political affairs in Vologda . After the dismantling of the prisoner of war camp, he worked as the head of the construction department on the Volga-Baltstroy, then as the head of the transport department of the construction of the Severstal Metallurgical Plant in Cherepovets , after that he worked at MTS, and after retiring, became director of the Sheksna oil depot. He died on the day of the arrest of Alexei Kozlov in South Africa from a heart attack.
• Mother - Lidia Vasilyevna Kozlova worked as an accountant at the state farm.
• Wife - Tatyana Borisovna Kozlova, illegal intelligence agent, taught German in Belgium at a school for children of UN employees. She died in the 1970s.

• Honored Officer of the Foreign Intelligence of the Russian Federation (1999).
• Order of the Red Star (1977).
• Order of Merit to the Fatherland, 4th degree (2004).
• Medal "For Military Merit" (1967).
• Badge “ Honorary State Security Officer ” (1973).
• Badge " For Service in Intelligence " (1993).
• Hero of the Russian Federation with the award of a special distinction - the Golden Star medal (No. 713).
• Honorary Citizen of Vologda (2009) ^[5] .

• 2007 - " Illegal Career " - a documentary film. Director Sergey Mnatsakanov , screenwriter Nikolai Dolgopolov , Lavr studio ^[6] .
• 2010 - Fights. The Test of Death is a feature film. Director Vladimir Nakhabtsev , screenwriters Maria Arbatova , Shumit Datta Gupta, ARTEL Studio ^[7] .

• Death Trial or Iron Philatelist. Maria Arbatova, Shumit Datta Gupta - M. Astrel, 2012 - ISBN 978-5-271-40565-5 .

Kozlov, Alexey Mikhailovich (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ".

• Biography of A. M. Kozlov on the website of the Foreign Intelligence Service
• Dolgopolov N. He went into intelligence for 30 years - an interview with M. A. Kozlov in the Top Secret newspaper.
• Arbatova M. Alexey Mikhailovich Kozlov