RJaN

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RJaN ( Russian РЯН , short for Ракетно-Ядерное Нападение / Raketno-Jadernoje Napadenije , German “nuclear missile attack ”) was the largest and most important Soviet intelligence service during the Cold War . The contract ran from 1981 to 1984, all other KGB actions were of lower priority in the three years of existence.

The operation was ordered in May 1981 by KGB chairman Yuri Andropov and was intended to provide clarification as to when a suspected first nuclear strike by NATO , which the United States allegedly planned, was planned. The importance attached to this project is also illustrated by the fact that for the first time there was a collaboration between the KGB and the GRU (the military intelligence service).

Towards the end of the 1970s, East-West relations intensified again. The Cold War revived. The main reason for this was the newly raised issues of nuclear strategy in Europe. RJaN was initiated by the Soviets after it became clear that in Western Europe due to the NATO double decision soon nuclear Pershing II - medium-range missiles and cruise missiles should be placed. The stationing was to be in response to the deployment of SS-20 mobile missiles in the western Soviet Union since the late 1970s. In 1982 the first cruise missiles were stationed in Great Britain. In the spring of 1983 the situation worsened for the Soviet Union through the resolution on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), the planned US shield against ICBMs . How nervous the Soviet strategists were at that time is also shown by the shooting down of the Korean civil aircraft Korean Airlines Flight 007 by an interceptor over international waters near Sakhalin on September 1, 1983.

The aim of the observations was to collect all signs that spoke in favor of a first strike: The secret service checked when higher slaughter rates were carried out in the slaughterhouses, when vacation bans were imposed in ministries, how long and how many ministries' windows were lit, and the occupancy rate the associated parking spaces. The call to donate blood could also be one of the indications that a nuclear war was being prepared.

With the NATO exercise Able Archer 83 , which was held for ten days in November 1983, the security situation became even more critical. The intelligence analysts assumed this could be the attack they feared. Already on September 26, 1983, there had been an alarm in the control room of the Serpuchowo-15 satellite monitoring center. The commander on duty, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislaw Petrow , decided against a counterattack despite the alleged launch of five American ICBMs. Investigations that were initiated later revealed that the alarm must have been triggered by reflections from the sun at the American ground stations.

RJaN expired at the end of 1984 after the deaths of its strongest supporters, Yuri Andropov and Dmitri Ustinov .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b cf. Sweet, p. 12.
  2. ^ A b Henning Sietz: Petrow's decision . In: The time . No. 39 , September 18, 2008 ( ZEIT ONLINE [accessed January 31, 2012]).