Operation RYAN (or RYaN, and sometimes written as VRYAN, rus, РЯН, p=rʲæn) was a

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

military intelligence program run by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in the early 1980s, when they believed the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

was planning for an imminent first strike attack. The name is an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

for Raketno-Yadernoe Napadenie (, "Nuclear Missile Attack"). The purpose of the operation was to collect intelligence on potential contingency plans of the Reagan administration to launch a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Christopher Andrew and

Vasili Mitrokhin Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (; March 3, 1922 – January 23, 2004) was an archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, who defected to the United Kingdom in 1992. Mitrokhin first offer ...

(2000). ''The

Mitrokhin Archive The Mitrokhin Archive refers to a collection of handwritten notes about secret KGB operations spanning the period between the 1930s and 1980s made by KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin which he shared with British intelligence in the early 1990s. Mitr ...

: The KGB in Europe and the West.'' Gardners Books. . The program was initiated in May 1981 by

Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov ( – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the List of Chairmen of t ...

, then chairman of the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

Background

Andropov suffered from a "Hungarian complex" from his personal experience of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, according to the historian Christopher Andrew. Andropov had, as the Soviet

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

to Hungary, "watched in horror from the windows of his embassy as officers of the hated Hungarian security service were strung up from lampposts". Andropov remained haunted for the rest of his life by the speed with which an apparently all-powerful Communist one-party state had begun to topple.

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

and Yuri Andropov, then Chairman of the KGB, justified the creation of Operation RYaN because, they claimed, the United States was "actively preparing for nuclear war" against the Soviet Union and its allies. According to a

Stasi The Ministry for State Security (, ; abbreviated MfS), commonly known as the (, an abbreviation of ), was the Intelligence agency, state security service and secret police of East Germany from 1950 to 1990. It was one of the most repressive pol ...

report released in the mid-2010s, the primary " Chekist work" discussed in the May 1981 meeting was the "demand to allow for 'no surprise.

Operation

The Soviet defector

Oleg Gordievsky Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky (; 10 October 1938 – 4 March 2025) was a colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London. Gordievsky was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret ...

divulged a top-secret KGB telegram sent to the London KGB residency in February 1983. It stated: "The objective of the assignment is to see that the Residency works systematically to uncover any plans in preparation by the main adversary SAfor RYAN and to organize a continual watch to be kept for indications of a decision being taken to use nuclear weapons against the USSR or immediate preparations being made for a nuclear missile attack." An attachment listed seven "immediate" and thirteen "prospective" tasks for the agents to complete and report. These included: the collection of data on potential places of evacuation and shelter, an appraisal of the level of blood held in blood banks, observation of places where nuclear decisions were made and where nuclear weapons were stored, observation of key nuclear decision makers, observation of lines of communication, reconnaissance of the heads of churches and banks, and surveillance of security services and military installations. RYAN took on a new significance after the announcement of plans to deploy Pershing II W85-nuclear-armed missiles to

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. These missiles were designed to be launched from road-mobile vehicles, making the launch sites very hard to find. The flight time from West Germany to

European Russia European Russia is the western and most populated part of the Russia, Russian Federation. It is geographically situated in Europe, as opposed to the country's sparsely populated and vastly larger eastern part, Siberia, which is situated in Asia ...

was only four to six minutes, with an approximate flying time from six to eight minutes from West Germany to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, giving the Soviets little or no warning. On 23 March 1983,

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

publicly announced the development of the

Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic nuclear missiles. The program was announced in 1983, by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan called for a ...

. The Soviet government felt that the purpose of SDI technology was to render the US invulnerable to Soviet attack, thereby allowing the US to launch missiles against the USSR without fear of retaliation. This concern about a surprise attack prompted the sudden expansion of the RYAN program. The level of concern reached its peak after the Soviets shot down KAL 007 near Moneron Island on 1 September 1983, and during the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental transnational military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermat ...

exercise

Able Archer 83 Able Archer 83 was a military exercise conducted by NATO that took place in November 1983, as part of Exercise Able Archer, the annual Able Archer exercise. It Military simulation, simulated a period of heightened nuclear tensions between NATO a ...

in November. The Soviet Union believed that a United States first strike on the Soviet Union was imminent. Although Andropov died in February 1984, RYAN continued to be maintained and developed under the direction of Victor Chebrikov. Consultations held in August 1984 between the Stasi's head of the Main Directorate of Reconnaissance,

Markus Wolf Markus Johannes Wolf (19 January 1923 – 9 November 2006), also known as Mischa, was a German spymaster who served as the head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (), the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for Sta ...

, and

experts discussed the early detection of potential war preparations in adversaries, and indicated that the

First Chief Directorate The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence agency, intelligence activities by providing for the training a ...

of the KGB was proposing to create a new division, to deal exclusively with RYAN. 300 positions within the KGB were earmarked for RYAN, of which 50 were reserved for the new division. Operation RYAN continued to be maintained until at least April 1989.

Works

* '' Deutschland 83''

Background

Operation

Works

See also

References

Further reading