Viktor Suvorov

Early life and the army

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to “Kommersant” (2000), he is the son of a career front-line officer and of Ukrainian origin. He entered the military in 1958: he graduated from a Suvorov Military School and then from the Kyiv Higher Combined Arms Command School named after Frunze.¹

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAs a junior officer in a tank regiment (a reconnaissance officer) he took part in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968; RMF FM (2014) writes that he was then commanding a tank company. From 1969 he served on the staff of a military district.^1,3

Service and defection

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesAccording to the interview Rezun gave to Natalia Gevorkyan for “Kommersant” (2000), he graduated from the GRU's Military Diplomatic Academy in Moscow and in 1974 was posted as an attaché to the Permanent Mission of the USSR in Geneva, where he assisted the GRU rezident. He rose to the rank of major. RMF FM adds that before leaving he worked at GRU headquarters in Moscow, and in Geneva from 1974 to 1978.^1,3

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesThe same publication states that he made contact with British intelligence and on 10 June 1978 defected to Great Britain with his wife and two small children, and that in the USSR he was sentenced to death in absentia for treason. He himself gave the date of the defection – 10 June 1978 – in a conversation with Radio Svoboda in 2010.^1,2

Writing

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesHe writes under the pen name Viktor Suvorov. “Kommersant” lists, among others, the books “Aquarium”, “The Liberators”, “Icebreaker”, “Den M” (M Day), “Poslednyaya respublika” (The Last Republic) and “Kontrol” (Control). In 2010 Suvorov told Radio Svoboda that in “Icebreaker” he had argued that the USSR was preparing to attack Hitler's Germany.^1,2

“Aquarium”, a book about the GRU, was reviewed in 1985 by the “London Review of Books”. The Polish edition of “Icebreaker” appeared in Warsaw in 1992; Krzysztof Jasiewicz cites this edition in “Studia Polityczne” (2018).^4,5

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesRMF FM also mentions “Tatiana – tajna broń” (Tatiana: The Secret Weapon), “Matka diabła” (The Devil's Mother) and “Alfabet Suworowa” (Suvorov's Alphabet), which – with an introduction by Piotr Zychowicz – was written with Polish readers in mind. In November 2014 the author met readers in Poznań, Łódź and Warsaw (the 23rd Historical Book Fair).³

Life in exile

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sources“Kommersant” (2000) reported that he lived in Oxford and lectured; in the USSR he had been sentenced to death for treason. In his 2010 conversation with Radio Svoboda he spoke from London.^1,2

Significance

He is one of the best-known officers of Soviet military intelligence to have defected to the West. His historical books are the subject of scholarly debate – including by G. Gorodetsky (1989) and K. Jasiewicz (2018); we do not assess the arguments of that debate here.^5,6