In what could have potential political repercussions for India, Ukrainian Parliament on April 9 voted to declassify the country’s archive of Soviet-era KGB files — from 1917 to 1991— to the public. The declassification could reveal decades’ worth of information on secret arrests, “disappearings” and the intricate operations of the Ukraine’s KGB wing, or the Committee for State Security, which could rake up a political storm in India too.
like, earlier in 2005, the release of old KGB spy Mitrokhin’s diaries and documents had revealed that several Communist and Congress leaders in India were accepting money and favours from KGB. According to the Ukrainian media, the Bill — passed with 261 of the Parliament’s roughly 420 members in favour — was moved by the Government in the Parliament for opening access to the archives of all “repressive bodies,” including KGB of the Soviet Union.
“On April 9, 2015, The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (Ukrainian Parliament) approved a Government Bill No. 2,540 — opening up access to the archives of repressive bodies of the Soviet Union totalitarian regime of 1917-1991,” said the UA Position, the news website of Ukraine. The Ukraine Government has started digitising the archives for the release of the KGB records of that period. As many as 13 bodies are termed as “repressive bodies” in the Bill approved by the Parliament.
Starting from KGB, the Soviet Union’s Intelligence Directorate known as GRU , Ministry of State Security known as MGB and legal divisions including the Supreme Court data, were also approved for declassification. The records of the Counter Intelligence Wing, known as SMERSH, patronised by Joseph Stalin were also in the list of documents to be approved for declassification.
The Parliament has also approved the declassification of records of the political wings of erstwhile Soviet Union namely People’s Commissariate for International Affairs (NKVD), Joint State Political Directorate and Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter Revolution and Sabotage known as Cheka.
According to the approval of Parliament, all the records will be open soon to public for copy and inspection and will be published in the official websites also. The Bill provides blanket approval to declassify all the records of Soviet era. Very few restrictions were put in declassification in the Bill passed by the Parliament. “Any persons who are a victims of repression, have the right to restrict access to archival information about themselves. Such rights does not apply to people who were employees of repressive bodies and then became victims of repression,” says the bill passed by Parliament.
This declassification is supposed to be the biggest one from the Government side, while most of other revelations of KGB were happened from old spies of KGB.