KGB archives show how Chrystia Freeland drew the ire (and respect) of Soviet intelligence services


OCTOBER 11, 2021

The Soviet secret police, the notorious KGB, praised his knowledge and scholarship, even as he thwarted their spying efforts in Cold War Ukraine. He tagged her with the code name Frida. But today we know Chrystia Freeland as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Canada.

Ms Freeland’s ties with Ukraine are no secret, but material uncovered from the KGB archives in Kiev highlights her role in the Ukrainian independence movement during an exchange with Harvard University.

In the former Soviet republic – now Moscow’s anti-communist – access to information from the communist period is guaranteed, both as part of reckoning with Ukraine’s past and apparently as a rebuke to Russia, which is once again the country. But seeking to impose itself.

Materials show that the attention of Soviet intelligence services was drawn to the then troubled young Canadian, who was the subject of condemnation in the Soviet press and even guaranteed a feature in top-secret KGB documents.

In articles titled “Abuse of hospitality”, Soviet newspapers publicly reprimanded the Canadian visitor for interfering with the affairs of the Soviet Union with malice.

What business, asked the Kiev newspaper Pravda Ukrainian, has someone from Edmonton led a civil organization for the preservation of the Ukrainian language in Ukraine? Why did someone in Ukraine spend so little time sponsoring his trip to university to study Ukrainian – and why studied, when he repeatedly spoke and clearly showed at television rallies, he uttered the language impeccably Spoken?

Even Pravda, the official broadsheet of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, denounced her, under her name and others like her, for her efforts to separate Ukraine from the USSR.

Ms. Freeland said in a written statement to: “I know that my work with pro-democracy and environmental activists provoked the anger of the Soviet KGB. I remember being the target of smear campaigns in the Soviet press.

“Although I was eventually forced to leave the country, I have no regrets about my time in Ukraine during Soviet times. What I found very powerful from this experience was how quickly a rotten street The political system can collapse, and how important can the work of brave dissidents be.”

Ms. Freeland was part of an influx of tourists, activists, missionaries, students and even historians to work in the archives (but with questionable motives by the authorities, including the KGB) during her final years in the Soviet Union. wanted. . But he is unique for the KGB in becoming a top-secret published case study of how much damage a determined foreigner could do to the USSR as they knew it.

The Soviet Union’s state media tended to adopt a breathless style, highlighting what they saw as the wicked moves of foreigners such as Ms. Freeland. However, the KGB’s Colonel A.I. based in Kiev. Stroi, in his report of so much suffering to the woman in the pages of the KGB’s top sborne KGB SSSR (Digest of the KGB of the USSR), shrugged off the pretentious indignation. Secret, in-house journal.

Ms. Freeland, and her like, was a threat to the Soviet Union – but one that had to be handled delicately: treating her too harshly could give credence to the “outrageous” stories told in Ukrainian expatriate communities that the KGB did nationally. How did you treat minorities? in the Soviet Union.

According to the KGB, Ms Freeland was more than just an agitator, as Colonel Stroi called it “the liberation of Ukraine”, which forced Soviet citizens to stage marches and rallies to attract Western support. He gave cash, video- and audio-recording equipment, and even a personal computer to his contacts in Ukraine.

All this happened under the watchful eye of the KGB, which surveyed Ms. Freeland. Its officers followed her wherever she went, tapped her phone calls to Ukrainians abroad, disturbed her residence, read her mail, and had an informant, codenamed Slav, herself Ms. Involved in the siege of Freeland and gained the trust of young Canadians.

Freeland warns Canadians to beware of Russian propaganda

But Ms. Freeland knew the rules of the road. He used a Canadian diplomat at the embassy in Moscow, known to the KGB as Bison and suspected of being a spy, to send material abroad in a diplomatic pouch that could not be intercepted or read.

She increasingly avoided large gatherings, lest her participation draw too much attention to her. And the Soviet secret police’s attempt to curtail his activities failed: his teacher at the Taras Shevchenko University in Kiev, on the orders of the KGB, increased his workload. But the student, apparently on a visa to study Ukrainian, was so fluent that he didn’t even need to appear first in class to make the grade – much to the KGB’s concern.
Instead, she spent her time traveling to Ukraine, meeting far-flung family members, but actually working as a fixer for journalists from Canada, Britain and the United States, for example the BBC. Taking the film crew to Lviv to meet the leaders. Ukrainian Catholic Church. Among the countless “major” news stories about life in the Soviet Union, especially the lives of non-Russian citizens, were her fingerprints as Ms. Freeland, noting her future career prospects. She was ready to make a name for herself in the field of journalism.

Colonel Stroi certainly objected to what Ms Freeland was doing in Ukraine, but KGB officers could not help but be impressed. She was “a remarkable person” with “an analytical mindset”. Young Canadians were “scholarly, sociable, persistent, and inventive in achieving their goals”, as they were nefarious in the eyes of Soviet intelligence.

The student who caused so many headaches clearly hated the Soviet Union, but she knew its laws inside and out – and how to use them to her advantage. He skillfully concealed his actions, avoided surveillance (and shared that knowledge with his Ukrainian contacts), and expertly smuggled in “misinformation”. The conclusion is inevitable: Chrystia Freeland, this KGB officer was saying, would have made an excellent detective herself.

Ms Freeland’s time in the Soviet Union ended when customs agents at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, the KGB reported, searched her luggage while returning from a trip to London and found anti-Soviet material. Even more worryingly, he discovered a genuine guide to running elections destined for use by non-Communist Party candidates campaigning for Ukrainian independence in the Soviet Union’s first free elections. He was denied re-entry on March 31, 1989.

Nearly 30 years later, no love is lost between the deputy prime minister of Canada and the current leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin himself, a former KGB official. And she still can’t fly into Moscow – since 2014, Chrystia Freeland has once again been the target of Kremlin sanctions, barred from entering the country.

Simon Miles is an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University.