absolute radio silence. At the same time that preparations were be-
ing made for the Stalingrad offensive, rumors of a massive coun-
teroffensive in the Moscow region were fed to controlled agents
who dutifully misinformed Adolf Hitler’s intelligence officers.
Stalinwent so far as to allow Marshal Georgi Zhukovto launch an
offensive in November 1942 (Operation Mars) in the vicinity of
Moscow to further his deception. More than 140,000 Soviet sol-
diers died to ensure surprise later at Stalingrad.
The Soviet general staff perfected maskirovkain later campaigns.
Prior to the Kursk counteroffensive in 1943 and the Minsk offensive
in June 1944, measures were taken to mislead the German high com-
mand. The GRUand the NKGBprovided Stalin with concrete in-
formation that the Germans were planning a major offensive near
Kursk. With great stealth, the high command prepared for a defensive
battle followed by a major counteroffensive against the German
flanks. Prior to Operation Bagrationin the spring of 1944, the Ger-
man Army intelligence chief on the Eastern Front, Reinhard Gehlen,
was fed misinformation by human agents that the main blow would
fall in the south in the Ukraine. Every measure was taken to mask the
movement of the Red Army’s reserves.
During the Cuban Missile Crisisof 1962, the Soviet military and
intelligence services spoofed the U.S. military. The operation for the
movement of troops, missiles, and submarines was codenamed
“Anadyr,” after a river in eastern Siberia. Troops were issued winter
clothes and told they were being assigned to a mission in the Soviet
east. Ships bound for Cuba were controlled by intelligence officers,
and no Soviet soldiers were allowed on the deck of the ships during
daylight hours. So carefully orchestrated was this plan that Moscow
moved 40,000 troops as well as short and medium-ranged missiles to
Cuba without alerting American intelligence.
During the Cold War, Moscow developed human and signal in-
telligenceresources, as well as open source and unclassified material
for maskirovka. For example, cities used for the development of nu-
clear weapons were not identified in atlases and were given false and
misleading post office addresses. Thus, Sarov, the Los Alamos of the
Soviet nuclear program, was known as “Arzamas-16.” Sarov for five
decades disappeared from maps of the Soviet Union. In the 1970s the
Red Army and the KGBcreated the GTK, or State Technical Com-154 •MASKIROVKA06-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 154