RYaN (RAKETNO-YADERNOYE NAPADENIE).In 1981 Moscow
began a worldwide program for the collection of information about a
U.S. nuclear surprise attack. Under the program, named Raketno
yadernoye napadenie(Nuclear Rocket Attack), or RYaN, the KGB
and GRU rezidenturaswere ordered to collect and submit informa-
tion about U.S. attack plans. For the next several years, RYaNbecame
the Soviet intelligence services’ priority, and it created a war scare
inside the Soviet political leadership. In 1983 misleading information
convinced Moscow that Washington was planning a surprise nuclear
attack to coincide with a NATO military exercise. The London rezi-
denturawas told to look for evidence of British complicity, such as
the increasing slaughter of cattle and the movement of the royal fam-
ily out of London.
RYaNinformation created a crisis mentality in the Kremlin in the
fall of 1983. Soviet chief of state Yuri Andropovwas convinced
that NATO would use a military exercise as cover for a covert nu-
clear strike. KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievskiy, a British source in
the rezidentura, provided the West with information about RYaN,
which allowed the British and American governments to defuse the
crisis. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also used
Gordievskiy’s information about Soviet foreign policy to persuade
U.S. President Ronald Reagan to pursue a more nuanced policy to-
ward the Soviet Union.
The RYaNprogram produced a bimonthly report for the political
leadership for another seven years. SVRchief Yevgeny Primakovfi-
nally cancelled the RYaNprogram in November 1991, putting an end
to a “purely formal but mandatory” report. The RYaNcrisis, however,
demonstrated the weakness of KGB analysis.RYASNOI, VASILII STEPANOVICH (1904–1995). Ryasnoi was
transferred from Communist Partywork to the security service dur-
ing the height of the Yezhovshchina, and he rose quickly in the ser-
vice. During World War II, he served in the Ukraine, and he was
later given responsibility for the MVD’s campaign against “bandits”
(anti-Soviet partisans) in the western Ukraine and Baltics. Follow-
ing Joseph Stalin’s death, he served as chief of foreign intelligence
and then chief of the security service in Moscow. He was expelled
from the service in 1955 and died in obscurity.RYASNOI, VASILII STEPANOVICH (1904–1995)• 22906-313 P-Z.qxd 7/27/06 7:57 AM Page 229