LONDON (AP) — Oleg Gordievsky, a Soviet KGB officer who helped change the course of the Cold War by covertly passing secrets to Britain, has died. He was 86.
Gordievsky died March 4 in England, where he had lived since defecting in 1985. Police said Saturday that they are not treating his death as suspicious.
Historians consider Gordievsky one of the era’s most important spies. In the 1980s, his intelligence helped avoid a dangerous escalation of nuclear tensions between the USSR and the West.
Born in Moscow in 1938, Gordievsky joined the KGB in the early 1960s, serving in Moscow, Copenhagen and London, where he became KGB station chief.
He was one of several Soviet agents who grew disillusioned with the USSR after Moscow’s tanks crushed the Prague Spring freedom movement in 1968, and was recruited by Britain's MI6 in the early 1970s.
The 1990 book “KGB: The Inside Story,” co-authored by Gordievsky and British intelligence historian Christopher Andrew, says Gordievsky came to believe that “the Communist one-party state leads inexorably to intolerance, inhumanity and the destruction of liberties.” He decided that the best way to fight for democracy “was to work for the West.”
He worked for British intelligence for more than a decade during the chilliest years of the Cold War.
In 1983, Gordievsky warned the U.K. and U.S. that the Soviet leadership was so worried about a nuclear attack by the West that it was considering a first strike. As tensions spiked during a NATO military exercise in Germany, Gordievsky helped reassure Moscow that it was not precursor to a nuclear attack.
Soon after, U.S. President Ronald Reagan began moves to ease nuclear tensions with the Soviet Union.
In 1984, Gordievsky briefed soon-to-be Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ahead of his first visit to the U.K. — and also briefed the British on how to approach the reformist Gorbachev. Gorbachev's meeting with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a huge success.
Ben Macintyre, author of a book about the double agent, “The Spy and the Traitor,” told the BBC that Gordievsky managed “in a secret way to launch the beginning of the end of the Cold War.”
Gordievsky was called back to Moscow for consultations in 1985, and decided to go despite fearing — correctly — that his role as a double agent had been exposed. He was drugged and interrogated but not charged, and Britain arranged an undercover operation to spirit him out of the Soviet Union — smuggled across the border to Finland in the trunk of a car.
He was the most senior Soviet spy to defect during the Cold War. Documents declassified in 2014 showed that Britain considered Gordievsky so valuable that Thatcher sought to cut a deal with Moscow: If Gordievsky’s wife and daughters were allowed to join him in London, Britain would not expel all the KGB agents he had exposed.
Moscow rejected the offer, and Thatcher ordered the expulsion of 25 Russians, despite objections from Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, who fared it could scuttle relations just as Gorbachev was easing the stalemate between Russia and the West.
Moscow responded by expelling 25 Britons, sparking a second round in which each side kicked out six more officials. But, despite Howe’s fears, diplomatic relations were never severed.
Gordievsky’s family was kept under 24-hour KGB surveillance for six years before being allowed to join him in England in 1991. He lived the rest of his life under U.K. protection in the quiet town of Godalming, 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of London.
In Russia, Gordievsky was sentenced to death for treason. In Britain, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 2007 for “services to the security of the United Kingdom.” It is the same accolade held by the fictional British spy James Bond.
In 2008, Gordievsky claimed he had been poisoned and spent 34 hours in a coma after taking tainted sleeping pills given to him by a Russian business associate.
The risks he faced were underscored in 2018 when former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned and seriously sickened with a Soviet-made nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury, where he had been living quietly for years.
The Surrey Police force said officers were called to an address in Godalming on March 4, where “an 86-year-old man was found dead at the property.”
It said counterterrorism officers are leading the investigation, but “the death is not currently being treated as suspicious” and “there is nothing to suggest any increased risk to members of the public.”
FILE - File photo dated 23/04/97 of author Frederick Forsyth, left. with Foyles luncheon chairman Oleg Gordievsky, at the Foyle's Literary,in London. Gordievsky died March 4 in England at the age of 86. (David Cheskin/PA via AP)
Former Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky after receives the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and Saint George from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in London, Oct. 17, 2007. (Martin Keene/PA via AP, file)
FILE- Former Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky after receiving the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and Saint George from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in London, Oct. 17, 2007. (Fiona Hanson/PA via AP, file)
FILE - In this Oct. 26, 1999 file photo, Oleg Gordievsky, a former deputy head of the KGB in London, prepares to testify before a House Armed Services Subcommittee in Washington. He died March 4 in England at the age of 86. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, File)
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed more than 65 Palestinians over the past day, including women and children, the Gaza Health Ministry said Monday. In less than a week of air and ground operations since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas, its forces have killed hundreds of people in Gaza — sending the death toll from 17 months of war soaring above 50,000.
Meanwhile, officials say Egypt has introduced a new proposal to try and get the ceasefire back on track.
Hamas would release five living hostages, including an American-Israeli, in return for Israel allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza and a weekslong pause in the fighting, an Egyptian official said Monday. Israel would also release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
A Hamas official said the group had “responded positively” to the proposal, without elaborating. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media on the closed-door talks.
— By Samy Magdy in Cairo
Here's the latest:
Air raid sirens and explosions were heard over Jerusalem on Monday evening after the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have fired a handful of long-range missiles at Israel in the days since Israeli forces resumed the war in Gaza. There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Houthis.
The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, in a letter to the U.N. Security Council, referred to “baseless accusations” and threats by senior U.S. administration officials and President Donald Trump against Iran while trying to justify what he said were unlawful attacks against Yemen.
Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani warned that “any act of aggression will have severe consequences, for which the United States will bear full responsibility.”
He said Iran will “resolutely defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests under international law against any hostile action.”
The U.S. has launched a series of airstrikes against strongholds of Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who have disrupted international maritime trade by targeting ships in the Red Sea.
He urged the Security Council to speak out against the U.S. “blatant provocations.” But since the U.S. has veto power in the council, there is no chance of that happening.
Two rockets were intercepted after crossing into Israeli territory next to the Gaza Strip, setting off air raid sirens on Monday evening, the Israeli military said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group, claimed responsibility for firing a barrage of rockets toward the area of southern Israel bordering Gaza.
Militants in Gaza have fired a handful of rockets at Israel in the days since it broke the ceasefire, which have been intercepted or fell in open areas. Islamic Jihad is the smaller of Gaza's two main Palestinian militant groups.
An Israeli strike killed at least five people including two women in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Health Ministry’s emergency service said. The strike Monday afternoon hit a house in the Qisan al-Najjar area, south of Khan Younis, it said.
The United Nations said Monday it will “reduce its footprint” in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli tank strike hit one of its compounds, killing one staffer and wounding five others last week.
Israel has denied it was behind the March 19 explosion at the U.N. guesthouse in central Gaza. In a statement Monday, U.N. Secretary-General spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that “based on the information currently available,” the strikes on the site “were caused by an Israeli tank.”
The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Dujarric also said the U.N. would be cutting back about a third of its approximately 100 international staffers in Gaza. He said the U.N. “is not leaving Gaza,” pointing out that it still has about 13,000 national staff in Gaza, mainly working for UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.
The U.N. “has made taken the difficult decision to reduce the Organization’s footprint in Gaza, even as humanitarian needs soar,” he said. The move comes as Israel has cut off all food, fuel, medicine and other supplies to Gaza’s around 2 million people for more than three weeks.
“Violence feeds more violence,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday at a briefing in Jerusalem, where she met with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, less than a week after Israel broke the ceasefire in Gaza.
“What we are witnessing now is a dangerous escalation. It is causing unbearable uncertainty for the hostages and their families and is likewise causing horror and death for the Palestinian people,” she added.
Saar said the “war can end tomorrow with releasing our hostages, the demilitarization of Gaza and the withdrawal of the armed Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces.”
The building was hit “by an explosive projectile despite being clearly marked and notified to all parties,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement decrying the attack Monday.
No staff members were hurt, but damage to the office in Rafah “has a direct impact on the ICRC’s ability to operate” at a time when the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah is treating casualties from the war, the statement said.
The ICRC statement did not say who might’ve been responsible for attacking their office. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the strike. Israeli forces have been advancing into Rafah in recent days.
Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite news network says one of its Palestinian freelance reporters, Hossam Shabat, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his car in northern Gaza.
Shabat was killed Monday while covering the war for the broadcaster’s Arabic-language TV channel, the network said. He had been wounded by an Israeli strike last November, the network reported at the time.
Another Palestinian journalist was killed in a separate Israeli airstrike earlier Monday in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital. Mohammed Mansour was a correspondent for the news website Palestine Today.
Al Jazeera is one of the few international media outlets to remain in Gaza throughout the war. The channel is owned by Qatar, which alongside Egypt and the U.S. has been a key negotiator for the ceasefire.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike that killed Shabat.
Israel has accused other Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza of being Palestinian militants. The channel denies the accusations and says Israel is trying to silence journalists covering the war.
An Israeli anti-settlement group says there has been an “unprecedented surge” in approvals for new settler homes in the occupied West Bank since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office.
During his first term, Trump strongly backed Israel’s claims to territories seized in war, at times upending decades of American foreign policy. Previous administrations have admonished Israel over settlement expansion while taking little action to curb it.
The Peace Now group, which closely tracks settlement growth, said Monday that plans for 10,503 housing units in the West Bank have been advanced since the start of the year, compared to just 9,971 in all of 2024. It says another 1,344 homes are set to be approved on Wednesday.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements that are now home to over 500,000 settlers with Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military says a senior Hamas leader killed in a strike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip was in charge of the group’s finances.
Ismail Barhoum was killed in an Israeli strike late Sunday on Nasser Hospital, where Hamas said he was receiving treatment. The strike also killed a teenage boy recovering from surgery.
The military said Monday that Barhoum oversaw Hamas’ finances in Gaza and transferred funds to its military wing. It said he was also serving as the head of Hamas’ government in Gaza after replacing another senior official killed in a strike last week.
Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani denied that Barhoum was receiving medical treatment in the hospital, saying he had been there for weeks meeting with other senior militants.
Israel has killed most of Hamas’ top leaders and scores of mid-level commanders during the 17-month war. The group was still able to quickly reassert control over the territory during a ceasefire that took hold in January.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday the bodies of 61 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
Hospitals also received 143 wounded, it said in its daily report.
The overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war rose to at least 50,082, the ministry said. Another 113,408 have been wounded, it said. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The Palestinian Civil Defense agency says it has lost contact with six of its members who went on a rescue mission in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The emergency workers group said its members along with others from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society went to Rafah on Sunday morning after receiving calls that Israeli troops entered the area of Hashasheen in western Rafah. It added in a statement Monday that since then, there has been no word from the paramedics.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that on Sunday, contact was lost with emergency medical technicians from its sister organization, the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and their whereabouts remain unknown.
Palestinian medics say an Israeli strike hit a school where displaced people were sheltering in the Gaza Strip, killing at least four people, including a child.
Another 18 people were wounded in Monday’s strike in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. Three other hospitals had earlier reported 25 deaths from Israeli strikes overnight and into Monday.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.
Israeli officials say an attacker in a vehicle ran over several people at a bus stop in northern Israel before opening fire, killing a man in his 70s.
Police said officers shot and killed the attacker, whose identity was not immediately disclosed. Police referred to it as a terrorist attack, indicating they believe the assailant was a Palestinian militant.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said a man in his 70s was killed and another man, around 20 years old, was taken to a hospital in serious condition.
There has been a surge in Palestinian attacks since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel ignited the war in the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank during wide-scale military operations, and there has also been a rise in attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians.
Thousands of people are trapped in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after Israeli forces encircled part of it on Sunday, Palestinian officials said.
Israel ordered the evacuation of the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, telling people to leave by a single route on foot to Muwasi, a sprawling cluster of tent camps along the coast.
Thousands fled, but residents said many were trapped by Israeli forces.
The Rafah municipality said Monday that thousands were still trapped, including first responders from the Civil Defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government, and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Israel’s defense minister says it is trying to avoid harming civilians as it strikes Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Israel Katz’s statement came nearly a week after Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise wave of strikes that killed hundreds of Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health officials.
Katz said Monday that “Israel is not fighting the civilians in Gaza and is doing everything that international law requires to mitigate harm to civilians.”
He went on to blame Hamas for any civilian deaths, saying the militant group “fights in civilian dress, from civilian homes, and from behind civilians,” putting them in danger.
He said Israel would not halt its offensive until Hamas releases all its hostages and is no longer in control of Gaza or a threat to Israel.
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians, including several women and children, according to three hospitals. The strikes come nearly a week after Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas with a surprise bombardment that killed hundreds.
Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City received 11 bodies from strikes overnight into Monday, including three women and four children. One of the strikes killed two children, their parents, their grandmother and their uncle.
Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis received seven bodies from strikes overnight and four from strikes the previous day. The European Hospital received three bodies from a strike near Khan Younis.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that the Palestinian death toll from the 17-month war has passed 50,000. It has said that women and children make up more than half the dead but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Israel says it has killed some 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
An American trauma surgeon working in Gaza says most of the patients injured in an Israeli attack on the largest hospital in southern Gaza had been previously wounded when Israel resumed airstrikes last week.
Californian surgeon Feroze Sidhwa, who is working with the medical charity MedGlobal, said Monday he had been in the intensive care unit at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis when an airstrike hit surgical wards on Sunday.
Most of the injured had been recovering from wounds suffered in airstrikes last week when Israel resumed the war, he said.
“They were already trauma patients and now they’ve been traumatized for a second time,” Sidhwa, who was raised in Flint, Mich., told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Sidhwa said he had operated on a man and boy days before who died in the attack.
Palestinians carry the body of Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas' political bureau who was killed in an Israeli army strike on Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A Yemeni inspects the damage of a destroy building following U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo)
A Yemeni walks over the debris of a destroyed building after it was struck by U.S. airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo)
Palestinians carry the body of Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas' political bureau who was killed is an Israeli army strike of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry the body of Ismail Barhoum, a member of Hamas' political bureau who was killed is an Israeli army strike of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Members of the Abu Aker family mourn over the bodies of their relatives killed during an Israeli army strike before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Members of the Al-Kahlout family mourn over the bodies of their relatives killed during an Israeli army strike before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Naanaa Abu Aker holds the body of her 2-year-old niece Salma, killed during an Israeli army strike, before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Mahmoud Al-Sayfi, 13, right with blue shirt, is comforted by relatives as he mourns both his parents killed during an Israeli army strike before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Members of the Abu Aker mourn over the bodies of their relatives killed during an Israeli army strike, before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Nasma Al-Saifi kisses the wrapped body of her nephew, Khaled, who was killed during an Israeli army strike, before his burial at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Members of the Al-Kahlout family mourn over the bodies of their relatives killed during an Israeli army strike before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Members of the Al-Kahlout family mourn over the bodies of their relatives killed during an Israeli army strike before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Amani Abu Aker holds the body of her 2-year-old niece Salma, killed during an Israeli army strike, before their burial at the Baptist hospital in Gaza City, Monday, March 24, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Rescue workers inspect a room at Nasser hospital after it was hit by a targeted Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammad Jahjouh)
Rescue workers inspect a room at Nasser hospital after it was hit by a targeted Israeli army strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Mohammad Jahjouh)
Displaced Palestinians, who flee from Rafah amidst ongoing Israeli military operations following Israel's renewed offensive in the Gaza Strip, arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Mourners react next to the body of their relative Ahmed Al Shaer who was killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip as he brought for burial at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
