From the Volkov Protocol

KGB Directorate S: what it was, what it did and does it still exist

Q: Who led Directorate S?

The best known name is Major General Yuri Drozdov, who ran the illegals program from 1979 to 1991. Before that he headed the Soviet station in New York, and in 1962 he stood on the Berlin bridge when Colonel Rudolf Abel was traded for the American pilot Francis Gary Powers. Drozdov also helped create the Vympel special unit in 1981. He died in 2017, aged 91, according to the SVR, the agency that inherited this part of the KGB.

Updated October 2026 · Volkov Protocol

Directorate S was the KGB department that ran the illegals: Soviet officers who lived abroad with a false name, false papers and an invented past, with no official link to any embassy. It sat inside the First Chief Directorate, the KGB branch for espionage outside the Soviet Union.

What did Directorate S do?

It selected, trained and ran the illegals. It built each one's legend (the invented life story), arranged documents, sent the officer to the target country and kept in touch for years. Some illegals stayed under cover for up to two decades, sometimes using identities taken from children who had died.

Why was Directorate S so secret?

A legal spy works under diplomatic cover and, if caught, is simply expelled. An illegal has no such protection: if caught, he goes to prison. That is why each illegal's identity was hidden even from other parts of the KGB.

Who led Directorate S?

The best known name is Major General Yuri Drozdov, who ran the illegals program from 1979 to 1991. Before that he headed the Soviet station in New York, and in 1962 he stood on the Berlin bridge when Colonel Rudolf Abel was traded for the American pilot Francis Gary Powers. Drozdov also helped create the Vympel special unit in 1981. He died in 2017, aged 91, according to the SVR, the agency that inherited this part of the KGB.

What were the most famous cases?

Rudolf Abel (real name William Fisher): lived in New York as the photographer Emil Goldfus, was arrested in 1957 and exchanged in 1962 (Britannica).
Jack Barsky (real name Albrecht Dittrich): an East German who reached the United States in 1978 with the birth certificate of a boy who had died in 1955.
Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley (Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova): a couple who lived in Canada and the United States and inspired the TV series The Americans.

Does Directorate S still exist?

The KGB ended in 1991, but the illegals program carried on in the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service. In June 2010 the FBI arrested ten Russian illegals in the United States, Anna Chapman among them, and all were sent back to Moscow in a spy swap in Vienna. In 2024 Artem and Anna Dultsev, a couple living in Slovenia as Argentines, went home in a prisoner exchange in Ankara. Their children only learned on the plane that they were Russian (CBS News, 2024).

What does Directorate S have to do with the Volkov Protocol?

The Volkov Protocol tells the story of a colonel, codenamed Volkov, who trained men on the other side of the Iron Curtain. According to that story, the strength and endurance protocol was released only to a few elite spies of Directorate S. The historical facts are on this page. The protocol is on the home page. Read also who the KGB illegals were and the KGB colonels.

The protocol the KGB banned

Volkov explains how to do it, science confirms it.

See the protocol

Secure checkout · 7-day guarantee

Volkov Protocol is the protocol the KGB banned, kept in declassified documents and in the methods of Directorate S, to get the most out of your body at home, with no gym. Here you learn what the KGB was, KGB Directorate S, who the KGB illegals and the KGB colonels were, the questions and answers and whether Volkov Protocol is legit.