Active reserve (KGB) officers with a military rank who worked undercover in the Soviet Union. "Trusted contacts" were high placed civilians who collaborated with the KGB without signing any official working agreements, such as directors of personnel departments at various institutions, academics, deans, or writers and actors. Informers were citizens secretly recruited by the KGB, sometimes using forceful recruitment methods, such as blackmail. The precise number of people from various categories remains unknown, but one of the estimates was 11 million "informers" in the Soviet Union, or one out of every eighteen adult citizens The active reserve was established by Yuri Andropov in
Fedora (KGB agent) Fedora (KGB agent) Fedora was the codename for Aleksy Isidorovich Kulak (1923–1983), a KGB-agent who infiltrated the United Nations during the Cold War. While working in New York, Kulak contacted the FBI and offered his services. Kulak told his American handlers there was a KGB mole working at the FBI, leading to a decades-long mole hunt that seriously disrupted the agency. It's not clear whether Kulak was acting as a double agent supplying false information or whether his information was legitimate. Kulak was a Soviet war hero, who prior to his work with the Americans was awarded Hero of the