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
KGB meeting. After the two-hour meeting they began to worry that Amin will establish an Islamic Republic in Afghanistan and decided to seek a way to put Karmal back in. They brought him and three other ministers secretly to Moscow during which time they discussed how to put him back in power. The decision was to fly him back to Bagram airbase by 13 December. Four days later, Amin's nephew, Asadullah, was taken to Moscow by the KGB for acute food poisoning treatment. On 19 November 1979, the KGB had a meeting on which they discussed Operation Cascade, which was launched