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 (video game) title Conspiracy, which included clips of Rukov's father played by Donald Sutherland giving advice. In the CD version, all references to "KGB" within the game and manual were changed to "Conspiracy". The game is set in the summer of 1991. The protagonist, Captain Maksim Mikahilovich Rukov, recently transferred to the Department P from the GRU after three years' duty, is ordered to investigate possible corruption inside the KGB after a former agent turned private eye was found murdered. However, as the plot progresses, Rukov finds himself investigating a political plot of dangerous proportions. Captain Maksim Mikhailovich Rukov was born on