The 1981 Lubyanka raid occurred on 9 March 1981 when a team of American CIA "Black Ops" operatives, aided by KGB defector Dimitri Belikov, infiltrated the KGB headquarters at Moscow's Lubyanka building and retrieved files on the "Perseus" sleeper cells in the United States and Europe. The American intruders killed dozens of Soviet Army troops and Spetsnaz operatives in an incident that, if publicized, may have led to the outbreak of all-out war between the USA and the USSR.
History[]
In 1981, the Soviet spymaster "Perseus", a hardline Stalinist, made use of his agent Anton Volkov's discovery of a hidden American nuclear bomb in Berlin to concoct a plan for a Soviet takeover of Europe. Perseus learned of the United States' top-secret "Operation Greenlight", a contingency plan in which the United States hid nuclear bombs in every European capital so that, in the case of a Soviet invasion of Europe, the United States would deny the continent to the Soviet Army by triggering nuclear explosion in each captured city. Making use of this, Perseus planned to reverse-engineer the captured American nuke to obtain the Greenlight launch codes, which he would broadcast from the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. The explosions across Europe would destroy European public opinion of the United States and create a state of political chaos that would be exploited by Vadim Rudnik's sleeper cells in Europe's parliaments; these communist politicians would come to power and turn Europe towards the Eastern Bloc, leaving the United States isolated.
The CIA accidentally caught wind of Perseus' plans through an interrogation of Iranian terrorist Arash Kadivar, whom they had sought to apprehend for his role in the Iran hostage crisis; through Kadivar, they learned that Perseus planned to inflame Europe, and that his plot was already in motion. From January to March 1981, the CIA operated against Perseus' spy ring from a West Berlin safehouse, learning of his theft of an American nuke from Anton Volkov, of Greenlight after raiding a Soviet base in Ukraine, and of Perseus' erasure of Nikita Dragovich's data on Soviet sleeper cells at Mount Yamantau. This forced the Americans to consider a raid on the KGB headquarters at Moscow's Lubyanka Building if they were to obtain the identities of Perseus' sleeper cells in the United States and Europe. CIA Directorate of Operations deputy strategist Emerson Black determined that the CIA had to find the information in the Lubyanka Building, where the data had not yet been erased, as it was possible that Perseus was unable to access the building due to the lack of Soviet authorization for his plans. The CIA planned to make use of their mole inside the KGB, KGB head of security Dimitri Belikov, to insert operatives Russell Adler and "Bell" into the Lubyanka building, copy the KGB sleeper cell files to a floppy disk, and escape back to America.
On 9 March, after Belikov returned to Moscow, the CIA planned its daring raid on the KGB headquarters. The CIA discovered that the sleeper agent records were stored int he archives 100 feet below ground in a nuclear defense command bunker, and the only way in or out would be through a high security elevator. Belikov provided Adler and Bell with forged documents to get them access to the building, but Belikov faced increased security measures at the headquarters before he could help the Americans. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev took an interest in the new security development, and he assigned CPSU secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to have Imran Zakhaev of the First Chief Directorate oversee Colonel Lev Kravchenko's investigation into a mole within the KGB. After Zakhaev revealed that General Anton Charkov would be the only man left with a bunker key, Belikov accessed the server room, silently killed any guards he came across, and remapped his communications with the CIA to Charkov and printed the false evidence before delivering it to Kravchenko. Kravchenko, believing Charkov to be the traitor, stripped him of his bunker key, which Belikov secretly took. He then accessed the prison level, ostensibly for a security sweep, and lured two soldiers into the tunnels to enable Adler and Bell to steal KGB uniforms.
The fighting between the Americans and Soviets
Adler and Bell snuck in through a furnace door, and they ambushed two Soviet guards before stealing their uniforms and pretending to report to Commander Sobol as they passed through Soviet checkpoints. Belikov pretended to search their bags at the checkpoint to guarantee them entry, and the two agents entered the elevator, to be joined by Zakhaev. Zakhaev questioned their purpose and their identities, and they said that they reported to Sobol; Zakhaev, who had an appointment with Sobol, told the men that he would send Sobol their regards, and left the elevator at a level above the CIA's destination. When the CIA agents reached the bunker, the retrieved their assault rifles from a duffel bag, took off their uniforms, and proceeded to engage the Soviet soldiers with live fire. The Americans fought their way through the guards, copied the Soviets' information on sleeper agents from the main computer to a disk, and escaped through the bunker, made it to the elevator, donned body armor, and shot their way out of the main level of KGB headquarters, leaving dozens dead as the heavily-armored Americans blasted the Soviets with miniguns. The Americans escaped in CIA operative Lazar Azoulay's car, returning to base with their intel. The Americans used the sleeper cell data to identify one of the agents as Greenlight scientist Theodore Hastings, who had recently traveled to a compound in the Cuban countryside; the CIA determined that the stolen nuke must be stored at the Cuban compound, resulting in a raid on Cuba shortly afer.