The Kyiv Files
In Ukraine, the former KGB archives have been made accessible to the public. This documentary follows several people who discover that the state was watching them for years.
The KGB archive in Kyiv was made public in 2017, allowing Ukrainians to view their personal dossiers from the Soviet era for the first time. For many older citizens, it was an opportunity to get answers to questions that had been haunting them for decades.
Walter Stokman delves into three very different cases that give an extraordinary glimpse into the methods and reach of the Russian secret service. In one case, they set up a fake military base to capture two Dutch amateur spies. The story of Regine Chivrac shows the KGB’s methods also had a paranoid aspect – while visiting family in Ukraine, she started a relationship with a student who later turned out to be an informer.
Stokman shows how the suspicion of that period echoes through the years to the present, with irreparable damage done to family relationships, a son now fighting against the Russians, and a generation of people who have been on their guard all their lives.