Kremlin pays tribute to late Soviet spy

MOSCOW: The Kremlin has paid tribute to a late Soviet intelligence officer it credits with helping foil a Nazi plot to kill Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt, saying her career may have changed the course of history.

Goar Vartanyan, who died on Monday aged 93, was an undercover field operative for decades.

She allegedly helped thwart a plan backed by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to assassinate the allied leaders at their first “Big Three” conference in Tehran in 1943.

Born in Armenia, Vartanyan moved to Iran in the 1930s where, at the age of 16, she joined an anti-fascist group led by her future husband, Soviet spy Gevork Vartanyan.

The couple went on to work as undercover spies in an array of countries from 1956 to 1986 after which Goar retired and began to train future agents. | Reuters