Records On USSR Collapse
Could Be Declassified By 2021
- According to Chief Of Russian National Archives -
Report from Interfax from March 6, 2008 

Classified documents relating to the collapse of the Soviet Union could be declassified in 2021, chief of the Russian National Archives Vladimir Kozlov said.

"If we talk about the year 1991, then formally, from the legal point of view documents that are classified must be declassified in 2021," Kozlov told journalists on Thursday.

According to Russian laws on state secrecy and archives, documents labeled "confidential" can be made available only 30 years following their issue, he said.

There is a vast number of records from that period that were not classified and are available to the general public, Kozlov said. For instance, the book by Yegor Gaidar entitled "The Fall of the Empire" about the collapse of the USSR is said to be based entirely on those records.