Boris Arkadyevich Rybkin (Russian: Борис Аркадьевич Рыбкин) – born Boruch Aronovich Rivkin Russian: Борух Аронович Рывкин; 19 June 1899 – 27 November 1947) was a Soviet diplomat and a secret agent of NKVD. He worked as a junior diplomatic official named Boris Yartsev in the embassy of the Soviet Union in Helsinki.

Career

Rybkin was born Boruch Aronovich Rivkin in Yekaterinoslav Governorate into a Ukrainian Jewish family on June 19, 1899.

Rybkin joined the Soviet secret police OGPU in 1922, and served in the Stalingrad district from 1924 to 1929. In 1931 he was sent to Tashkent in Central Asia, and later to Iran. He also made business trips to France, Bulgaria and Austria.

Starting from September 1935, Rybkin was posted as a second-class secretary to the Soviet embassy in Helsinki. In April 1938, Joseph Stalin gave Rybkin a mission: Rybkin was to start secret negotiations with the Finnish government against the Nazi Germany threat. In reality, the Soviet Union demanded some areas near Leningrad, fortification of the Åland islands, and other issues. The demands changed many times, and the negotiations continued until March 1939 when they ended without result. The Finnish government did not want to give up its neutrality and its territories. Later, Boris Shtein continued negotiations but also without results. The Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939, starting the Winter War.

In 1941, Rybkin moved to the Soviet embassy in Stockholm. He returned to the Soviet Union in Autumn 1943. During World War II, he served as a chief under the NKGB in the Northern Caucasus. Rybkin was an agent at the Yalta Conference in 1945. From February 1947 he served under the MGB.

Rybkin died in a car crash in Czechoslovakia in 1947.