Maria Dobrova

Maria Dmitriyevna Dobrova (Мария Дмитриевна Доброва; 1907-1962) - Soviet military intelligence officer, Captain of the Soviet Army, GRU officer, working illegally in the United States.

Maria Dobrova was born in Minsk, Russia in 1907. She worked as a translator for the Soviet military advisers during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.

She worked as a nurse at the hospital during the World War II in Leningrad.

Dobrova working by referent in the Soviet Embassy in Colombia from 1946 to 1950.

In 1951 she was invited to work in the Main Intelligence Directorate of Soviet Army (GRU).

After special training, she went by the name of Glen Morrero Podtseski in the US in May 1954. In New York, she opened her fitness facilities. In a short time the salon become a very respectable institution. Her beauty salon in New York, was visited by wives of American politicians and businessmen.

During her tenure in the US Maria recruited several important agents.

Soviet spy Dmitri Polyakov, who worked for the Americans, handed over information about Maria Dobrova to FBI agents in 1962.

When FBI agents entered her hotel room, Maria refused to surrender and jumped from the balcony of a hotel in Chicago in June 1962.

The GRU for 26 years knew nothing about the fate of Maria Dobrova.

It became known only after the arrest of Dmitri Polyakov in Moscow in July 1986.