New documents from Russia will appear in the Kennedy assassination case. What you need to know

Russia has handed over to the American authorities documents relating to the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The 350-page dossier will be published soon. This is the second major publication in the last year of declassified documents that shed light on the assassination attempt, overgrown with conspiracy theories. What is known about the Kennedy assassination today is in the Izvestia article.

What documents were handed over to the USA

• Russian Ambassador to the United States Alexander Darchiev received Anna Paulina Luna, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Republican Party, in Washington. At her request, he handed over materials based on declassified Soviet documents related to the investigation of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. Some of these materials had already been received from the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Anastas Mikoyan, when he represented the Soviet Union at the funeral of the politician in 1963.

• Paulina Luna said on social media that the Russian ambassador had given her a 350-page set of documents. According to her, after receiving them, her team will publish them and provide immediate direct access for everyone. Luna noted that the US Congress tried to obtain these files back in the 1990s, but was refused then.

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What can Soviet documents talk about?

• New documents may shed light on the USSR's connection to Lee Harvey Oswald, the main suspect in the Kennedy assassination. Oswald arrived in the Soviet Union in 1959, having previously served as a Marine in the United States. He wanted to obtain Soviet citizenship, but was refused. Nevertheless, he stayed in the USSR and got a job at a factory in Minsk. Oswald studied Russian under the guidance of the future Chairman of the Supreme Council of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich. In 1961, Oswald wanted to return to the United States and did so the following year after he married Marina Prusakova, a student, and they had a daughter, June. Oswald's return to America took place a year and a half before Kennedy's assassination.

• The Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination and issued an official report on it, found no evidence of Soviet involvement in Kennedy's assassination. Declassified documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) include testimony from various Soviet agents, which suggests that the leadership of the Soviet Union did not prepare an assassination attempt. In Moscow, according to the FBI, they feared that Kennedy's assassination would only provoke a rupture in relations between the two countries. Nevertheless, conspiracy theories that Oswald was a Soviet agent and killed Kennedy on orders from the Kremlin remain popular.

• At the same time, the latest files, declassified already during the second term of US President Donald Trump, confirm that the USSR was not involved in the murder. One of the documents dated November 1991 contains information that American professor Albert Smith asked an employee of the State Security Committee (KGB) to check the materials concerning Oswald. Based on the available information, he concluded that Oswald had never been a KGB agent, although he was closely monitored when the future suspect was in the USSR.

How documents change the perception of murder

• Although the main version of the Kennedy assassination has long been determined and has not received any serious refutation, thanks to declassified files, some details are becoming known that complement the picture of what happened. The documents published in 2025 provided a broader look at the actions of American intelligence agencies and their role in the main political assassination of the 20th century.

• Recent publications have revealed that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been monitoring Oswald even before the assassination attempt. In October 1963, a month before the Dallas shootings, the agency intercepted his call to the Soviet embassy in Mexico City. The interception took place due to the fact that CIA agents were monitoring the diplomatic mission and trying to recruit their agents in it.

• One of the new files confirms that the USSR was not involved in the Kennedy assassination. Back on July 18, 1963, Bulgarian Sergey Chernonog informed the British police that Oswald was preparing an assassination attempt on the US president. The man was given this information by the consul of the USSR Embassy in Bulgaria, and he warned the US State Department about it. However, this did not prevent the murder.

The Dark Side of the Country: The Kennedy Files published

The version of the secret services conspiracy is getting more and more evidence.

• In addition to information directly about the murder, the declassified files showed the "inner kitchen" of the American special services. They revealed some of the agents' personal information, contained information about the number of undercover officers in individual countries, and disclosed information about a group within the CIA that was engaged in international arms trafficking to provide armed resistance in countries competing with the United States.

The official version of the Kennedy assassination

• The Warren Commission, consisting of a number of high-ranking American politicians, determined that Kennedy died on November 22, 1963, during a trip to Dallas as a result of an assassination attempt by Oswald. The former marine fired three shots from a 6.5mm Carcano rifle from the sixth floor of the book depository while the president's motorcade was passing nearby on the street. One bullet missed its target, the second entered Kennedy's back and exited through his neck, the third shattered his head and became fatal.

• The Commission was unable to determine Oswald's motivation, but concluded that he acted alone. He was quickly apprehended, but he strongly denied any involvement in the assassination attempt. Oswald managed to tell reporters that he was being made a "scapegoat" because of his residence in the USSR. It was not possible to investigate Oswald's guilt in court, as two days later he himself was killed by Dallas resident Jack Ruby during his transfer to prison.

• The commission's conclusions were not unequivocally accepted by the society. Doubts about the official version began to arise due to a number of inconsistencies: allegedly, the second bullet could not have flown along the trajectory attributed to it, and Oswald physically could not have fired all the shots at a moving car and hit Kennedy exactly in the head. At the same time, some witnesses claimed that they heard more shots, and the sounds from them suggested that there were several shooters.