In 1992 , Russian president Boris Yeltsin disclosed five top-secret memos dating from late 1983 , memos that had been written within weeks of the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 . These memos were published in Izvestia number 228 on October 16 , 1992 . According to these memos , the Soviet Union had been able to recover the " Black Box " from KAL 007 and decipher its tapes . Thereafter , Ustinov , along with Viktor Chebrikov , head of the KGB , recommended to premier Yuri Andropov that their possession of the Black Box not be made public since its tapes could not support the Soviet contention that KAL 007 was on a U.S. espionage mission . " In connection with all mentioned above it seems highly preferable not to transfer the flight recorders to the International Civil Aviation Organization ( ICAO ) or any third party willing to decipher their contents . The fact that the recorders are in possession of the USSR shall be kept secret . As far as we are aware neither the US nor Japan has any information on the flight recorders . We have made necessary efforts in order to prevent any disclosure of the information in future . " ( Memo 5 . ) On 7 November 1984 , Ustinov did not preside over the annual Red Square Military Parade on the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution . First Deputy Defense Minister Marshal Sergey Sokolov stood in for Ustinov to both inspect the troops and deliver the commemoration speech . Ustinov had contracted pneumonia in late October . Emergency surgery had to be performed to correct an aneurysm in his aortic valve . His liver and kidneys later deteriorated . Eventually , he suffered a cardiac arrest that killed him . He was honored with a state funeral , and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on 24 December 1984
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Dmitry Ustinov