Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko (Russian: Виталий Сергеевич Юрченко; born May 2, 1936) is a former high-ranking KGB disinformation officer in the Soviet Union.

Upon his defection to the United States, Yurchenko identified two American intelligence officers as KGB agents: Ronald Pelton and Edward Lee Howard.

In November 1985, before eating a meal at Au Pied de Cochon, a French restaurant in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Yurchenko told his CIA guard, "I'm going for a walk.

The KGB was reported to have secretly interrogated Yurchenko after his return, under the influence of a truth drug, to ensure he had not been recruited by the CIA as a double agent.

[6] In his 2007 Yale University Press book, "Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games" former CIA officer Tennent H. Bagley says Yurchenko was a false defector sent to the U.S. to draw suspicion away from Aldrich Ames, to "verify" the bona fides of false defector Yuri Nosenko, and to confirm the importance of spies John Anthony Walker and his son, Michael.