On 5 December 1991, Senator Jesse Helms, ranking member of the Minority on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote to Boris Yeltsin concerning U.S. servicemen who were POWs or MIAs. "The status of thousands and thousands of American servicemen who are held by Soviet and other Communist forces, and who were never repatriated after every major war this century, is of grave concern to the American people."[35]
Yeltsin would ultimately respond with a statement made on 15 June 1992, while being interviewed aboard his presidential jet on his way to the United States, "Our archives have shown that it is true — some of them were transferred to the territory of the U.S.S.R. and were kept in labour camps... We can only surmise that some of them may still be alive."[35] On 10 December 1991, just five days after Senator Helms had written Yeltsin concerning American servicemen, he again wrote to Yeltsin, this time concerning Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KAL 007) requesting information concerning possible survivors, including Congressman from Georgia Larry McDonald, and their whereabouts.
"One of the greatest tragedies of the Cold War was the shoot-down of the Korean Airlines Flight 007 by the Armed Forces of what was then the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983... The KAL-007 tragedy was one of the most tense incidences of the entire Cold War. However, now that relations between our two nations have improved substantially, I believe that it is time to resolve the mysteries surrounding this event. Clearing the air on this issue could help further to improve relations." In March 1992, Yeltsin would hand over KAL 007's Black Box without its tapes to Korean President Roh Tae-Woo at the end of the plenary session of the Korean National Assembly with this statement, "We apologise for the tragedy and are trying to settle some unsolved issues."[this quote needs a citation]
Yeltsin released the tapes of the KAL 007's "Black Box" (its Digital Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder) to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the 8th January 1993.[36] For years the Soviet authorities had denied possessing these tapes.
The openness of Yeltsin about POW/MIA and KAL 007 matters may also have signalled his willingness for more openness to the West. In 1992, which he labelled the "window of opportunity", he was willing to discuss biological weapons with the U.S. and admitted that the Sverdlovsk anthrax leak of 2 April 1979 had been caused as a result of a mishap at a military facility.[37][38] The Russian government had maintained that the cause was contaminated meat. The true number of victims in the anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, about 850 miles (1,368 km) east of Moscow, is not known.