I am aware of Operation Paperclip and it's Japanese counterpart, but was there a similar program of collecting Soviet technical experts after the end of the Cold War?

by saddetective87

After 1945 the British and American governments recruited and hid members of the Nazi research teams in physics, biology, chemistry, electronics, rocketry, and other areas. These scientists helped the Americans in starting the NASA satellite and rocket programs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

restricteddata

I don't know of any similar program of trying to recruit experts from the former Soviet Union, though some did end up working in the states. There were programs, however, to make sure the experts in the nuclear weapons fields didn't fall on too hard times in Russia, because there was a fear they would sell their knowledge and services to the highest bidder. The Nunn-Lugar Act (1991) was the main means of this effort — trying to find ways to take the massive Soviet weapons/defense industry and making sure that the collapse of the USSR did not mean a proliferation of weapons experts, of selling weapons to other countries, or the theft of material.