Vladimir Putin is not the elite Soviet spy the world believed him to be, an investigation conducted by the German newspaper Der Spiegel revealed this Monday.
Stories about Putin’s exploits as an intelligence officer in the 1980s vary, but it was a period shrouded in mystery as the Russian president never commented on the matter. However, many stories portray him as a heroic figure, such as meeting members of the Red Army, a terrorist group responsible for many kidnappings and murders, and single-handedly protecting KGB offices from looters. In West Germany. 7
However, according to the Teutonic publication, most of Putin’s work is limited to “ordinary” administrative tasks. According to one of Putin’s former colleagues at the KGB office in Dresden, “his job was to tirelessly review requests for visits from West German relatives or look for informants among foreign students at the University of Dresden”.
According to the study, Putin is rarely mentioned in Stasi records – the name of the East German secret police. When he is mentioned, it is only in connection with his birthday or administrative duties, providing no evidence of popular stories.
Horst Zemlich, a former Stasi officer who worked in Dresden, assured ‘Der Spiegel’ that Putin was nothing more than a “wrong guy”.
Putin served in the Soviet Union’s intelligence service, the KGB, for nearly two decades. He moved to Dresden, East Germany, in 1985, four years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, which marked the end of the Cold War and a major step toward German reunification in 1990.
Officially, he retired from active KGB service with the rank of lieutenant colonel. But Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB officer and staunch critic of Putin, has already asserted that the Russian president lied and was “a bigot.”
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