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Russian President Vladimir Putin has been portrayed as an elite KGB intelligence officer within the Eighties.
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However a brand new report from Der Spiegel suggests he was by no means the tremendous spy he was regarded as.
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His position concerned primarily “banal” administrative duties akin to sorting via journey functions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was possible by no means the elite Soviet spy that the world has been led to imagine, an investigaton by the German information outlet Der Spiegel has revealed.
Tales of Putin’s exploits as an intelligence officer throughout the Eighties range, and it’s an period considerably shrouded in thriller, as he has by no means commented on the interval himself.
However many tales have painted him as a heroic determine, who, amongst different issues, single-handedly defended the KGB’s places of work from looters and carried out top-secret secret missions akin to assembly with members of the Pink Military Faction, a terrorist group that wreaked havoc in West Germany and dedicated a collection of kidnappings and assassinations.
However based on Der Spiegel’s report, the vast majority of Putin’s work was truly restricted to “banal” administrative duties.
Citing considered one of Putin’s former colleagues on the KGB’s Dresden workplace, it says his “work consisted primarily of endlessly reviewing functions for West German kin’ visits or looking for potential informants amongst international college students at Dresden College.”
The report says that Putin isn’t talked about in Stasi — the title of the East German secret police — information. In people who do reference him, it’s only with regard to issues like his birthday or administrative duties, none present proof to again up the tales talked about beforehand.
Horst Jehmlich, a former Stasi officer who additionally labored in Dresden, instructed Der Spiegel that Putin was nothing greater than an “errand boy.”
Putin labored for the KGB, the Soviet Union’s intelligence service, for practically 20 years. He moved to Dresden, in East Germany, in 1985 — a time when the nation was on its final legs.
Simply 4 years later, the Berlin Wall fell, marking the start of the tip of the Chilly Warfare and taking an enormous step in the direction of the reunification of Germany in 1990.
Formally he retired from lively KGB service with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
However Oleg Kalugin, a former high-ranking KGB officer and fierce critic of Putin, instructed an interview with RFE/RL in 2015 that the would-be chief of Russia had lied and was”only a main.”
Learn the unique article on Enterprise Insider
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