from the time he began studying german
in high school vladimir putin probably
already had his sights on joining the
kgb he got his wish and way more this is
the story of putin's kgb career a career
that took him right into the kremlin as
president of russia
vladimir vladimorovich putin was born in
saint petersburg russia then known as
leningrad on october 7 1952. although
his parents maria shalamova and vladimir
spiridonovich putin had two other sons
they both died as young children as a
result according to childhood biography
they became protected parents who did
the best they could to keep putin alive
and well both parents worked in
factories after the second world war and
putin himself claimed in his official
state biography that he came from quote
an ordinary family
it was a simple upbringing a communist
upbringing his father was a party member
while his grandfather used to be
stalin's chef his childhood involved
practicing judo and reading spy novels
by the age of 14 he was excelling
academically and was admitted to the
prestigious school number 281 for high
school where he began studying the
german language intellectual takeout
reveals that around the same time putin
decided to have a go at becoming a spy
and went to a local kgb branch after
asking for an appointment to discuss his
future career the receptionist put him
in touch with a dutiful senior agent who
advised him to join the military or
study law but in any event not to
contact the agency again five years
later putin followed the senior agent's
advice and went to study law at
leningrad state university
while at university putin met anatoly
savchak one of his law professors who
would become important in his future
political career during his final year
at leningrad state university putin was
finally contacted by the kgb after being
put on a probationary track he
officially joined the agency after
graduating in 1975. a wilson quarterly
article that once in future russia
explains that initially putin was
relegated to a local leningrad branch
rather than being given quote a more
desirable foreign post former kgb agent
oleg kolungjin claimed that all that
office did was harass dissidents and
ordinary citizens as well as hunt
futilely for spies and despite the
millions of rupauls and thousands of
man-hours spent between 1960 and 1980
not a single spy was caught by the local
leningrad kgb putin was a quote
low-level cog radio free europe reports
that putin's work with the leningrad
branch mainly consisted of recruiting
foreigners who came to the soviet union
and soviet citizens who communicated
with foreigners or were going abroad in
1983 putin married ludmila alexandrova
chakrevniva who worked as a flight
attendant for aeroflot at the time
the kgb which stands for kamitet gazu
darst vanoy bezu pasnosti was the soviet
union's intelligence agency security
agency and secret police rolled into one
although the modern kgb was established
in 1954 it had its roots in the cheka
established by vladimir lenin in 1917.
according to pbs the kgb had their hands
in everything from running the gulag
labor camps to engaging in espionage the
agency conducted assassinations as well
with nearly untraceable poison often a
go-to weapon according to big think the
atlantic reports that vladimir putin was
recruited to the kgb by yuri and
drop-off then chairman of the kgbe as
part of the agency's attempt to bring in
people from different societal groups
during the 1970s and dropoff developed a
recruitment scheme to bring some new
perspectives into the kgb and create an
atmosphere for finding new ideas and
dealing with the state's myriad problems
in 1985 putin received a foreign posting
working in dresden east germany under
the cover of a translator although
information on his time there is scant
his duties were apparently similar to
those in leningrad the washington post
reports that putin likely sought out
east germans who had a plausible reason
to travel abroad such as professors
journalists scientists and technicians
who could covertly link up with agents
permanently stationed in the west but
according to politico it's possible that
putin had a far more significant role a
former member of the red army faction a
far left german terrorist group active
from 1970 to 1998 claimed that putin
supported their operations since the
organization had difficulty buying
weapons in west germany they'd
reportedly pass a list of weapons off to
putin and his colleagues who would make
sure that an agent in the west would set
up a drop-off in a secret location
however since most of the red army
faction members are either in jail or
dead this claim is difficult to verify
in 2015 however an investigation by
corrective revealed that putin likely
had more authority in dresden than
initially suggested possibly responsible
for a plan that involved blackmailing a
professor with quote pornographic
material there's even a suggestion that
he took part in an operation tasked with
stealing technological secrets though
little is known about putin's dresden
assignments he was rising through the
ranks of the kgb during his time in east
germany the moscow times reveals that by
1990 he had become a lieutenant colonel
and the year before had been given a
bronze medal for quote outstanding
service to the east german national
people's army
the kgb was closely intertwined with the
state security service or statsy of the
german democratic republic or east
germany the statsi participated in their
own intelligence and secret police
activities but the tie between the two
services was so close that stats
officers were considered quote czechus
of the soviet union according to author
john o kohler east germany was also
significant for the kgb because it lay
on the front lines of the cold war it
was a place where agents could cross
from one side to the other and it held
more than 300 000 soviet troops and an
assortment of soviet intermediate-ranged
missiles according to a statsy defector
the gdr could do nothing without
coordination with the soviets the
statsi's surveillance operations were
instrumental for the kgb monitoring
hundreds of thousands of german citizens
the satsis amassed millions of documents
and the kgb kept tabs on those who could
take justifiable trips abroad in the
secret statsi files over 10 000 people
were marked as being quote of interest
to the kgb according to the new york
times in 2018 putin's statsy photo id
card was even discovered in german
archives and although this doesn't imply
that putin worked directly for the
statsy it proves that putin had access
to the statsy's headquarters in dresden
most likely for recruiting locals for
his intelligence work
as the berlin wall came crumbling down
the tides started to turn it took a
month but eventually the protests
reached dresden time magazine reveals
that in 1989 german protesters gathered
outside vladimir putin's office and
threatened to storm the building calling
for an end to the soviet-backed
government in his official biography
putin claimed that he frantically
requested instructions from moscow but
received no reply the bbc reports that
putin and his kgb colleagues decided in
lieu of official instructions they
should simply burn all evidence of their
work putin himself recalls i personally
burned a huge amount of material we
burned so much that the furnace burst
according to russia beyond the most
prized documents went to moscow but
everything else went up in flames
although putin realized that the gdr's
collapse was quote inevitable according
to the atlantic what he regretted was
the fact that the soviet union had lost
its position in europe although
intellectually i understood that a
position based on walls and water
barriers cannot exist forever but i
wanted something different to rise in
its place and nothing different was
proposed that's what hurt
the fall of the soviet union in 1991
coming shortly after the end of
communist rule in east germany was for
putin and like-minded colleagues a
crisis of epic proportions
when i say that the fall of the ussr was
one of the greatest catastrophes of the
20th century i'm talking about a
humanitarian catastrophe above all
by 1991 putin had returned with his
family to saint petersburg and retired
from the kgb but in 2004 he claimed that
there is no such thing as a former kgb
man
on returning to the soviet union putin
initially planned on doing a doctoral
dissertation and working at leningrad
state university but after his former
professor anatoly subchuk was elected
may 1991 putin joined his team as an
advisor and quote head of external
relations but according to the two
worlds of vladimir putin putin also
continued his work as a spy dw reports
that putin started working for the saint
petersburg city hall one year before
sopchalk's election and from his
earliest days there his work came under
scrutiny when it was discovered that
putin had permitted the sale of highly
undervalued steel in exchange for
foreign food aid that never arrived an
investigation recommended that putin be
fired but his termination never came
from march 1994 to 1996 putin served as
sub check's deputy mayor putin was
incredibly loyal to sub check and when
subject narrowly lost the election in
1996 putin left saint petersburg abc
reports that subject continued to be
putin's mentor though gearing him
towards national politics putin soon set
out from moscow and the presidential
administration
in 1997 putin was named deputy chief of
staff to boris yeltsin then president of
russia the following year putin was
named chief of the fsb a successor
organization of the kgb according to
radio free europe in 1993 yeltsin had
tried to dilute the former kgb's power
by taking the veenpel's special forces
unit out of the fsb but two months after
putin became the new director in 1998 he
brought the beanpal unit back under fsb
control before long yeltsin promoted
putin again this time to the position of
prime minister on august 9 1999. at the
time putin was yeltsin's fifth prime
minister in under two years cnn reports
that yeltsin claimed that putin was the
ideal choice to handle a caucasus crisis
putin would eventually stabilize that
crisis many ended up criticizing his
brutal response to the conflicts in
dagestan and chechnya it was clear
though from the beginning that yeltsin
wanted putin as his successor and on
december 31 1999 as yeltsin resigned he
named putin acting president the secret
agent who became president
as acting president one of the first
things putin did was pardon yeltsin of
charges of corruption that had dogged
him when he resigned the resignation
meanwhile had triggered elections for
march 26 2000. although putin had
arrived on the political scene as a
relatively unknown face thoughtco
explains that his law and order platform
and decisive handling of the second
chechen war as acting president soon
pushed his popularity beyond that of his
rivals and when the polls closed putin
was elected to the presidency with 53
percent of the vote according to der
spiegel after being elected in 2000
putin went to the old kgb headquarters
in moscow and joked to 300 former
colleagues instruction number one of the
attaining of full power has been
completed after becoming president putin
stayed loyal to his kgb roots time
magazine reported in 2015 that the group
of generals and kgb veterans in putin's
inner circle had started to hold sway
over russian politics according to the
atlantic during a national security
council meeting in 2016 six of the eight
people in attendance were kgb veterans
putin wasn't the only ex-kgb agent to
become the head of an ex-soviet republic
herrera aliyev the third president of
azerbaijan was the head of the kgb's
azerbaijani branch before becoming
president
there's considerable speculation as to
how much putin's career in the kgb
influences his decision as president
today many of his outspoken critics have
ended up poisoned or murdered a tactic
often utilized by the kgb npr writes
proven or not the radioactive death of
vocal kremlin critic alexander
litvinenko hangs like a cloud over
putin's head meanwhile the murder of
anna politkovskaya is thought by some to
have been a way to silence her reporting
which according to rfi exposed the
russian president as a power-hungry
product of his own kgb history let me
give you some names and anna
polikovskaya shot dead alexander
litvinenko poisoned by polonium
sergey magninsky some outlets like
foreign policy claim that with the fsb
putin has essentially brought the kgb
back into existence even its full name
the ministry of state security was the
same name given to stalin's secret
service which operated from 1943 to 1953
and by combining domestic surveillance
with foreign espionage under putin the
fsb has operationally returned to its
kgb brutes in the end even though the
soviet union fell as catherine belton
writes the institutions the security men
worked in did not break down nor did
their personal networks disappear having
seen what mass uprisings can accomplish
in germany and his time as president
putin has been quick to suppress dissent
as first post reports putin's security
forces crushed a wave of anti-government
demonstrations in 2012. currently the
russian president repeatedly jails
opposition leaders and activists
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