Talk:Vladimir Putin/KGB
KGB career
In 1975, Putin joined the KGB, and trained at the 401st KGB school in Okhta, Leningrad.
He then worked in the Second Chief Directorate (
counter-intelligence), before he was transferred to the First Chief Directorate, where among he monitored foreigners and consular officials in Leningrad.[1][2]
From 1985 to 1990, Putin served in Dresden, East Germany,[3] using a cover identity as a translator.[4]
According to his official biography, during the Fall of the Berlin Wall, he burned KGB files to prevent demonstrators from obtaining them.[5]
After the
Leningrad State University, reporting to Vice-Rector Yuriy Molchanov.[2] There he looked for new KGB recruits, and watched the student body. There he renewed his friendship with his former professor, Anatoly Sobchak, then mayor of Leningrad.[6]
Putin resigned with the rank of
the KGB-supported abortive putsch against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.[7] Putin said: "As soon as the coup began, I immediately decided which side I was on", although he also noted that the choice was hard because he had spent the best part of his life with "the organs".[8] In 1999, he described communism as "a blind alley, far away from the mainstream of civilization".[9]
- ^ (Sakwa 2008, pp. 8–9)
- ^ a b Hoffman, David (30 January 2000). "Putin's Career Rooted in Russia's KGB". The Washington Post.
- ^ "Putin set to visit Dresden, the place of his work as a KGB spy, to tend relations with Germany". International Herald Tribune. 9 October 2006. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ISBN 1594488428. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
- ^ "Vladimir Putin, The Imperialist". Time. 10 December 2014. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
- ^ ISBN 9780415407656. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
- ^ R. Sakwa Putin: Russia's Choice, pp. 10–11
- ^ R. Sakwa Putin: Russia's Choice, p. 11
- ^ Remick, David. "Watching the Eclipse". The New Yorker (11 August 2014). Retrieved 3 August 2014.