Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s past as a KGB officer has long been part of the mythology around him, both in Russia and the West. In the official narrative, he was a remorseless and resourceful warrior on the ‘hidden battlefield,’ a successor to the fictional Soviet super-spies in the films and TV series that enthused him as a child. To others, in the West, it proves that he is a trained master-manipulator, with the heart of a secret policeman. The truth, of course, is rather more complex, and the recent release of one of his KGB assessments highlights the more prosaic aspects of the job and his record.
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Mark Galeotti: Putin’s declassified KGB record shows he was no high-flier
A view of the headquarters of the FSB security service, the successor to the KGB, in downtown Moscow on Nov. 16, 2018.
