Russian President Vladimir Putin has always been portrayed to the world as an elite Soviet spy, with the former intelligence officer allegedly conducting top secret and dangerous operations.
But unlike the heroic figure he is painted for, Putin was little more than a KGB “errand boy” who was mostly burdened with trivial paperwork, a report by The mirror has revealed.
Mystery shrouded Putin’s 16 years at the spy agency in the 1980s, but stories have emerged in Russia of the despot holding secret meetings with Red Army Faction terrorists in West Germany and single-handedly defending the offices of the KGB against looters.
Yet Putin’s former KGB colleagues paint a completely different picture, one of them says that the now Russian president was mainly concerned with ‘banal’ administrative tasks.
Indeed, some have suggested that his service with the KGB on the friendly lawn of Dresden in East Germany showed that he had not been very competent as an intelligence agent.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured in the Kremlin on Tuesday) has always been portrayed to the world as an elite Soviet spy, with the former intelligence officer allegedly conducting top secret and dangerous operations.
Vladimir Putin pictured in his KGB uniform in the 1980s
Horst Jehmlich, a former Stasi officer who worked with Putin in the KGB office in Dresden, told the German newspaper that the despot was nothing more than an “errand boy.”
Another former KGB spy, who also worked at the Dresden office, said Putin’s work “consisted mainly of endlessly reviewing applications for visits from West German relatives or searching for potential informers among foreign students at the university.” from Dresden’.
And another blow to the image built up as a spy around Putin’s time is that Putin is rarely mentioned in the records of the East German secret police.
When Putin is mentioned, it only mentions his birthday or administrative duties rather than any evidence of his heroism portrayed by those closest to him.
Putin served in the USSR spy agency for 16 years, between 1975 and 1991, after graduating from a KGB school in Moscow.
In 2018, the German newspaper Bild printed a photo of Putin’s identity card that he had obtained in 1985, when he was 33, from the KGB’s East German partner organization, the Stasi.
The ID would have allowed Putin to enter and exit Stasi offices unimpeded, meaning he could recruit agents without having to say he worked for the KGB.
The identity card, which was issued to Major Vladimir Putin, was signed and validated with stamps every three months until the end of 1989.
In 2018, the German newspaper Bild printed a photo of Putin’s identity card (pictured) that he had received in 1985, when he was 33, from the KGB’s East German partner organization, the Stasi.
Putin (pictured with his parents in 1985) was a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to enter politics
Putin was stationed in East Germany in 1985 and worked in the city of Dresden until 1990, where he lived with his now divorced wife Lyudmila Putin (pictured together in Dresden with their daughter Maria)
The document was found in the files of the Stasi office in Dresden on “cadres and education”.
At the time of the discovery, Konrad Felber, head of the Dresden branch of the authority overseeing the Stasi archives, told Bild: “It was completely unknown until now that Putin, who worked as a KGB agent in Dresden until 1990, , also had a Stasi archive. passport because it does not appear in the file of service cards issued to Soviet soldiers.’
Putin officially rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to enter politics in St Petersburg.
But even this is disputed, with Oleg Kalugin, a former senior KGB officer, saying in 2015 that the despot had lied and was “just a major” in the spy agency.
The now Russian president was stationed in East Germany in 1985 and worked in the city of Dresden until 1990, where he lived with his now divorced wife Lyudmila Putina. Their second child was born there in 1986.
He returned to Leningrad in 1990 and began working for the city’s reformist mayor. Putin resigned from the KGB a year later, on the second day of the failed coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who was supported by the KGB.
Putin has previously credited his past in the KGB with preparing him for the presidency.