(IN THE STATE SECURITY COMMITTEE)
So, the university is finished. And mysteries instantly appear. What did the twenty-three years old graduate did next? Official biographies say that after spending a year in KGB’s Moscow School in 1975 he was directed to his native Leningrad as a junior commissioner investigator. Other sources affirm that already in 1975 Putin has worked about five months in the secretariat of KGB’s Leningrad’s department, “working on some files”. Finally, third sources (for instance the Versia newspaper issue 2, 2000) have spread evidence that Putin was working in West Germany, in particularly in Bonn already in 1975. It turns out that it was right after graduating from a civil university, without even studying in a KGB school. The “version's” author Petr Pryanishnikov wrote: “The official Bonn is still certain that the officer of the First Central Department of USSR KGB’s 4th section Vladimir Putin who was fluent in German coordinated the activities of the soviet secret-service net in Austria and the FRG”. Pryanishnikov writes that Putin returned to Germany (the Eastern part) in the middle of the 1980s. However, other sources indicate that Putin really was in Bonn in 1975, was arrested as a soviet agent and was then quickly extradited to the USSR. And that it is because of this arrest, a failure in fact, Putin has never worked on the FRG or any other capitalist countries’ territory again. He was noticed and thus his value as a KGB officer became low forever. He could be used only in socialist countries. I am inclined to believe the version about the arrest in 1975 in Bonn, otherwise why did Putin never work in capitalist countries after. The journalist Pryanishnikov’s “fluent in German” is of course an exaggeration. After many years we do not hear fluent German from president Putin, we hear a very approximate one.
In the official version V. V. Putin’s further career after KGB’s Moscow School looks thus: from February to July 1976 he attended preparation courses for operations staff. After these six months, before 1977 he worked in Leningrad’s KGB department, in his own words in a “counterintelligence subdivision… worked with the foreign element…” According to his colleagues Putin worked in the 5th section of Leningrad’s KGB department that was part of the Fifth Central Department system that supervised “the fight with the ideological diversions of the enemy”.
During his work in the “counterintelligence subdivision” Putin “was noticed by agents of the foreign intelligence”, after which he was proposed to move in the First Central Department (the foreign intelligence) and was sent (again!) to Moscow to one year preparatory courses. After returning to Leningrad, “four years and a half”, from 1979 to 1983 he worked in the first section of Leningrad’s KGB department.
In 1984, after receiving the rank of a major, Putin was directed to Moscow’s KGB Higher School, where he studied under the pseudonym “Platov”. He specialized in German speaking countries: Austria, Switzerland, FRG, and GDR. It has been nine years that Putin is being prepared to become a spy, but he will not become one. Moreover, as you remember, most probably he was in Bonn in 1975 and failed. So what is he preparing for?
From 1974 I live in the West. Already in 1977 I become close with the famous American industrialist Peter Sprague, from 1979 I work for him, I live in his house. I get acquainted with the elite of international business. Instead of preparing Putin in Leningrad, the gentlemen from the KGB would have better done by addressing me. During those years and always I was and I stay a Russian patriot and I would have helped my country’s special services. But no… They were preparing Putin and did not finish the job. In 1980 I move to France, to Paris. There I become a writer, I get close with the leaders of the French Communist Party. I write for the Revolution journal, CP’s intellectual body. I visit CP’s famous bunker on Colonel Fabien Street. Among my acquaintances there are National Assembly deputies and senators and even the head of the National Assembly Chaban-Delmas. I would seem to be the ideal influence agent. But nobody has ever contacted me.
After graduating from school in 1985 Putin is finally (after ten years!) sent to a foreign trip, but only to a group of soviet troops in Germany, in the “otstoynik”, as it was cynically called then. People who were sent there did not have any perspectives in the special services. In the GDR their famous Stasi security service was headed by the talented Markus Wolf. How could the major Putin have helped him? Actually, he could not. The soviet foreign intelligence had nothing to do in GDR, since East Germany de facto was USSR’s internal territory, another national republic, that is all. Most probably, the information about Putin’s early failure in Bonn, which made a successful spy career impossible, is true, or his professional level was so low that his place was in the “otstoynik”. Whatever it was, in 1985 Putin appears in the city of Dresden, in the Waldschlosschen district, on Angelikastrasse, 4. His office was on the first floor. The fact that this was not a dangerous mission is demonstrated also by the fact that in front of the soviet residence building was the building of the district department of GDR’s State Security Ministry. Putin was among a group of eight soviet agents headed by the general Vladimir Shirokov. The Germans called the soviet agents “friends”.
When he arrived in Dresden Putin received an apartment with two rooms and a half on Radebergestrasse. A few minutes away from his workplace. Like Angelikastrasse, this is a prestigious district. The safety of the James Bonds was total, in addition to the neighboring Stasi building they were close to the soviet military base. Lyudmila Putina went shopping there and the Putin couple often went there to watch movies in Russian in the theater.
Here we should stop on the personality of V. V. Putin’s spouse. So let us interrupt the fascinating description of the “otstoynik” in order to continue it after the chapter about Lyudmila Putina.