Putin was KGB 'errand boy' mainly tasked with trivial paperwork - not elite Soviet spy
Vladimir Putin was no more than a Committee for State Security (KGB) 'errand boy' who was mainly tasked with 'banal' administrative jobs
Reuters
Vladimir Putin was no more than a Committee for State Security (KGB) "errand boy" who was mainly tasked with "banal" administrative jobs, a report has revealed.
The president has always been portrayed as an elite Soviet spy who supposedly carried out top-secret operations during his time as a former intelligence officer.
However, his ex-colleagues have claimed he was mainly tasked with trivial paperwork, according to an investigation by German news publication Der Spiegel.
During Putin's 16 years at the spy agency in the 1980s stories emerged Russian leader conducting secret meetings with terrorists from the Red Army Faction in West Germany and "single-handedly" defending the KGB's offices from looters.
Putin's former colleagues have claimed he was mainly tasked with trivial paperwork
Reuters
Yet Putin's former KGB colleagues have suggested a very different story, with one saying that he mainly worked on "banal" administrative tasks.
Others have implied that his service with the KGB in Dresden, East Germany showed he had not been very skilful as an intelligence agent.
Horst Jehmlich, a former Stasi officer who worked with Putin in the KGB's Dresden office, told a German newspaper the despot was nothing more than an "errand boy".
Another former KGB spy said Putin's work "consisted primarily of endlessly reviewing applications for West German relatives' visits or searching for potential informants among foreign students at Dresden University".
In a further blow, around Putin's time as a spy, he is rarely mentioned in East German secret police records.
When the now Russian president is mentioned, it only states his birthday or administrative tasks rather than any evidence of his heroic acts.
He served in the USSR's spy agency for 16 years, between 1975 and 1991, after graduating from a Moscow KGB school.
In 2018, German newspaper Bild printed a picture of Putin's ID card which he was handed by the KGB's East German partner agency, the Stasi.
In a further blow, around Putin's time as a spy he is rarely mentioned in East German secret police records
Reuters
The ID would have allowed Putin to go to and from the Stasi offices, meaning he could recruit agents without needing to say he worked for the KGB.
At the time of the discovery, Konrad Felber, who heads the Dresden branch of the authority overseeing the Stasi archives, told Bild: "It was hitherto completely unknown that Putin, who worked until 1990 as a KGB agent in Dresden, also had a Stasi passport because he's not listed in the file containing service cards issued to Soviet military personnel."
Putin rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before resigning in 1991 to enter politics in Saint Petersburg.