Posted on 10/03/2014 5:27:37 AM PDT by WhiskeyX
When a young Vladimir Putin decided to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a spy, he headed to the local branch of the KGB in Soviet Leningrad.
Wary of unsolicited applicants, the KGB officers turned Putin away, but not without some valuable advice: Go get an education, preferably in law. The current president was only in high school at the time.
Putin went on to apply to the law faculty at Leningrad State University, a path that would ultimately lead him up the ranks of the KGB, then on to St. Petersburg City Hall under the leadership of Anatoly Sobchak and ultimately to the Kremlin.
During his fourth year of legal studies, Putin was approached by a KGB representative to arrange his post-graduation employment, he says in his autobiography "First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia's President."
Fast-forward nearly five decades, and Putin would have only had to visit the website of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) to familiarize himself with the requirements and obtain an application.
But what appears on the surface to be an exceedingly simple procedure is in fact a hotbed of nepotism, replete with hurdles only a select few individuals can expect to overcome, according to security experts.
(Excerpt) Read more at sptimes.ru ...
His dad was in the communist secret police; he would have served Stalin. Putin and family were dedicated commies; they crave power and amorality.
There is one other possible route to becoming a Russian spy...
Ah yes, the “horizontal” approach.
CC
Wish we could get copies of the KGB films of Bill Clinton in his hotel room when he stayed in Russia as a student.
Oh yeah, and our President passed out leaflets as a community organizer, so there.
Not Tatiana Romanava though.
SVR is often confused with FSB.
SVR is the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Its the successor to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate which ran Soviet spies abroad.
FSB is the Federal Security Service the main federal law enforcement agency in Russia. It too is a successor to the old KGB.
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