But this link doesn’t say anything about engineering except for putting the word into the title.
Wikipedia says
“Putin studied law at the Leningrad State University in 1970, and graduated in 1975.[29] Putin’s thesis was on “The Most Favored Nation Trading Principle in International Law”.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
I got the athletic scholarship part from another article
“On the show, Shenderovich was discussing famed criminal and professional martial artist Leonid Usvyatsov, who is said to have trained Putin and modern-day oligarch Arkady Rotenberg: “This is Leonid Usvyatsov, who spent 20 years in prison. Between his two terms, he managed to take part in raising the future president of Russia. It was Usvyatsov who trained Vladimir Putin from age 16, and it was Usvyatsov who arranged for him, the son of a cleaning woman and a security guard, to get into Leningrad State University on an athletic scholarship.””