“The Putin smear has been going on for years, I simply do not believe it.”
You realize it’s not a “smear”, but a documented fact, right? It’s in his official biography, for cryin out loud:
“In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Mr Putin studied at KGB School No. 1 in Moscow.”
“After graduating from Leningrad State University, Putin was assigned to work in the state security agencies. “My perception of the KGB was based on the idealistic stories I heard about intelligence.”
He was first appointed to the Directorate secretariat, then the counterintelligence division, where he worked for about five months. Half a year later, he was sent to operations personnel retraining courses.”
“Mr Putin spent another six months working in the counterintelligence division.
That was when he drew attention from foreign intelligence officers. “Fairly quickly, I left for special training in Moscow, where I spent a year. Then I returned again to Leningrad, worked there in the First Main Directorate – the intelligence service. That directorate had branches in major cities of the Soviet Union, including Leningrad. I worked there for about four and a half years.”
Then Mr Putin returned again to Moscow to study at the Andropov Red Banner Institute, where he was trained for his trip to Germany.”
Etc, etc, etc. It’s a fairly large portion of his biography, since he worked for the KGB for 15 years before he ever entered politics.
http://en.putin.kremlin.ru/bio/page-3
KGB? Sure thing, many American politicians and media stars have been CIA. Many still are. The legend of cold blooded killer, is what I am referring to. Most of those things would be carried out by black ops, just like what happened with Seth Rich, or Breitbart.