Putin Says His KGB Career Prepared Him for the Russian Presidency

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 2 – Vladimir Putin says that he has not changed his behavior since he became Russian president and that his time in the KGB helped prepare him for his current office because “in my previous life, I always tried to act as if I was constantly being watched,” a skill he apparently has found useful in the Kremlin.

            Putin made this remark in the course of a visit to Vremya program of Moscow’s Channel One television yesterday during which he responded to questions about his life and historical role (1tv.ru/news/issue/2018-01-01/21:00 and themoscowtimes.com/news/putin-says-kgb-past-prepared-him-for-presidency-60102).

            Putin was a KGB officer between 1975 and 1991, but many would say that he never ceased being one. As the great Russian environmentalist Captain Aleksandr Nikitin put it, “there are no ex-KGB officers just as there are no ex-German shepherds.” If what Putin and Nikitin say is true, that has an important lesson for others.

                What it means is that Russia is a criminal state run by an intelligence officer, a combination found nowhere else and extremely dangerous not only for the citizens of that country but for all other countries as well as there is no other country and certainly no other nuclear power where that combination exists.