Putin's ID found in German intelligence archives
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s identity card has been found in the archives of the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (Stasi), reports the Bild newspaper.
According to the newspaper, Putin was the Stasi employee until the end of the GDR’s existence. The certificate was discovered in the archives “personnel and qualification” department in Dresden. It was issued on December 31, 1985, and was extended quarterly until the end of 1989. The newspaper notes that this document has Putin's signature.
The head of the Stasi Archives Office in Dresden, Konrad Felber, said that this certificate allowed Putin, who at the time worked in the Dresden KGB unit, to enter the Stasi institutions freely. He was also not allowed to disclose information that he was an employee of the Soviet special services.
The Russian president’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that the GDR department’s certificate could indeed have been issued to Putin, since the KGB of the USSR and the Stasi were cooperating, reported Interfax. “We cannot exclude such an exchange of documents,” he said.
Vladimir Putin served in counterintelligence in the Leningrad KGB Directorate’s investigation department since 1977. From 1985 to 1990, he worked in the KGB foreign intelligence in the German Democratic Republic, in Dresden territorial intelligence office which was disguised as the Dresden House of Friendship of the USSR – GDR. Putin was a director there.