Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed that he had led an artillery battalion during the Soviet period, and this is part of the details of his mysterious life, which was not known before. Putin made the comment during a visit on Monday to the Petropole Citadel in St. Petersburg, where he pulled the launch crane of a cannon firing daily daily rounds at noon over the River Neva. "I received a lieutenant rank when I joined the artillery, and I was an artillery battalion," Putin said, according to a video posted by the Kremlin. But he did not give enough details.
Putin's official biography does not mention his military rank, as a lieutenant, or his command as an artillery battalion. According to the Kremlin, Putin joined the KGB immediately after graduating from the Leningrad State Law School in 1975. He spent 16 years in the Soviet Security Service and was promoted to lieutenant colonel at KGB before the collapse of the Soviet Union In 1991. However, all physically fit students in Soviet universities were required to undergo military training, then to be promoted to a reserve officer, and Putin is likely to point out that.
The Russian president's announcement comes shortly after the identification of his identity as belonging to the old East German police in the archives of the former East German State Security Service (Stasi). Putin was an officer at KGB in Dresden in the 1980s. The Kremlin did not confirm or deny that Putin had been given an identity from Stasi. There is little reliable information about Putin's work in Dresden. One possibility is that it was costly to hunt and recruit foreigners who were studying or working in the city. It is known that Putin worked in the field of counter-intelligence during his days at KGB, and some reports claim that his duties in the Russian intelligence service include the monitoring of Soviet political dissidents, but not confirmed.