His Brilliant Career

1975 After graduating with a law degree from Leningrad State University, 23-year-old Putin joins the KGB.

1985 Serves in East Germany "recruiting sources and assessing information," as he described it, until 1990; witnesses the decline of the Soviet empire firsthand.

June 1991 Appointed head of St. Petersburg city council's International Relations Committee, a body set up to attract foreign investment. In August, he quits the KBG and in 1994, becomes first deputy mayor of the city.

May 1998 Named as...

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