A former KGB recounts his interviews with Officer Putin

“Insignificant, non-existent”: Sergei Jirnov, former member of the SVR, the KGB’s foreign intelligence, does not beat around the bush when asked about Vladimir Putin’s qualities as a spy. “He spent his entire career in Leningrad, which in the eyes of Moscow was the provincial town. They had nothing but contempt for Leningrad. Jirnov says “we”, because he completed the Moscow course, in Yassénévo, the ENA of the SVR, before following a course at the ENA in the early 1990s to identify soft targets, among French or foreign students. , which he says in his book The Pathfinder (Nimrod Editions). “The proof that he was not worth much is that he was fired in 1985 after a year spent at the Andropov Institute, in charge of training the cream of the SVR, which is what they are in vo… .