First Department of the Leningrad KGB (1979 to 1985)

Work in the First Department

Putin returned to Leningrad in the first half of 1979 and, by the fall of that year, joined the First Department of the Leningrad KGB, where he would spend the majority of the next five years. Despite its name, the First Department was not directly subordinate to the First Chief Directorate (FCD) headquartered in Yasenevo, Moscow, but rather to the regional KGB Directorate in Leningrad. The department itself was relatively small, comprising only a few dozen officers. Many of its personnel were former FCD operatives who had been demoted for various infractions and assigned to Leningrad in hopes of rehabilitating their careers and eventually returning to Yasenevo. This dynamic would later become significant, as Putin frequently claimed in interviews that he served as a "foreign intelligence operative" during this period. However, among actual FCD veterans, such claims were often seen as exaggerated—particularly when made by officers who had never been formally posted abroad or operated under the authority of the FCD headquarters.[11]

The First Department of the Leningrad KGB was tasked with monitoring foreign nationals and consular officials in the city, primarily for potential recruitment as intelligence assets. However, due to Leningrad’s relatively limited diplomatic presence—consisting mainly of small consulates and transient tourists of minimal intelligence value—the department’s strategic importance was limited. At the time, Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB general and then-deputy head of the Leningrad First Department, later dismissed the department’s significance, describing its role as largely marginal. Structurally, the KGB’s Second Department was officially responsible for counterintelligence operations against foreigners and only referred individuals to the First Department if they were assessed to be of potential recruitment value. In practice, this system rendered the First Department subordinate and reactive, often leaving it with cases the Second Department had already deemed unpromising. According to most sources—and tacitly acknowledged by Putin himself—there is no known record of the Leningrad Directorate successfully recruiting a foreign agent or uncovering a Western spy during this period.[11]

Training for the First Chief Directorate

In July 1983, while returning from his honeymoon in Yalta following his marriage to Lyudmila Shkrebneva (now Putina), Putin made a brief stop in Moscow to attend an interview at the headquarters of the FCD in Yasenevo. The meeting was arranged by his superior in Leningrad, General Felix Karasev, who sought to secure Putin a place at the FCD’s prestigious Red Banner Institute in Nagorny, Moscow. At the time, Putin was approaching the age of 30—the upper age limit for admission to the institute—making the application particularly time-sensitive. Putin was accepted in March 1984 and enrolled in a one-year training course at the institute’s satellite campus in Yurlovo, where he operated under the assigned alias "Vladimir Platov". The class consisted of approximately 60 men, divided into three groups based on their language specialization. Putin was appointed head of the German-language section. As part of the program, he spent one month undergoing paratrooper training in Odesa, Ukraine, followed by intensive instruction in the language, culture, and political systems of West Germany, East Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. This training was designed to prepare operatives for assignments in German-speaking countries, with a focus on both overt and covert intelligence-gathering techniques.[12]