Tough one though.
Former KGB
About that.
There were two kinds of KGB officers :
-Intelligence ( external intelligence, counter-intelligence, military intelligence etc)
-Surveillance ( police ).
The first kind generally required 3 years of intensive training
The second type required only 1,5 years...
Putin belonged in the second, much less prestigious, category.
He worked in the 5th directorate ( state police tracking "dissidents" ) and was dispatched in Dresden as a non official cover operative ( zero diplomatic protection )
Dresden was FAR from a being a strategic town and he barely made it to the rank of captain/major as a covert Stasi operative/double agent ( at least, at first. It's a long story )
Putin rose to power and was selected as the next Russian President by the Yeltsin clan because he was deemed dirty enough to guarantee their safe retreat from politics. See it as an insurance policy.
( Long story short : Putin was a cocaine kingpin in Leningrad-St. Petersburg during the 1990s )