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History has now demonstrated that Vladimir Putin is not the "grand strategist" that he was once touted as being. Rather, Putin blundered badly by launching his country into the war against Ukraine and which is now fundamentally destabilizing Russia.
What is the origin of Putin's reckless risk-taking? Looking at Putin's background sheds light on who the world's most dangerous man really is. Starting in the KGB, Putin eventually wound-up being an advisor of the Mayor of St Petersburg in the 1990s where he was an infamous bribe-taker.
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Overtime, Putin became the Director of the FSB before becoming a Prime Minister under Pres. Boris Yeltsin - but why did Yeltsin decide to hire a guy with such a corrupt background and a reputation for being dangerous? In a pact that is not often discussed in the West, Putin was able to guarantee Yeltsin that the latter's corruption would be covered-up if Putin was at the helm of Russia.
However, Putin was unknown: So how did manage to quickly become a prominent national figure? Putin engaged in the intentional bombing of apartment buildings, in Russia, to elicit support to fight the Chechens, who Putin accused of orchestrating the attacks which he had in fact planned.
Putin showed, already in 1999, that he was willing to kill his own people to protect his power and to guard the criminal organization he was constructing. Since then, Putin has used Russia's intelligence services to collaborate with international weapons traffickers, criminal underlords, Islamic radicals, sanction busters, and other rogue actors so that he could amass the largest personal fortune in the world - estimated to be nearly $200 Billion. The Kremlin is the headquarters of the world's largest mafia and Vladimir Putin is its.
