Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The Russian President has countless lives on his conscience, but has he ever pulled the trigger himself?
The Russian President has countless lives on his conscience, but has he ever taken a life himself?
3½ years of war
The world changed on February 24th 2022.
That was the day, Vladimir Putin decided to pursue his imperialistic vision of creating a new Russian Empire – and his first target was Ukraine.
Fast forward to today, and we have all seen that the Russian Presidents plans are not exactly going to plan.
But the suffering, he has caused, is unfathomable.
The Russian Butcher
Regardless of whether we are talking about Russian or Ukranian lives, there’s no debating that Vladimir Putin is not a man comitted to saving human beings.
More than a million troops lost
Intelligence suggest that Russia has lost more than a million troops in the war in Ukraine.
Add to that the numerous reports of Russian privates and prisoners being used as cannon fodder to diminish the Ukrainian munition supplies.
Targeting civilians
Furthermore, the near daily Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine are claiming civilian lives every day – even though Russia continues to claim the attacks are aimed at military targets.
One big question remains
So now that we’ve established that, there’s a big question that seems to be overlooked:
Has Putin ever actually killed someone himself?
Here’s what we know
Putin joined the Russian intelligence service, KGB, in 1975 after studying law in Leningrad.
He initially worked in counterintelligence, spending his time monitoring foreign nationals and consular staff.
The move to East Germany
After a decade of this, Putin was reassigned to Dresden in the former East Germany.
Here he worked as an undercover KGB agent at a Soviet cultural center.
What he was really doing
While undercover, his real objective was to gather intelligence, recruiting informants and monitoring West Germany and NATO.
So far in his KGB career, nothing points to Putin taking any lives.
Office surrounded
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the KGB office in Dresden was surrounded.
Reports are that Putin valled for help from the Soviet military, but the response was that tyey could not do anything without direct orders from Moscow.
Returning to Russia
Putin returned to Russia in 1990, retired from KGB in 1991 and almost immediatly turned to politics.
So there’s no evidence that Putin ever killed anyone during his time in the KGB.
But what about his rise to power?
There’s countless stories of people rising to power by killing their opponents, but Putin has never been directly tied to any deaths of political opponents.
That being said, there are some remarkable links to prominent assassinations and assassination attempts during Putin’s time in power.
Alexander Litvinenko
A former FSB agent poisoned with polonium-210 in London in 2006.
A UK inquiry concluded that the killing was “probably approved” by Putin.
Boris Nemtsov
An opposition leader shot near the Kremlin in 2015.
Sergei Skripal
A former double agent, poisoned in Salisbury, UK, in 2018 with a nerve agent.
Strong links, but no proof
While these incidents are widely believed to be linked to the Russian state, none prove direct personal involvement by Putin himself.
Most likely gives the orders
Western intelligence and investigative journalism suggest he likely authorizes or is aware of such operations — but there’s no public proof of him physically carrying out a killing.
This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, which may have used AI in the preparation
