Russian President Vladimir Putin today praised members of the secret services and said that they are "not like other people" and that their dedication to their country is exemplary.
"To throw away one's life and one's loved ones, and leave one's country for many years, to devote one's life to one's homeland, not everyone can do that," Putin, who is a former agent of the Soviet secret service KGB, said on state television.
He said that "these are unique people and he wishes them happiness and well-being".
"These are not people like others, they have different qualities, different convictions, a different character," Putin assessed and added that his work for the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Soviet Union was related "primarily to secret intelligence work."
As an SVR agent, Putin was in East Germany between 1985 and 1990, according to his official biography on the Kremlin website.
"Even when I was in school, I wanted to be an intelligence officer," Putin wrote about himself and that his view of the KGB was "based on romantic depictions of the work of intelligence agents."
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