In a speech to the FSB leadership on 20 December 1999, Vladimir Putin famously joked that in his person the FSB had successfully infiltrated the Russian government. Soon after he assumed office as president in 2000, Vladimir Putin returned a plaque honouring Yury Andropov, a former head of the KGB and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that had been removed in 1991 to the building in Moscow where the former leader had once lived. Pictured: Cheka badge as it was in 1922; source: Wikipedia Source: 'The Cheka,' Wikipedia 'Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies,' Wikipedia 'December 20th 1917: Vladimir Lenin creates the "Cheka",’ This Day in History Putin Speech, 20 December 1999, Путин_20_12_1999 Putin 20.12.1999 FSB - KGB Brian Whitmore, Andropov's Ghost, RFE/RL, 9 February 2009 |
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