When you look at Russia today, you have to try to imagine to yourself "What would a country look like if it was run by a former KGB agent?" — and I think what we're seeing today, with all kinds of clandestine activity, all kinds of mysterious men … taking over Crimea, the peninsula attached to Ukraine, and affecting the situation on the ground so that later Russia can annex it — and then the kind of speeches that we've heard coming out of President Vladimir Putin about the justification of Russia's takeover or Crimea, going back into the long history of grievances against the west, dating back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and even going back many centuries before, really, a long perspective on Russian history, this is the kind of thing you would have imagined from someone who has seen themself as a servant of the state, and as someone from an institution that sees themselves as the defender of that state. The KGB used to think of itself as the sword and the shield of the system of the state, the Soviet State — and then the Russian state after it collapsed. That is the emblem of the KGB.

Almost all of the men who currently rule Russia (and they are all men) were taught and trained by the KGB. Their teaching and training shows. Why would it not?

A trained Soviet KGB operative then heading its successor outfit, the FSB, Putin had done the sitting Russian president the memorable favor of successfully derailing the criminal investigation into the Yeltsin clan. He did so by blackmailing Russia’s prosecutor general with a fake sex tape.

[Putin] was... in the 's active reserves until at least August 1991, and... initially... placed with Sobchak by the KGB... to monitor... emergence of democratic leaders... [F]oreigners who did business in Russia... universally reported... to get something done in the city, you worked through Putin, not Sobchak.

[T]his older generation of KGB generals... who were not in prison, put people in and got them prepared, and Putin was the one who rose to the top... That's my argument.

Putin's proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine. He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant. As for his reign in Moscow, he is allegedly the linchpin of a vast post-Soviet gangster kleptocracy, and is personally said to be the richest man on the planet. Journalists who oppose him get shot. His rivals find themselves locked up. Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.

[A] rich... hybrid combination of Chekists, mobsters, and officials in bureaucratic positions of power existed throughout the USSR... Putin was at the nexus of these three worlds: ...[A] former ...employee, "Nikolay" ...claims ...he was approached by his superior ...1990 to be part of the following scheme:<blockquote>...a new clandestine structure ...Your personnel files will be removed ...No one will ...know your past. ...you will ...work for the Fatherland. Against those who want to destroy it. ...I worked ...cleaning up the archives of the . ...hundreds of [files] removed. Including ...Putin. After the failed coup of '91... as the chief financial officer ...on behalf of the KGB. ...Money ...and more money. ...in one offshore paradise or another. We... were moving millions and millions of dollars into bank vaults. ....along those same channels ...money from organized crime ...I would not be able to tell which monies belonged to the KGB and which to the mafia. In response to ...questions, they responded: just move the damn money. And I did.</blockquote>

Putin is a one-horse country.

Putin operates a ""... that severely punishes disloyalty while allowing access to economic predation on a world-historic scale for the inner core of his elite.

Putin is a rational actor inside a bunker, so deep, so deprived of light and information, that he is pulling levers without understanding how the modern world is responding, without understanding that some of his levers at least are no longer working, without understanding that invading countries at peace is what the Nazis did.

One of the striking qualities about Vladimir Putin is his longing for legitimacy. Putin's thesis for his degree at Leningrad State University – he graduated in 1975 – was on 'The Most Favoured Nation Trading Principle in International Law'. When I met him in 2014 and challenged him about the Russian shoot-down of MH17, his answer was long and boring and overly legalistic. My working hypothesis is that Putin is a psychopathic serial killer who loves to dress up his bloodlust as legal necessity. Just like Joseph Stalin who always preferred his enemies to be convincted at a show trial before being sent to prison 'with no privileges', code for being shot.

What about competent managers? ...Vladimir Putin seems to be a reasonably competent manager... the leader of the biggest international gang in the world. These are the criminals who stole the wealth of the old Soviet... and the way that criminal gang leaders work... "This is your territory, that's your territory. Don't bother me. If there's a problem I'll intervene. If necessary I'll have one of you wacked. Because I want to do what I want to do." By the way, that's the way the s operated in Egypt. "I don't want to deal with people's petty problems." So they set up the equivalent of a modern wage and hour court in 1350 BC. You delegate... you set certain boundaries. That's how tyrants operate.

Vladimir Putin is a thug and a killer who in the grand tradition of Russian autocracy has no intention ever of holding free elections.

[I]t was a detailed account of the criminal activities that [Andrey Zykov] feels Putin was involved in—abuse of power... of his official position... relations with organized crime, knowledge about money laundering... a whole range of economic crimes.