The Times: The United States followed Putin for twenty years

Russian President Vladimir Putin came under the supervision of American intelligence long before he took the post of head of state, The Times claims. According to the publication, surveillance of Putin began in the early 1990-x, when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. The newspaper refers to its own sources, without specifying them.

Despite the close attention of the security services, the United States still does not know about the size of the state of the Russian president, as well as about "where it can be hidden." This, as explained by the interlocutors of The Times, is due to the fact that the White House had for a long time the priority of “more important tasks”, in particular, the establishment of relations with Russia.

On July 12, the German newspaper Bild reported that the American intelligence services continued to monitor the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder after he resigned from 2005, because of his friendship with Putin.

It is believed that Schröder and the Russian leader have long been friends. In particular, in April 2014, the former German Chancellor celebrated his birthday in the company of Putin. Also, since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, he openly supported the position of Moscow and criticized European sanctions against Russia.

Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in 2000. He held this position until 2008, and returned to the post of head of state in 2012, replacing Dmitry Medvedev, who is currently the Prime Minister.

From 1998 to 1999, Putin was the director of the FSB of Russia. Prior to that, he worked in the presidential administration of Russia, and at the beginning of 90's was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. According to Putin’s official biography, he returned to the USSR from Dresden, where he served in intelligence, in 1990.