As the regime of his host nation fell in December 1989, Putin watched as emboldened crowds began to storm the headquarters of the secret police.
Young Vladimir Putin with his wife Lyudmila and their daughter.As Russian troops storm through Ukraine, observers around the world are trying to understand what motivates Putin. For those who’ve studied him, the answer begins with that dramatic night in Dresden and the experience of watching “people power” in action.
The political differences were notable to Putin — East Germany was a communist state, but, unlike Russia, it had multiple political parties. But the USSR under Mikhail Gorbachev gave no orders to strike back at the people. So instead, Putin and his KGB colleagues frantically destroyed evidence of their spying.
It wasn’t long before the Putins were on their way back to Leningrad — now St. Petersburg — and to life in another nation on the verge of collapse.
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