In an episode that reads less like a chapter from the Cold War and more like the script of a dark comedy, newly resurfaced accounts suggest that long before Russian President Vladimir Putin emerged on the global stage, the Soviet Union’s intelligence machinery, the KGB, pulled off one of its most bizarre operations which was the theft of an American missile using nothing more sophisticated than a handcart and a Mercedes sedan.

Putin himself was not involved in this mission, but his formative years in the KGB underscore the culture of audacity that once defined the Soviet spy network he served. Far from being a career politician or a member of a political dynasty, he entered public life straight from the shadows of Russian intelligence.

According to reporting by the Canada-based Eurasian

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