Putin was a clerk in the KGB stationed in a backwater place like Dresden, sorting newspaper clippings. When he got fired from that, he was a cab driver in Moscow. However, he knows how to project his fantasy as a "tough" guy and went into politics. He shovelled enough manure to get drunken Yeltsin to make him Vice President and, Boris' your uncle, he thinks he is Adolf Hitler. He is no Peter the Great. He is a frightened little psychopath, desperate for respect.