KGB planted young Putin to provoke Reagan

A photograph taken more than 20 years ago on Red Square in Moscow suggests that then-KGB agent, and now Russian President, Vladimir Putin was part of a conspiracy to confuse Ronald Reagan during his first visit to the country, claims official photographer of US President Barack Obama, Pete Souza.

Although the official Kremlin regularly publishes Putin's photos, where he is sometimes seen shirtless while hunting, fishing, or riding a horse - the Russian leadership is now bothered by this photograph.

They claim this is an attempt by the Obama administration to discredit Putin. Russian experts claim that Putin is not in the picture, while Souza claims the opposite.

He says the photo was taken in the summer of 1988 when Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were touring Red Square. Souza was part of the American delegation as Ronald Reagan's official photographer.

Reagan approached to greet a few Russian tourists who, he said, were supposed to ask Reagan some awkward questions regarding the US report on human rights.

Pete Souza testified that one of the Secret Service members told him that the tourists were actually KGB agents.

"This is a photo I have in my album. On the left of the picture, you can see a man, one of the tourists, with a camera around his neck. I have been confirmed that Vladimir Putin is in the picture," says Souza.

Experts in Moscow are not so convinced by this theory.

They claim that Putin was on a mission in Dresden at the time of Reagan's visit to Moscow. He was a mid-level KGB agent at the time and therefore could not have been recalled to Moscow for a new assignment in the "Reagan" case.

It is stated that the man in the photograph is much thinner than Putin was when he worked as a KGB agent.