The first time Vladimir Putin waged war it was against the rats which infested the corridors of his bleak boyhood home in a dilapidated Soviet apartment block.
Telling the story of those vermin now, he makes clear he won his battles against them, possibly using the story to illustrate how he overcame post-war devastation and poverty to succeed.
In First Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait, published in 2000, he writes: “There were hordes of rats in the front entryway. My friends and I used to chase them around with sticks.
