Of Rats And Men

In his youth Vladimir Putin
was part of the Leningrad gangs
who chased and tormented the city's rats.
With time being slack and money being tight,
and both youth and vermin being plentiful,
what came to matter most was fear and hierarchy.

The rats had the greater penchant
than the gangs for mutual grooming.

What the young Vlad Putin did not learn
was that under Communism even the vermin
have to be approved by the state to be allowed to live.
The party even had a membership process for it's furry friends.

Myth has it that he cornered, and released,
one particularly large and handsome rat.
What the myth failed to reveal since
was that he did not know that the rat
was there to recruit the young Vlad to the KGB.

He let the rat live, and it left him the RSVP.
The invitation was followed up many years later
as the Soviet Union was in retreat, but not yet defeated.

What I want to know
is where that KGB rat is now?
And what do his Ukrainian kin
think of the consequences of his actions?