After heavy training, in which he learns several languages and masters several martial arts skills, Bourne is placed in the Treadstone program, whose missions are run by the CIA's Alexander Conklin. His first assignment, an unofficial one, is revealed to have happened in Berlin, Germany. It is an assassination of Vladimir Neski, a Russian politician who was intending to expose the theft of $20 million in black funds stolen from the CIA by Treadstone's Director, Ward Abbott, and a Russian oligarch, Yuri Gretkov. Under Conklin's orders, Bourne murders Neski and his wife and arranges it to look like a murder-suicide.