Spetsnaz Units

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Lore & Background

The origins of the Spetsnaz can be found in the Russian Civil War. To act against anti-Communist workers and farmers, the Soviet regime set up so-called Chasti Osobogo Naznacheniya (Части особого назначения, abbreviated CHON) in 1918. In the next year they were expanded to the so-called Cheka (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission), fighting counterrevolution and sabotage. The NKVD descended from the Cheka, while the GRU was established in 1918 as part of the Red Army, separate from the Cheka. During the Cold War, by the end of the 1950s the KGB and GRU set new special forces units up. The 3rd Separate Guards Spetsnaz Brigade was founded in 1966, originally formed in the Soviet Union before moving to East Germany in Fürstenberg/Havel; it was awarded Guards status in 1985. During the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Spetsnaz units secured key points in the capital, Prague, seizing the airport, bridges, and radio stations, though the seizure of the president's palace was primarily carried out by Soviet airborne troops and KGB forces. There is well-documented evidence of GRU special forces deployed as advisors and trainers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Soviet Spetsnaz forces took part in the Soviet–Afghan War of 1979–1989, usually fighting fast insertion/extraction-type warfare with helicopters. Their most famous operation, Operation Storm-333, was executed on 27 December 1979 which saw Soviet special forces storming the Tajbeg Palace in Afghanistan and killing Afghan President Hafizullah Amin, his son and approximately 150-200 of his personal guards in 40 minutes. The operation involved approximately 54 KGB and GRU special forces operators, including members of the Alpha Group and Zenith Group.

In Their Own Story

On 5 July 1941 Admiral Arseniy Golovko of the Northern Fleet authorized the formation of a ground reconnaissance detachment. This unit, the 4th Special Volunteer Detachment, was to be recruited from the fleet's athletes and have an initial size of 65 to 70 personnel. Later the unit was renamed the 181st Special Reconnaissance Detachment. They were trained as frogmen. The most prominent of these new recruits was Viktor Leonov, who joined the Soviet Navy in 1937. He was assigned to a submarine training detachment and then transferred to a repair station in the Northern Fleet at Polyarnyy. Leonov had trained as a scuba diver, after which he joined 4th Special Volunteer Detachment, where he proved his daring and leadership skills conducting numerous clandestine operations and twice being awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. When the European conflict ended, the Naval Scouts were sent to fight the Japanese. Leonov along with Capt. Kulebyakin and 140 men, landed on a Japanese airfield at Port Vonsan, unaware that they were opposed by over 3,500 enemy soldiers. A tense standoff ensued, until the commanding officers of the unit managed to bluff the Japanese forces into surrendering. In November 2007 the BBC and the Daily Mirror reported that Eduard Koltsov, a former Soviet frogman, claimed to have caught Crabb placing a mine on the Ordzhonikidze hull near the ammunition depot and cut his throat. Koltsov, 74 at the time of the interview, stated that he wanted to clear his conscience and uncover what exactly had happened to Crabb.

Reader's Guide

Spetsnaz are special operations forces in the former Soviet Union and Russia. Historically, this term referred to the Soviet Union's Spetsnaz GRU, special operations units of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff (GRU). Today it refers to special forces branches and task forces subordinate to ministries including defence, internal affairs, or emergency situations in countries that have inherited their special purpose units from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies. The Russian abbreviations spetsnaz and osnaz are syllabic abbreviations of Soviet era Russian, for spetsialnogo naznacheniya and osobogo naznacheniya, both of which may be interpreted as "special purpose." In Ukrainian they are known as spetspryz (спецприз), an abbreviation of viiska spetsiialnoho pryznachennia (війська спеціяльного призначення). They are general terms that were used for a variety of Soviet special operations (spetsoperatsiya) units. In addition, many Cheka and Internal Troops units (such as OMSDON and ODON) also included osobovo naznacheniya in their full names. Regular forces assigned to special tasks were sometimes also referred to by terms such as Spetsnaz and osnaz. Spetsnaz later referred specifically to special (spetsialnogo) purpose (naznacheniya) or special operations (spetsoperatsiya; spec ops) forces, and the word's widespread use is a relatively recent, post-perestroika development in Russian language. The Soviet public used to know very little about their country's special forces until many state secrets were disclosed under the glasnost ("openness") policy of Mikhail Gorbachev during the late 1980s. Since then, stories about spetsnaz and their purportedly incredible prowess, from the serious to the highly questionable, have captivated the imagination of Russians. A number of books about the Soviet military special forces, such as 1987's Spetsnaz: The Story Behind the Soviet SAS by defected GRU agent Viktor Suvorov, helped introduce the term to the Western public.

Did You Know?

• The term spetsnaz is a syllabic abbreviation of spetsialnogo naznacheniya, meaning 'special purpose,' and is not normally capitalized.
• During the Soviet–Afghan War, Operation Storm-333 on 27 December 1979 saw Soviet special forces storm the Tajbeg Palace, killing Afghan President Hafizullah Amin, his son, and approximately 150-200 guards in 40 minutes.
• Viktor Leonov, a Soviet Navy frogman, twice received the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his clandestine operations during World War II.
• In 1956, former Soviet frogman Eduard Koltsov claimed to have killed British diver Lionel Crabb during a reconnaissance mission around the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze.
• The 3rd Separate Guards Spetsnaz Brigade was founded in 1966, originally formed in the Soviet Union before moving to East Germany at Fürstenberg/Havel; it was awarded Guards status in 1985.