little, green and polite - east view press green and polite ... socom. in terms of its structure and...

An Invisible Parade

On May 9, 2014, at the annual Victory Day parade in Moscow, units freshly returned from Crimea strutted through Red Square on the wave of their recent accomplishments. Among these units were the

16th Special Purpose Brigade, the 76th Airborne Assault Division, and the Black Sea Fleet’s 810th Marines Brigade. These units were chosen on accord of their role in the Russian military operation in Crimea earlier in the year, in late February and March. Their service personnel were the “polite people,” as they were termed in Russia, and the “little green men,” their moniker in Ukraine, who worked with Crimea’s pro-Russian self-defense militia and Crimean units of Ukraine’s Berkut special police squads to blockade and seize Ukrainian military bases, government buildings, and key infrastructure facilities on the peninsula. But one unit intimately involved in Crimean operations was no-tably absent from the parade – a newly formed group in the Russian Armed Forces, the Special Operations Forces (SOF).1 It was SOF soldiers who played the key role in seizing the most important objectives, such as the Crimean par-liament building, the command HQs of the Ukrainian Army, and hard-target military compounds that were expected to put up the greatest resistance. SOF units were instrumental in achieving key political objectives and paralyzing the Ukrainian Army in Crimea, thereby enabling Russia to complete the an-nexation of the peninsula without bloodshed.

The SOF service, established in 2011, is closely related in terms of com-mand structure, personnel, and traditions with the special purpose forces (spetsnaz) of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). However, the primary mission of GRU Spetsnaz is deep special reconnaissance, while the focus of

Little, Green and PoliteThe Creation of Russian

Special Operations ForcesBy Alexey Nikolsky

Excerpt from Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (Second Edition). Copyright 2015 East View Press. To continue reading, purchase your copy today at www.eastviewpress.com

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125The Creation of Russian Special Operations Forces

SOF is closer to direct action. This close association, as well as the heightened secrecy around both groups, often leads to confusion. The push to create SOF Command, which is subordinated to the chief of the General Staff, was initiated by the then chief of the General Staff, Nikolai Makarov, beside the then defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, who together spearheaded a radical reform of the Russian Armed Forces in 2008-2012. The idea to set up Russian SOF Com-mand was born following a study by Gen. Makarov of the experiences of US, German, and other foreign special operations forces.2 Russian delegations also conducted fact-finding missions to the HQs of such special services, with each delegation including officers of the GRU spetsnaz. In general, top brass of the Russian MoD were greatly impressed by the physical fitness, special training, psychological resilience, and discipline of Western special operations soldiers, with particular note of how well these soldiers were trained in advanced tactics with small arms.3

SOF Command was placed in direct operational control of specific spe-cial operations forces, rather than, as some had suggested, overseeing special operations as a whole, such as GRU spetsnaz brigades, Navy spetsnaz, or the 45th Spetsnaz Regiment of the Airborne Troops. (Incidentally, GRU spetsnaz brigades were subordinated to the military district commands rather than the GRU itself in 2010. The decision was reversed in 2013, after Makarov and Serdyukov resigned.) Candidates for the new SOF unit were to be selected from among the finest soldiers of regular army reconnaissance units, and serve with spetsnaz units before being chosen for SOF. But SOF was not created entirely from scratch: Military Unit 92154, originally created in 1999 at the Senezh 99/1 military compound not far from Solnechnogorsk, Moscow Re-gion, was selected to become the core of the newly created SOF service. In its original form Unit 92154 had been subordinated to the GRU, and was essen-tially a small combat training and operations center. Its primary remit was to run GRU agents in conflict zones and to conduct counterterrorism operations in the North Caucasus.

Controlling SOF – Should There Be Wide or Narrow Operational Control of Special Operation Forces?

Despite the actual formation of SOF Command back in 2011, the creation of SOF was officially announced by the chief of the General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, only on March 6, 2013, at a meeting with foreign military attachés: “Having studied the practice of the formation, training, and application of special operations forces by the leading foreign powers, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense has also begun to create such forces.” He added that mili-tary conflicts in the 21st century had demonstrated the growing importance of


126 Alexey Nikolsky

such forces and the vital need to add such capability to the Russian inventory. But as previously stated, in actual fact, SOF Command was set up back in 2011. Highlighting the belated nature of this announcement, Gen. Gerasimov went on to say, “The SOF Command that has been set up is now working according to plans and implementing the armed forces training program,” He continued, “We have already drafted a set of guidelines that outline the objectives of these forces, their training methods, and the modalities of their application.”4

Soon after these remarks by Gen. Gerasimov, there was much speculation as to the command reach of the newly created command. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily speculated that the forces subordinated to SOF Command would include all seven of the GRU spetsnaz brigades, and that another three such brigades would be formed. The daily wrote, “SOF Command will also have op-erational control over relevant battalions of the Navy’s marines, the Airborne Troops, and units of the Air Force (attack, transport, and UAV squadrons).”5 This opinion, that SOF Command is essentially a Russian version of America’s SOCOM, is still widely held in Russia, but it is in fact wrong. Such proposals have been put forward on several occasions since the 1990s, but they have always been rejected by the GRU and other military branches that operate spe-cial task forces. Various plans to merge all the Russian special operations forces controlled by the MoD are still put forward from time to time. For example, in 2013 the commander of the Airborne Troops, Gen. Vladimir Shamanov, proposed that SOF, the Airborne Troops (VDV) and spetsnaz brigades should be merged under a solitary “fifth” mobile forces command, on par with the four military districts that become strategic commands in a time of war.6 That proposal, however, would be extremely costly to implement and even more importantly, it would be resisted by the GRU and other agencies. Nevertheless, the status of SOF Command is quite likely to undergo certain changes in the near future as its role and position within the MoD settles. For now though, it is quite obvious that SOF Command is not a Russian equivalent of America’s SOCOM. In terms of its structure and mission, it is more similar to the Pen-tagon’s 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force) counterterrorism unit, Germany’s KSK, or Russia’s own Alpha Group of the Special Purpose Center under the FSB.

Besides, Russian military leadership is not in any great hurry to merge special reconnaissance forces (spetsnaz brigades and the Navy’s reconnais-sance stations, the 45th VDV Spetsnaz Regiment, and other army spetsnaz units) with the newly created SOF. And the reasons for that are not entirely bureaucratic, as these outfits do in fact have different purposes. Also, spetsnaz brigades cannot operate independently; they are combat support units, and their mission is to conduct special reconnaissance behind enemy lines in sup-port of operations conducted by the army (or frontline) command. SOF units, on the other hand, are proper combat units themselves and can operate inde-


127The Creation of Russian Special Operations Forces

pendently. They are ready for rapid deployment across a spectrum of counter-terrorism and combat missions, on Russian territory and abroad. Additionally, these forces are reserved for missions of special political importance.

The Nuts and Bolts of SOF – Creation, Structure and Command

As mentioned above, SOF Command was established approximately three years after the creation of the Special Operations Force itself, built around Military Units 92154 and 99450. Substantiating evidence of this setup was an order given by the Minister of Defense: officers of both units were receiving additional, special duty pay on top of their regular pay.7 Adding to the specula-tion that these units were of a “special” class, in 2010, then president Dmitry Medvedev visited both Units 92154 and 99450.8

There has been additional speculation concerning another possible SOF component – Unit 01355. On August 31, 2011, the MoD order on additional payments was amended to include officers of Military Unit 01355.9 There are reasons to believe that Unit 01355 is another SOF combat unit; the Interfax news agency reported the creation of that unit at the Kubinka-2 settlement near Moscow on March 15, 2013.10 The agency reported that the unit would have 500 service personnel, and that it would achieve operational readiness by late 2013. Unfortunately, no other information about the structure of Unit 01355 has appeared in open sources.

Some information is available, however, concerning the structure of the previously created Units 92154 and 99450. This information comes from pub-licly released documents on contracts “for construction and installation works under the first phase of the development of Military Unit 92154,” including works to be completed at “Military Compound 52/3 Senezh.” These documents were posted to the government’s procurement website in 2012.11, 12 The cost of the first phase of the project is 1.045 billion rubles. According to other docu-ments posted on the Internet, the cost of the second phase of construction works under the same project at Military Unit 92154 is worth 1.642 billion rubles. These figures translate roughly to $75 million that were to be spent on building the training center.

Documents dealing with the first phase of the construction of Military Unit 92154 suggest that the unit is the Special Operations Forces Center or command element. This element includes a division designated as УСО (USO), which most likely denotes Управление Специальных Операций – Special Operations Directorate. According to procurement documentation for the No. 92154 “combat” unit, this unit has an airborne landing hardware service, a diving service, an engineering service, and NBC protection service, and an
