SPETSNAZ: THE SOVIET'S SINISTER STRIKE FORCE

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
3
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
December 15, 2011
Sequence Number: 
70
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
April 1, 1986
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2.pdf230.29 KB
Body: 
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2 tki It APPEARED f AQ READER'S DIGEST April 1986 For su:e.e yrar;, 'Western mt-_iligenc?_ agencies have been piecing together ev:dcnce of a clandestine Soviet military force, a large, covert army, brutally trained and poised to spearhead an invasion of Western Europe-or beyond. Here, ir?. a comprehensive report, are the shocking facts compiled for Reader's Digest by syndicated columnist Dale Van Atta. SPETSNAZ: The Soviets' Sinister Strike Force A military bus pulls up to a U.S. Army training center in West Germa- ny. Assuming it is filled with GIs coming back from town, sentries ap- proach the bus routinely, only to be cut down by bursts of fire from weap - ons with silencers. The bus roars into the base as the two commando teams on board don gas masks. Inside the facility, Americans, whose duty is to guard Pershing 11 nuclear-missile launchers, due within minutes beneath an invisible blanket of nerve gas, and the launchers are rendered useless. .4 second Pershing base in Heil- bronn falls in similar fashion. At the same time, five key NATO communi- cations facilities-in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and in the German towns of Boerfink, Kindsbach, Mass- weiler and Vogelweh-are knocked out. Confusion reigns at the NATO high command in Brussels. Top offi- cers and political leaders are missing. Some are found dead in their homes. Meanwhile, frogmen emerge from the chilly waters near Keflavik, Iceland, a vital link in NATO's anti- submarine operations. Using equip- ment deposited on the sea bed months earlier, they immobilize reconnais- sance and communications facilities. No allied-or even neutral- country is immune. In Stockholm, Sweden, a machine-gun battle near the palace ends with the abduction of the royal family by frogmen, who had lain in wait until signaled by agents in the capital. The best Soviet commandos, with the help of long-established cover, agents, have suddenly brought the NATO alliance to an excruciating crisis. With its tactical nuclear capa- bility, its communications and its leadership crippled in one stroke, what will the West do to prevent a Soviet invasion of Western Europe? LT HOUGH THESE EVENTS are by pothetical, planning for them is real. Gen. Pyotr lvanovich Ivashutin, the balding, bull-necked commander of Glav- noye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlen- iye (GRU), the intelligence arm of the Soviet military, has at his dis- posal a force of 30,000 men and women trained to carry out these tasks. Western intelligence services have been slow to learn of the existence and makeup of these commando groups which arc al- ready credited with such operarinne as the 1970 assassination of the president of Afghanistan and the suppression of anti-Soviet activities in Bulgaria in the mid-1kt6os But now their threat is known as is the group's real name: Spetsnaz, from setsalna a naznachentya, meaning .special-purpose orces. "The development of Spetsnaz is a particularly menacing aspect of the growth of Soviet military pow- er," says U.S. Deputy Assistant Sec- retary of Defense Noel Koch. "Their job is to destroy a nation's infrastructure and kill people. They are an integral part of Sovi- et peacetime operations, and in wartime could pose a grave threat of strategic disruption in th NATO area-and in the Unite States itself." Scouting for Sabotage. A typical Spetsnaz unit has a senior and a junior officer, a communications man, a medic, and at least two demolition and four reconnaissance specialists. Commonly used equip- ment includes surface-to-air mis- siles, "burst" communications transmitters (which send a short "squirt" of encrypted signals by satellite back to headquarters), and a list of targets, which may be attacked or merely watched. A Spetsnaz brigade, made up of too of these teams, includes ten career- officer units, the elite of the elite, whose primary mission is assassina- tion of enemy leaders. Altogether, U.S. intelligence reckons that Spetsnaz's total wartime siren Ti includes ao brigades, each wit 100 to 1200 men, plus at least four naval bpi ides. Selection to a S etsnaz unit is a high honor. "On Iv recruits who pass rigorous tests are accepted.". says 2GRU defector who lives in Eng al nd under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov. He maintains and intelligence sources concur that many o the Soviet Union's best athletes, particularly members pits Olympic team, are Spetsnaz Com- mandos. International sporting events give them the double advan- tage othoning s tits makSman- ship, skiing and swimminL_while familiarizing themselves with the countries to which they might re- turn some da as saboteurs. Spetsnaz o cers an men enjoy higher pay, better food, longer leaves, quicker promotion and ear- lier retirement than regular army personnel do. But they earn their perks. In survival exercises they are dropped over wilderness areas and then required to spend days or weeks on their own-without sleep- ing bags. But on a typical mission, each Spetsnaz member carries the Ka- lashnikov light automatic rifle with 300 rounds of ammunition and a bayonet that doubles as a saw and wire cutter, a P6 pistol with silencer, six hand grenades or a hand-grenade launcher, and a James Bondish knife that, at the touch of a button, silently propels a lethal blade a full Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2 4 30 feet. Sheer brutitlimarks Spetsnaz methods. One otytheir main train- ing centers-at Zheltyye Vody in the Ukraine-is close to concentra- tion camps. According to Suvorov, gulag inmates are used in hand-to- hand combat training, allowing Spetsnaz troops to punch, gouge, kick and maim at will. "It's much more realistic than sticking a knife in a sack of sand," he says. Infiltrate, Assassinate. Intelli- gence reports on a secret Spetsna z tranin base west of the Urals rove at the train a ainst U.S. and NATO targets. ere are full- size mockups-of-civilian airliners (for hijack training), American and French jet fighters, nuclear-missile launchers, Pershing and ground- launched cruise missiles. Ironically, the first Pershing II "missile" de- ployed in Europe was not in West Germany in 1983, but at an earlier date in the Soviet Union as a model at the training center. In an actual conflict, Spetsnaz teams would infiltrate Western Eu- rope and the United States during a period of international tension- but before the U.S.S.R. declared war. Besides clandestine airdrops, frogmen and mini-sub landings, there would be a higher-than-nor- mal number of sports and cultural delegations entering the targeted countries. The staffs of Soviet embassies and consulates would be augment- ed by unusually fit young men and women acting as guards, chauf- feurs and gardeners. These teams would activate networks of "sleep- er" agents, who already live near bases, arsenals and communica- tions centers. They keep watch, provide information and maintain safe houses where Spetsnaz teams could hide. In the event of a sneak attack, the teams would target or attack nucle- ar-weapons facilities; destroy com- mand-control systems and neutralize military bases; disrupt public-pow- er and broadcasting stations; and assassinate political and military leaders. Assassination is key to Soviet blitzkrieg planning. Since NATO's nuclear weapons can be unleashed only by political leaders, eliminat- ing them would delay the decision to retaliate with nuclear arms. C. N. Donnelly, head of the Soviet Studies Research Centre at Brit- ain's Royal Military Academy, says, "It is the total political collapse of key NATO governments that the U.S.S.R. must seek to accomplish in as short a time as possible." This audacious strategy takes advantage of NATO's unwieldy structure. Alliance procedures re- quire consultation among its 16 member countries in the event of hostilities, and it takes a few days to y g an, but Cuban and mobilize NATO's forward defense. other Third World troops have Trucks have to line up at storage been to Spetsnaz training camps in sites in Western Europe, for exam- the U.S.S.R. ple, to load nuclear warheads, then Units of Spetsnaz are deployed take them to their units along pub- re ularl to robe the intelligence lic roads, making ideal targets for an mi ltary :es of the West. A aus s ministry of Defence warned in 1984, "the main threat is not large-scale invasion but sabotage by squads of specially trained troops." Mysterious tub Brine. A ord- ing to U.S. intelligenceSpeunaz troops have been at work for years In Special Operations in U.S. Strat egy, Defense Intelligence Agen y expert John Dziak writes: "In Czechos ovakia in 1 68, the Soviet where they are helping 120,000 Red Army troops fight i e costly, Afghan's-tan is con- sidered by the Soviet military to be the first real operational laboratory for their armed forces since World War II," Dziak reports. "S tsnaz forces have influence well beyond the Soviet Union be- cause their unconventional warfare tactics make them an excellent tool for exporting revolution," says U.S. Secretary of the Army John Marsh. Not onl Af h able to crawl on the sea bed with tanklike tracks. Spetsnaz mini-subs spy on Swedish naval bases and look for potential landing beaches for assault swimmers. They have crept underwater to within a mile of Stockholm's Royal Palace. In March 1984 the Swedish army, us- ing machine guns and hand gre- nades, repulsed Spetsnaz frogmen near a large navy base. More recent. ly these subs have b , p s een reported off carried out by Spetsnaz troops the Strait of Gibraltar, the choke under KGB orders. These units at- point between the Atlantic and reste party ea er Aleksandr Dub- Mediterranean, and have left tracks cek and dispatched him to Moscow. on the ocean bottom near Japanese Similar missions were carried out naval bases. against other 'enemies' on KGB lists." The Christmastime invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 was a classic Spetsnaz operation. Key Afghan- army officers were lured to a recep- tion in honor of "Afghan-Soviet friendship." As the officers cele- brated, they were locked in the hall and blown up by a Spetsnaz unit. But according to KGB defector Maj. Vladimir Kuzichkin, the pri- mary objective of the several hun- dred Spetsnaz men flown into Kabul se an to im - was the assassination of President prove its guard systems for vital Hafizullah Amin. On December installations. And with good reason. 27, Spetsnaz forces wearing Al- Jane''s Defence Wee4ly reported last ghan uniforms and under KGB January: "The Soviet Union has command approached the Darula- maintained a secret detachment of man Palace from three sides, female Spetsnaz forces near Green- fought their way 'to Amin, and ham Common Air Base since the killed him, his family and guards. deployment of U.S. Air Force land- Western nrcHigcna.-which de- Tomahawk cruise missiles ponds heavily on radio inf mfrs, there in December 1983. Soviet de- rfugee and defector reports, indi-- fectors have disclosed that several that the reatest S etsnaz in- yolyement today is in A g anistan, seizure or me rague air ort wa Contemplating the Kremlin's bold use of Spetsnaz, Edward Luttwak, a top military analyst at The Center for Strategic and Inter- national Studies at Georgetown University, comments, "It's yet an- other sign that the Soviet Union is seriously planning its offensives." Our Western allies have begun to cope with the ugly reality of Spetsnaz. For example, Britain is strengthening its Territorial Army and has established a Home Serv- ice Force for defend Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2 trained agents infiltrated women's protest groups at Greenham Com- mon and were present 'at all times.' " The Pentagon believes a multi- layered response is necessary to foil Spetsnaz. Those groups, including leading public officials threatened by such a strike force, should be made aware of its capabilities. Agencies such as the FBI and Bor- der Patrol, which would detect and respond to an attack by Spetsnaz forces, must know what to look for and be prepared to react. Finally, our intelligence-gathering on Spetsnaz-learning how, when and where they will strike-must be beefed up. "The development of Spetsnaz has been rapid, and we are only now recognizing the magnitude of the threat they pose," concludes the Pentagon's Koch. "We must vastly improve our rear-area security to deal with that threat." Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2