MEET 'SPETSNAZ,' SOVIET SPECIAL FORCES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
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• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 16, 2014
• Sequence Number: 20
• Publication Date: May 21, 1986
• Content Type: LETTER

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?
THE WASHINGTON POST
. FRIDAY, MAY 16,1986 Di
OMIT IT, YOU
ALL FEEL MORE
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CAPTAIN DIRK,
19/11155E0 MEMO
JACK ANDERSON and DALE VAN AMI
Meet `Spetsnaz,' Soviet Special Forces
They are the true mystery men of the Soviet
Union, that riddle wrapped in a mystery inside
an enigma. The few Kremlin officials who
know about their existence refer to them by the
name "Spetsnaz," or special purpose forces.
"Needless to say, the Soviet man on the street
knows exactly "nitchevo" about the Spetsnaz. He
has read no tales of their derring-do in far-off lands;
be knows none of their names, though some could
be classified as Soviet heroes.
A secret Defense Department report explains
why the Spetsnaz have been kept a deep secret:
"Considering these units as clandestine assets
and being an integral part of their intelligence and
security organization, the Soviets have kept these
units out of public scrutiny to a far greater degree
than their conventional forces.
"Glorious descriptions of their achievements in
training exercises are never published [and] there
is no distinctive uniform or insignia identifying
them. Instead, the usual uniform is that of the
airborne forces, or in the case of naval [Spetsnaz]
simply the standard navy uniform."
Because of this, it has taken Western intelligence
services years to form even the murkiest picture of
Spetsalnaya Naznacheniya. What Western analysts
have determined is that the Spetsnaz are used for
special missions at the behest of Soviet intelligence
and security services.
Whether these special agents report to the GRU
(military intelligence), the Red Army or some other
Soviet agency, U.S. intelligence experts have
decided that the KGB retains ultimate control and
responsibility, under direct supervision of the
Soviet Central Committee.
In addition, though, the KGB has its own
Spetsnaz people, the most notorious of whom are
the professional killers of Department Eight of the
KGB's First Chief Diredtorate. Department Eight
."has been connected with assassinations,
kidnapings, sabotage and other direct action
operations for decades," according to one Defense
Intelligence Agency expert.
There are also the KGB troops on the Soviet
Union's borders, numbering at least 250,000, who
could be classified as special forces. And while the
Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency experts
may haggle over the fine points, they agree that
certain units under the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
which maintains Communist Party control, should
count as Spetsnaz.
But the most dangerous Spetsnaz operatives are
those who report to the Soviet military intelligence
organization, which is the second-largest spy outfit
in the world (second only to the KGB).
In each Spetsnaz brigade, the career officers "are
the most highly trained individuals and are fluent in
one or more foreign languages," the Pentagon
report states, adding: "Their primary mission is
reported to be the assassination of enemy
leadership."
Each brigade includes three reconnaissance and:
destruction battalions of some 30 teams of 10 mei
each, plus signal, engineer and medical units. Naval
Spetsnaz units, though smaller, include paratroops;
frogmen and minisubmarine forces.
BROOM HILDA RUSSELL MYERS
Pa 50 MUCH FOR
-nas YEAR'6 SAM !
0 intrgr.tr.:,..sli some. ma.
.1. le II S. ...Si". ?
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$1
e
1986It ader's
April
A KNIFE
IN THE
Ilq119T!
PAGE 122
Digest
Unforgettable Bill W. Bob P.
Spetsnaz: The Soviets' Sinister Strike Force . .
The Last Rainbow Dale Van A.
Outdoor
Caught in a Flooding Cavern
Per Ola & Emily d'Aulaire
TV Docudramas: "A License to Lie" Victor Lasky
Tragic Costs of Teen-Age Pregnancy . . . Time
Are You an Entrepreneur? . . . "Going For It!"
You Must Go Home Again . . . . Ardis Whitman
The Lonely Struggle of a Nicaraguan Priest . .
Trevor Armbrister
Winging It Cartoon Feature
Do-It-Yourself Counterfeiting Discover
How Much Longer Can You Live? . . WCBS-TV
Loving a Special Child . . The Exceptional Parent
"Dear George Burns. . ." . . . . From the book
THE UNSINKABLE TITAN!
FEATURE The Job-Protection Dilemma
CONDENSATION I. What Does It Cost to "Buy American"? . .
Woman's Mk
II. Don Williams: An American Worker's
Comeback David Reed
To Comfort Those Who Grieve . Barbara Chesser
Where Baseball's Legends Live . William Gildea
The Zoo That Gives the Past a Future
Picture Feature
Daylight Saving: More Than a Trick of Time, 7
Did You Catch These Tax Deductions? 27
Fungus Fit for a King, 35?Heroes for Today, 43
Six Thoughts That Sabotage Marriage, 53
Oh Pun Season! 60
Picturesque Speech, 2?Notes, 16A?News of Medicine
Quotable Quotes, 49?Personal Glimpses, 52?Life in
United States, 81?Word Power, 97?Laughter, 115?
Work, 161?Campus Comedy, 179?Points to Ponder
65th Year: World's Most-Read Magazine
Over 28 million copies in 16 languages bought monthly
PAGE 77
DoYou
NEED
EXTRA
VITAMINS?
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SPECIAL REPORT
For some years, Western intelligence agencies have been piecing
together evidence of a clandestine Soviet military force, a large, covert
army, brutally trained and poised to spearhead an invasion of Western
Europe?or beyond. Here, in 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 offire 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 II
nuclear-missile launchers, die within
minutes beneath an invisible blanket
of nerve gas, and the launchers are
rendered useless.
A second Pershing base in Heil-
bronn falls in similar fashion. At the
same time, five key NATO communi-
cations facilities?in Maastricht, the
72
Netherlands, and in the German
towns of Boofink, 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 covert
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?
ALTHOUGH THESE EVENTS are hy-
pothetical, planning for
them is real. Gen. Pyotr
Ivanovich 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 are al-
ready credited with such operations
as the 1979 assassination of the
president of Afghanistan and the
suppression of anti-Soviet activities
in Bulgaria in the mid-196os. But
now their threat is known, as is the
group's real name: Spetsnaz, from
spetsalnaya naznacheniya, meaning
special-purpose forces.
"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 the-
NATO area?and in the United
States itself."
Scouting for Sabotage. A typical
Spetsnaz unit has a senior and a
junior officer, a communications
man, a medic, and at least ts
demolition and four reconnaissanW
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 strength
includes 20 brigades, each with 9oo
to 1200 men, plus at least four navillo
brigades.
Selection to a Spetsnaz unit is a
high honor. "Only recruits who
pass rigorous tests are accepted,"
says a GRU defector who lives in
England under the pseudonym
Viktor Suvorov. He maintains (and
intelligence sources concur) that
many of the Soviet Union's best
athletes, particularly members of its
Olympic team, are Spetsnaz com-
mandos. International sporting
events give them the double advan-
73
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READER'S DIGEST April
tage of honing skills in marksman-
ship, skiing and swimming, while
familiarizing themselves with the
countries to which they might re-
turn someday as saboteurs.
Spetsnaz officers and 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
30 feet.
Sheer brutality marks Spetsnaz
methods. One of their 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 Spetsnaz
training base west of the Urals
prove that they train against U.S.
and NATO targets. There are full-
74
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
1986 SPETSNAZ: THE SOVIETS' SINISTER STRIKE FORCE
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 z6
member countries in the event of
hostilities, and it takes a few days to
mobilize NATO's forward defense.
Trucks have to line up at storage
sites in Western Europe, for exam-
ple, to load nuclear warheads, then
take them to their units along pub-
lic roads, making ideal targets for
Spetsnaz ambush teams. As Brit-
ain's Ministry of Defence warned
in 1984, "the main threat is not
large-scale invasion but sabotage by
squads of specially trained troops."
Mysterious Submarines. Accord-
ing to U.S. intelligence, Spetsnaz
troops have been at work for years.
In Special Operations in U.S. Strat-
egy, Defense Intelligence Agency
expert John Dziak writes: "In
Czechoslovakia in i968, the Soviet
seizure of the Prague airport was
carried out by Spetsnaz troops
under KGB orders. These units ar-
rested party leader Aleksandr Dub-
cek and dispatched him to Moscow.
Similar missions were carried out
against other 'enemies' on Kai
lists."
The Christmastime invasion o
Afghanistan in 1979 was a claisi,
Spetsnaz operation. Key Afghan
army officers were lured to a recep
tion in honor of "Afghan-Sovie
friendship." As the officers cele
brated, they were locked in the
and blown up by a Spetsnaz
But according to KGB defect?,
Maj. Vladimir Kuzichkin, the pri
mary objective of the several hun-
dred Spetsnaz men flown into Kabu
was the assassination of President
Hafizullah Amin. On December
27, Spetsnaz forces wearing Af-
ghan uniforms and under KGE
command approached the Darula-
man Palace from three sides.
fought their way to Amin, and
killed him, his family and guards.
Western intelligence, which de-
pends heavily on radio intercepts,
refugee and defector reports, indi-
cates that the greatest Spetsnaz in-
volvement today is in Afghanis n,
where they are helping 120,
Army troops fight guerri s.
"While costly, Afghanistan is con-
sidered by the Soviet military to be
the first real operational laboratory
for their armed forces since World
War II," Dziak reports.
"Spetsnaz 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 only Afghan, but Cuban and
other Third World troops have
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READERS DIGEST
been to Spetsnaz training camps in
the U.S.S.R.
Units of Spetsnaz are deployed
regularly to probe the intelligence
and military reflexes of the West. A
favorite tool is a mini-submarine,
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 been reported off
the Strait of Gibraltar, the choke
point between the Atlantic and
Mediterranean, and have left tracks
on the ocean bottom near Japanese
naval bases.
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 defense and to im-
prove its guard systems for vital
installations. And with good reason.
Jane's Defence Weekly reported last
January: "The Soviet Union has
maintained a secret detachment of
female Spetsnaz forces near Green-
ham Common Air Base since the
deployment of U.S. Air Force land-
based Tomahawk cruise missiles
there in December 1983. Soviet de-
fectors have disclosed that several
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."
?>>> 04> Ott-
9ATHER TELLING SON a story: "So Jack ate the magic beans, and he grew
to be seven feet, four inches tall and signed a multimillion dollar, no-cut
contract and lived happily ever after." ?Cochran in USA Thday
76
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STAT
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ea ers
9 $11.
Rd.,
ilpni 1986
A KNIFE
IN THE
HART!
PAGE 109
Digest
Unforgettable Bill W Bob P.
Spetsnaz: The Soviets' Sinister Strike Force .
Dale Van Atta.
The Last Rainbow Outdoor Life
Caught in a Flooding Cavern . . . . . . . .
Per Ola & Emily d'Aulaire
TV Docudramas: "A License to Lie" Victor Lasky
Tragic Costs of Teen-Age Pregnancy . . . Time
Are You an Entrepreneur? . . . "Going For It!"
You Must Go Home Again . . . . Ardis Whitman
The Lonely Struggle of a Nicaraguan Priest . .
Trevor Armbrister
Winging It Cartoon Feature
Do-It-Yourself Counterfeiting Discover
How Much Longer Can You Live? . . WCBS-TV
Loving a Special Child . . The Exceptional Parent
PAGE 122 "Dear George Burns. . ." . . . . From the book
THE UNSINKABLE TITAN!
FEATURE
CONDENSATION
Deja
NEED
EXTRA
VITAMINS?
The Job-Protection Dilemma
I. What Does It Cost to "Buy American"? . .
Woman's Day
II. Don Williams: An American Worker's
Comeback David Reed
To Comfort Those Who Grieve . Barbaro Chesser
Where Baseball's Legends Live . William Gildea
The Zoo That Gives the Past a Future
Picture Feature
Daylight Saving: More Than a Trick of Time, 7
Did You Catch These Tax Deductions? 27
Fungus Fit for a King, 35?Heroes for Today, 43
Six Thoughts That Sabotage Marriage, 53
Oh Pun Season! 60
Picturesque Speech, 2?Notes, 16A?News of Medicine
Quotable Quotes, 49?Personal Glimpses, 52?Life in
United States, 81?Word Power, 97?Laughter, 115?
Work, 161?Campus Comedy, 179?Points to Ponder
65th Year: World's Most-Read Magazine
Over 28 million copies in 16 languages bought monthly
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/16: CIA-RDP92B00478R000800130070_R
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/16: CIA-RDP92B00478R000800130020-8
SPECIAL REPORT
For some years, Western intelligence agencies have been piecing
together evidence of a clandestine Soviet military force, a large, covert
army, brutally trained and poised to spearhead an invasion of Western
Europe?or beyond. Here, in a comprehensive report, arc 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 offire 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 II
nuclear-missile launchers, die within
minutes beneath an invisible blanket
of nerve gas, and the launchers are
rendered useless.
A second Pershing base in Heil-
bronn falls in similar fashion. At the
same time, five key NATO communi-
cations facilities?in Maastricht, the
72
Netherlands, and in the German
towns of Boesfink, Kindsbach, Mass-
weikr 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 covert
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?
ALTHOUGH THESE EVENTS are hy-
pothetical, planning for
them is real. Gen. Pyotr
Ivanovich 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 are al-
ready credited with such operations
as the 1979 assassination of the
president of ?Afghanistan and the
suppression of anti-Soviet activities
in Bulgaria in the mid-196os. But
now their threat is known, as is the
group's real name: Spetsnaz, from
spetsalnaya naznacheniya, meaning
special-purpose forces.
"The development of Spetsnaz is
,a particularly menacing aspect of
the growth of Soviet military pow-
er," says tallabrpalgaialitaLls?-
retar of Defense Noel Ko
"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 the
NATO area?and in the United
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 zoo
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 strength
includes 20 brigades, each with 9oo
to 1200 men, plus at least four naval
brigades.
Selection to a Spetsnaz unit is a
high honor. "Only recruits who
pass rigorous tests are accepted,"
says a GRU defector who lives in
England under the pseudonym
Viktor Suvorov. He maintains (and
intelligence sources concur) that
many of the Soviet Union's best
athletes, particularly members of its
Olympic team, are Spetsnaz com-
mandos. International sporting
events give them the double advan-
73
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READER'S DIGEST April
tage of honing skills in marksman-
ship, skiing and swimming, while
familiarizing themselves with the
countries to which they might re-
turn someday as saboteurs.
Spetsnaz officers and 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
30 feet.
Sheer brutality marks Spetsnaz
methods. One of their 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 Spetsnaz
training base west of the Urals
prove that they train against U.S.
and NATO targets. There are full-
74
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
1986 SPETSNAZ: THE SOVIETS' SINISTER STRIKE FORCE
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 /6
member countries in the event of
hostilities, and it takes a few days to
mobilize NATO's forward defense.
Trucks have to line up at storage
sites in Western Europe, for exam-
ple, to load nuclear warheads, then
take them to their units along pub-
lic roads, making ideal targets for
Spetsnaz ambush teams. As Brit-
ain's Ministry of Defence warned
in 1984, "the main threat is not
large-scale invasion but sabotage by
squads of specially trained troops."
Mysterious Submarines. Accord-
ing to U.S. intelligence, Spetsnaz
troops have been at work for years.
In Special Operations in U.S. Strat-
egy, Defense Intelligence Agency
expert John Dziak writes: "In
Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet
seizure of the Prague airport was
carried out by Spetsnaz troops
under KGB orders. These units ar-
rested party leader Aleksandr Dub-
cek and dispatched him to Moscow.
Similar missions were carried out
against other 'enemies' on KGE
The Christmastime invasion oi
Afghanistan in 1979 was a classi(
Spetsnaz operation. Key Afghan-
army officers were lured to a recep
tion in honor of "Afghan-Sovie
friendship." As the officers cele-
brated, they were locked in the hal
and blown up by a Spetsnaz unit.
But according to KGB defectol
Maj. Vladimir Kuzichkin, the pri-
mary objective of the several hun-
dred Spetsnaz men flown into Kabul
was the assassination of President
Hafizullah Amin. On December
27, Spetsnaz forces wearing Af-
ghan uniforms and under KGB
command approached the Darula-
man Palace from three sides,
fought their way to Amin, and
killed him, his family and guards.
Western intelligence, which de-
pends heavily on radio intercepts,
refugee and defector reports, indi-
cates that the greatest Spetsnaz in-
volvement today is in Afghanistan,
where they are helping 120,000 Red
Army troops fight guerrillas.
"While costly, Afghanistan is con-
sidered by the Soviet military to be
the first real operational laboratory
for their armed forces since World
War II," Dziak reports.
"Spetsnaz 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 only Afghan, but Cuban and
other Third World troops have
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been to Spetsnaz training camps in
the U.S.S.R.
Units of Spetsnaz are deployed
regularly to probe the intelligence
and military reflexes of the West. A
favorite tool is a mini-submarine,
able to crawl on the sea bed with
tanklike tracks. Spetsnaz mini-subs
4it spy on Swedish naval bases and
look for potential lIncling 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 been reported off
the Strait of Gibraltar, the choke
point between the Atlantic and
Mediterranean, and have left tracks
on the ocean bottom near Japanese
naval bases.
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 defense and to im-
prove its guard systems for vital
installations. And with good reason.
Jane's Defence Weekly reported last
January: "The Soviet Union has
maintained a secret detachment of
female Spetsnaz forces near Green-
ham Common Air Base since the
deployment of U.S. Air Force land-
based Tomahawk cruise missiles
there in December 1983. Soviet de-
fectors have disclosed that several
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."
9ATHER TEu.mo sox a story: "So Jack ate the magic beans, and he grew
to be seven feet, four inches tall and signed a multimillion dollar, no-cut
contract and lived happily ever after." ?Cochran in USA Today
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