SPETSNAZ: THE SOVIET'S SINISTER STRIKE FORCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• 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
• Publication Date: April 1, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/15: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706940070-2
tki It APPEARED
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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
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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
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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