Soldier of Fortune
January 1988
SOF SOVIET SPECIAL OPS
SPETSNAZ INVADES AMERICA
USG Ignores Soviet Special Troops Inside Our
Borders
by Neil C. Livingston and M. K. Pilgrim
Elite Soviet Spetsnaz, or Special Purpose, troops are systematically
conducting operations on U.S. territory, and the U.S. government is
trying to keep the whole matter under wraps. A recent secret National
Intelligence Estimate focused only on Spetsnaz operations on the
territory of our allies and specifically excluded material about
activities in the continental United States. Why? Chiefly because of
bureaucratic infighting among the FBI, Defense Department and other
federal agencies. But there is also the question of what to do about
them; the actual interdiction of a Spetsnaz unit in the United States
would likely produce cries of outrage across the country and create so
much anti-Soviet feeling as to jeopardize an arms control agreement.
Spetsnaz forces "softened up" targets in Afghanistan prior to the Soviet
invasion and, with elements of the KGB, surrounded the national palace
in Kabul and later executed President Hafizullah Amin. Hunter-killer
Spetsnaz teams are currently engaged in a variety of special operations
in Afghanistan, such as the assasination of rebel leaders, the
interdiction of arms and the ambush of rebel units. One of the most
intriguing missions rumored to have been given to Spetsnaz units in
Afghanistan is the capture of American-made, shoulder-fired Stinger
ground-to-air missiles. The Soviets are believed to be losing aircraft
in Afghanistan at the rate of one every 36 hours, and the Stinger is
proving highly effective against the aircraft of Soviet-backed forces in
Angola as well. Thus, to neutralize this threat, the Soviets have sought
for some time to capture Stingers, which could then be sold or turned
over to a country like Iran. If used against U.S. forces, the
predictable outcry in Congress would be so great as to jeopardize
continued Stinger shipments to anti-Soviet rebels, thereby removing the
most significant threat to their air superiority. The recent discovery
of Stinger packing materials (but no actual weapons) following the U.S.
engagement with Iranian speed boats in the Persian Gulf suggests that
the Spetsnaz mission may have been accomplished. Stories in the media
suggesting that elements of the Mujahideen sold a number of Stingers to
Iran may simply be a subterfuge to mask the involvement of the Soviets
in securing the missiles for the Iranians.
Spetsnaz units also played a prominent role in the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968, including the seizure of Prague airport so as to
permit the Soviet 103rd Guards Airborne Division to land. The plane
bearing the Spetsnaz unit feigned engine trouble in order to secure
permission to land at the Prague airport. The elite commandos burst from
the aircraft even before it had rolled to a stop, overpowering guard
posts and establishing procedures to bring the division in. Four-man
Spetsnaz teams also were secretly sent to Vietnam to test the then-new
SVD sniper rifle on U.S. forces during the war in Southeast Asia.
Only seven years ago this was a classified (code-word) subject, but
recently new attention and intelligence energy have been focused on
Spetsnaz forces, and some material about this hitherto unspoken subject
is becoming public knowledge. Neverless, much about the actual
organization and operations of Spetsnaz forces remains a mystery. There
has never been a spetsnaz defector to the West, despite the hemmoraging
of Soviet deserters in Afghanistan. Much of the current information
being obtained by Western intelligence agencies is from
Spetsnaz-"related" individuals claiming close or unique association with
elite Soviet units. However, authorities remain skeptical about the
value and authenticity of much of this information.
There are 24 Spetsnaz brigades controlled by Soviet military
intelligence (GRU), and each boasts its own dedicated training facility.
A great deal of what we actually know about Spetsnaz forces and their
objectives comes from secret Western reconnaissance of these training
areas, which has revealed mockups of U.S. nuclear power plants,
refineries and electrical switching yards. Even more disturbing, such
training area also contain mockups of U.S. airliners and even the same
models of aircraft used by the Air Force to transport the president and
vice president. Training is also routinely conducted against mockups of
various NATO targets, including models of nuclear-capable weapons
(Pershing, Lance and ground-launched cruise missiles), nuclear depots
and airbases.
Primary Spetsnaz targets in the United States are known to include key
command and control centers, the president and other political leaders,
the 799 mile-long Trans-Alaska pipeline and major infrastructure
components, nuclear power plants, and military bases and facilities.
Soviet intelligence agents, some of them possibly Spetsnaz "sleeper"
agents or special reconnaisance operators, run shops and convenience
stores adjacent to most major American military bases, chiefly for the
purpose of intelligence collection. Some shops, however, may serve as
"safe houses" and staging sites for contemplated attacks on those U.S.
facilities in time of war.
Sources also have confirmed the presence on some Soviet Lentra-class AGI
vessels of midget submarines used by Spetsnaz forces. Although
purportedly merchant ships, the Lentra-class cessels operate all along
the U.S. coastline collecting electronic and signals data.
Mini-submarines, presumed to belong to Spetsnaz units, have been tracked
in Japanese and Swedish territorial waters.
There is a persistent story, denied by the Pentagon but confirmed by
Alaskan sources, that an Eskimo member of the Alaskan Scouts (National
Guard) was apparently shot to death after stumbling upon a Spetsnaz
reconaisance unit in Alaska. Reports indicate that authorities
discovered footprints leading from the murder scene to the water's edge,
as well as mini-sub tracks nearby in shallow water. In addition, a piece
of equipment found at the scene was identified as being of Soviet
origin. The incident has produced serious dissension within the ranks of
the Alaskan Scouts: Several members have refused to patrol the area of
the shooting and others have resigned. [Editor's note: SOF has learned
that the item of Soviet equipment found next to the body of the Eskimo
Scout on Little Diomede Island was a Soviet NBC decontamination kit. In
addition, an autopsy performed on the scout revealed that he had been
killed by a dum-dum bullet of a type known to be favored by Spetsnaz
teams.]
There are several reports of other attacks against Americans on U.S
soil, but details are hard to come by. It has been confirmed by
intelligence sources that CIA double agent Boris Korczak was assasinated
at a shopping mall in the Washington, DC, suburbs with the notorious
umbrella-weapon used in the attacks on Bulgarian exiles Georgi Markov
(London) and Vladimir Kostov (Paris). It is not known who Korczak's
assailant was, but it was likely an Eastern Europe intelligence or
Spetsnaz agent.
The evidence of Spetsnaz activity in the United States is overwhelming.
Sources say a Soviet unit was observed in San Fransisco, and a number of
Spetsnaz transmitters have been discovered during the last five years in
locations as diverse as upstate New York, Alaska, Manitoba, Scotland,
and West Germany. In 1983, a Soviet-made "plastic" pistol, designed to
pass through airport security undetected and employed solely for
assasinations, was found on an individual at an airport near the
nation's capital. Use of this particular pistol is restricted to
Spetsnaz headquarters teams. Such teams have as their primary purpose
reconnaissance and neutralization of key infrastructure targets, but
also engage in "wet" operations, that is to say, assasinations. The fate
of the individual carrying the pistol is classified, but it is safe to
assume that he is no longer in the United States.
Merchant shipping also provides the Soviets with numerous opportunities
for penetration. Cargo containers of Soviet origin with electrical and
water hookups have baan located in Delaware, California, and North
Carolina and are similar to those discovered in Europe during the past
six years. While their purpose is not entirely certain, speculation
centers on the containers being employed as staging areas,
communications "drops", or to hide infiltrators and exfiltrators.
Federal authorities believe that other Spetsnaz units have penetrated
the United States disguised as members of visiting athletic teams,
musicians, and support personnel for dance troupes and other cultural
organizations.
It is widely known that the Soviets conduct extensive Spetsnaz
operations in Europe -- especially on the territory of West Germany,
France, and Great Britain -- in anticipation of a potential European
conflict. The French, for example, routinely monitor the penetration of
their territory by Spetsnaz teams, tracking them to communications
"drops" and observing them conduct mock attacks on French targets. This,
however, can be extremely difficult. Trucks marked "TIR"
Transports Internationalaux Routers) are permitted by European
customs agreement to cross national frontiers with only rudimentary
procedures and minimal scrutiny, and as a result East-bloc TIR trucks
are regularly used for intelligence collection (especially signals and
other electronic collection) and to transport Spetsnaz operatives in and
out of various countries. It is widely believed today that would-be
papal assassin Mehmet Ali Agca escaped from Rome in a TIR truck of
Bulgarian origin. Not long ago, on one particular day an estimated 5,000
TIR trucks from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia entered French territory,
overwhelming the ability of that nation's intelligence services to track
and monitor their activities. French authorities are extremely concerned
about dormant agents in their midst who could be activated for
reconnaissance, sabatoge, and other missions by Moscow in times of
crisis.
It is time the U.S. government leveled with the American public about
the activities of the Soviet military forces within this country. The
FBI regards Spetsnaz as hostile intelligence agents and therefore under
the bureau's jurisdiction. But if the FBI, which is a law enforcement --
not a military -- organization, is unable to adequately protect our
shores from foreign penetration, then consideration must be given to
expanding both the Pentagon's and CIA's roles in combating this
menace.
WHAT IS SPETSNAZ
Spetsnaz (Voyska Spetsial' nogo Naznacheniya) is a Russian
acronym for "Special Designation", and the Soviet Military Encyclopedia
(volume 2) describes them, ironically, as the unsavory special
operations forces of its Western adversaries. "Troops of Special
Designation", it claims, are "special units and subunits in the armed
forces in an array of capitalistic states, designated for
reconaissance-sabotage and terroristic activities, the organization of
rebelious activity and armed attacks, the directing of psychological
war, propaganda, and their subversive activity." As the term is used by
the United States and its allies, however, it generally refers to what
John. M. Collins calls "a mixed bag of military and civilian SOF
(Special Operations Forces). KGB forces probably emphasize political
missions, while the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) features war
fighting, but boundaries are blurred and overlaps are common."
Spetsnaz forces are the only units in the Soviet military structure that
are encouraged to be innovative and to operate with a high degree of
independence. Thus they serve as a unique element of the Soviet combat
structure of wartime FRONTS. According to recent reports, each military
district and fleet has its own Spetsnaz brigade. Brigades are believed
to contain approximately 100 six to ten man teams (or five to twelve man
teams). Thsi translates into approximately 600 to 1,000 Spetsnaz troops
available to each brigade commander. The FRONT commander also has an
independent Spetsnaz company at his disposal.
While there has been a good deal of debate and discussion as to who
actually controls these Spetsnaz units, they are GRU assets that report
to the Chief Intelligence Directorate's 5th Directorate (department),
which is responsible for operational intelligence. Simply translated,
this means that Spetsnaz units at the FRONT level report to the Chief of
Intelligence who, correspondingly, is under the command of the Chief of
Staff. It is also known that Spetsnaz units can be tasked by the KGB
with or without the consent of the FRONT commander. Each Spetsnaz
commander recognises the ultimate "authority" of the KGB in all Soviet
political/military affairs. In other words, what the KGB wants, the KGB
gets.
The history of Soviet Spetsnaz forcesdates back to World War II, when
they were created to carry out various unconventional operations behind
German lines, including sabotage, assassinations, reconaissance,
espionage, and training partisans. Today their role has changed little,
and they are tasked with strategic reconaissance and target designation;
the destruction or sabotage of key targets such as nuclear weapons
sites, infrastructure elements, pipelines, airfields, and command and
control centers; the assassination or kidnapping of enemy political
leaders; serving as "pathfinders" for other Soviet military forces;
support for partisians; and certain counterinsurgency operations.
According to Ross S. Kelly, "Naval Spetsnaz units are tasked with
conducting reconaissance of potential landing beaches, enemy naval
facilities and submarine approaches to fleet anchorages, as well as
amphibious raids."
The profile of the standard Spetsnaz soldier reveals that he is most
often a highly trained non-commissioned officer or junior field grade
officer (lieutenant or captain). Typically, the average Spetsnaz unit is
composed of 18 to 20 year old noncoms led by an officer in his early or
mid 20s, with a warrant officer or sergeant as second-in-command. In
contrast to conventional Soviet military doctrine, every
non-commissioned officer is trained and has the authority to take over
and operate the unit in the event the senior officer is incapacitated,
and this includes the highly unusual authority to use his own judgement
to make decisions such as shifting the units emphasis from primary to
secondary targets.
Every member of a Spetsnaz unit is considered to be "highly
trustworthy", and those selected for Spetsnaz training have already
passed a number of tests regarding their political reliability, such as
Komsomol or Party membership. It has been claimed that the units are so
trustworthy, in fact, that they do not have political officers watching
their every move, as is standard practice throughout the Soviet
military.
Every Spetsnaz member receives highly specialized training, including
airborne operations (HALO and HAHO), scuba diving, silent killing,
infiltration and exfiltration, demolitions (conventional and improvised
explosives, incendiary devices, and special abrasives, and acids),
clandestine communications, psychological warefare, paramilitary sports
(such as competitive shooting and martial arts), intelligence
collection, and clandestine operations. Members of Spetsnaz units are
also given special language and foreign "culture" training, consistent
with their need to operate in a variety of foreign environments like the
United States.
While Soviet Spetsnaz forces are sometimes portrayed in the Western
media as Ramboesque, 10-foot-tall superwarriors, they are not without
their own limitations. However, inasmuch as they are being rotated
through Afghanistan on a regular basis, Spetsnaz forces will have the
distinct advantage over their Western counterparts of having seen action
against one of the world's most dogged, ruthless and dedicated insurgent
movements, the Majahideen. Most members of the U.S. special operations
units, by contrast, have not seen action in at least 14 years.
SPETSNAZ UNCONVENTIONAL WAREFARE OPERATIONS
The following scenario outlining typical Spetsnaz-type operations
prior to a Soviet main-force incursion into a foreign country comes from
unclassified U.S. government documents.
"An unconventional warefare scenario: The following hypothetical
scenario illustrates the employment concept for the full exploitation of
Soviet UW [unconventional warefare] assets.
"In support of a coordinated attack, air-dropped or air-landed GRU
special purpose teams would be introduced into their respective target
areas some days prior to H-hour. Special KGB sabotage teams would have
been infiltrated over a longer period of time by clandestine methods to
include the use of international commercial travel. These sabotage teams
could be prepared to begin their operations well before the enemy's rear
area security apparatus can be fully alerted. In the pre-war period,
some KGB personnel will seek to undermine national resistance through
political measures.
"Sabotage teams will begin isolated acts of sabotage such as destroying
a key bridge. In addition, KGB teams will attempt to create chaos at
major ports and distrupt communications.
"Shortly before D-day, additional sabotage teams will be inserted and
the majority of `sleeper agents' activated.
"Sabotage equipment can be smuggled into a country by any number of
secret methods and stored in hidden, but easily accessible, caches.
Smuggling techniques may include the offshore dropping of waterproof
containers from ships and submarines. In accordance with the
prearranged signals, they will be recovered and stored by clandestine
support personnel.
"Sensitive or fragil equipment (electronics material, detonators, and
communication devices) can be brought into the country by diplomatic
pouch and made available to the teams through established
procedures.
"Teams will attempt tp place their explosives and incendiary devices on
the targets and set them to detonate at H-hour. All efforts will be made
to prevent association of these acts with the USSR in order to maintain
the element of surprise for the main attack. Immediately prior to
H-hour, the UW teams will prepare to:
-
Locate and destroy nuclear capable weaponry.
-
Jam radar installations.
-
Kidnap or assassinate key political-military leadership.
-
Seize or destroy radio and TV broadcasting facilities.
"At H-hour a wide spectrum of sabotage actions will be initiated."
LOST IN THE FILES
To American military intelligence analysts he's known as "The
Swimmer".
Details from the investigation of the body that washed up on a beach in
Alaska are sparse: death by drowning, blond hair, blue eyes, age early
20s, no indentification on the body, wet suit of unknown origin, no
reasonable match with persons missing in diving accidents in either
Alaska or Canada.
"The body was burried in an unmarked grave and the report was collecting
dust in the local police files until a reporter working on the killing
of the Eskimo scout discovered it," an informed military intelligence
analyst told SOF.
"Was he a Spetsnaz swimmer drowned on some mission we never learned
about? We just don't know.
The problem is, there is no collection point for incidents of that
nature. The reports either get filed by local authorities or passed on
to the FBI, which just doesn't do much with cases like that.
"One place where we have found some very interesting clues is with FEMA
[Federal Emergency Management Agency], and some of those clues are
intriguing," the analyst said.
"For example, several drivers crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in San
Francisco simultaneously stopped their cars abreast, locked them up and
got into a car ahead of them and drove off. The traffic jam was massive
and when local police checked the cars they found they had all been
rented at the airport with false credentials and credit cards.
"Another FEMA report detailed a peculiar incident in Wilmington, North
Carolina, where at 0500 one morning a blue Mercedes came roaring off the
ramp of a Soviet RoRo [Roll on, Roll off] ship, shot down the pier at
high speed and crashed through a manned pole barrier. The security guard
reported it to the local police who questioned the Soviet crew, which
predictably had seen nothing, heard nothing, and knew nothing. We found
the car three months laterabandoned in the Florida Everglades.
"FEMA also has some chemical plant fire incidents which are suspicious,
and lately we've begun to consider the possibility that some of the
power failure problems we've had on the East Coast the last few years
may not be acidential.
"Why are the Soviets taking the risk? They are either very good and
believe that testing their operational plans is worth the risk, or they
are very stupid and reckless.
"But then, as long as we don't have a process for tracking them, they
really don't risk that much, do they?"
-- Jim Graves
UNCOVERING SPETSNAZ
Neil C. Livingston is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and
an authority on terrorism and national defense issues. He's authored
numerous articles and books on those subjects, his most recent effort
being beyond the Iran-Contra Crisis: The Shape of U.S.
Counter-Terrorism Policy in the Post-Reagan Era, to be published
by Lexington Press.
M. K. Pilgrim is the vice president of MMP Associates. He has written
several articles on domestic terrorism, is an expert on the subject of
the financing of international terrorism, and is a frequent lecturer to
the intelligence community on the subject of Spetsnaz.
We welcome their insightful contribution to Soldier of
Fortune.
SUGGESTED READING ON SPETSNAZ
Kristen Amunderson, "Soviet Submarines in Scandanavian Waters,"
The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1985.
Chris Burton, "The Myth and Reality of the Soviet Paratrooper,"
Military Review, Janurary 1985.
Defense Intelligense Agency, Review of the Soviet Ground
Forces (Unclassified), October 1981.
John Dziak, "Soviet Intelligence and Security Services in the Eighties:
the Paramilitary Dimension," Orbis, Winter 1981.
James Hansen, "Soviet Vanguard Forces -- Spetsnaz," National
Defense, March 1986.
Al Holder, "Spetsnatz (sic) The Hidden Enemy," U.S. Army Aviation
Digest, May 1985.
David Isby, "The Spetsnaz in Afghanistan: Soviet special operation
forces in action," Military Technology, October 1985.
Ross Kelly, "Spetsnaz: Special Operations Forces of the USSR,"
Defense & Foreign Affairs, December 1984.
Lawrence B. Sulc, "The Soviet Unions Cutthroat Soldiers," The
World & I, December 1986.
Victor Suvorov, "Spetsnaz, The Soviet Union's Special Forces,"
International Defense Review, 1983.
"Spetsnaz and Sport," International Defense Review, June
1984.
Inside Soviet Military Intelligence, Macmillan, New York,
NY, 1984.