Thank you Wardad...it sounds authentic and has a ring of truth to it...all these units are bloody good...this type of training leaves no stone unturned...
The Russians have been baptised in this and more experienced and have by far the most positive results in COUNTER action simply because they have faced the most tests...they take no shyte or prisoners too...but what's happened is that Islam extremists have taken to suicide bombings...and as you know there is f...k all you you can do against this foul str ategy...Jap Kamikaze tactics in 2nd World war...to me this is not bravery but psychotic...fueled by the promise of better life in the unknown next world which will be a shock to most.
Here's an account:
After the breakup of Soviet Union
After the collapse of the USSR Spetsnaz forces of the Soviet Union's
newly formed republics took part in many local conflicts such as the Civil war in Tajikistan, Chechen Wars, Russo-Georgian War and the Crimea Crisis. Spetsnaz forces also have been called upon to resolve several high profile hostage situations such as the Moscow theater hostage crisis and the Beslan school hostage crisis to varying degrees of success.[10]
Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis
Main article:
Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis
The crisis took place from 14 June to 19 June 1995, when a group of 80 to 200 Chechen separatists led by Shamil Basayev attacked the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk,where
they stormed the main police station and the city hall. After several
hours of fighting and Russian reinforcements imminent, the Chechens
retreated to the residential district and regrouped in the city
hospital, where they took between 1,500 and 1,800 hostages, most of them
civilians (including about 150 children and a number of women with
newborn infants).[11]
After three days of siege, the Russian authorities ordered the
security forces to retake the hospital compound. The forces deployed
were elite personnel from the Federal Security Service's (FSB's),
Alpha Group, alongside MVD militsiya and Internal Troops. The strike
force attacked the hospital compound at dawn on the fourth day, meeting
fierce resistance. After several hours of fighting in which many
hostages were killed by crossfire, a local ceasefire was agreed on and
227 hostages were released; 61 others were freed by the Russian forces.
A second Russian attack on the hospital a few hours later also
failed, and so did a third, resulting in even more casualties. The
Russian authorities accused the Chechens of using the hostages as human
shields.
Shamil Basaev, mastermind behind the Moscow theater hostage crisis, was killed by FSB operators.
According to official figures, 129 civilians were killed and 415 were
injured in the entire event (of whom 18 later died of their wounds).[12] This includes at least 105 hostage fatalities.[11]
However, according to an independent estimate 166 hostages were killed
and 541 injured in the special forces attack on the hospital.[13][14] At least 11 Russian police officers and 14 soldiers were killed.[11]
Basayev's force suffered 11 men killed and one missing; most of their
bodies were returned to Chechnya in a special freezer truck. In the
years following the hostage taking, more than 30 of the surviving
attackers have been killed, including Aslambek Abdulkhadzhiev
in 2002 and Shamil Basayev in 2006, and more than 20 were sentenced by
the Stavropol territorial court to various terms of imprisonment.
Second Chechen war
Main article:
Second Chechen War
Russian special forces were instrumental in Russia's and the Kremlin backed government's success in the Second Chechen War. Under joint command of Unified Group of Troops (OGV),
GRU, FSB, MVD Spetsnaz operators conducted a myriad of anti-insurgency
and counter terrorism missions, including targeted killings of
separatist leadership, in the meantime inflicting heavy casualties among
Islamist separatists. Some of the most infamous of these successful
missions were internationally condemned terrorists and separatist
leaders, like Aslan Maskhadov, Abdul Halim Sadulayev, Dokka Umarov, Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev, Akhmed Avtorkhanov, Ibn al-Khattab, Abu al-Walid, Abu Hafs al-Urduni, Muhannad, Ali Taziev, Supyan Abdullayev, Shamil Basayev, Ruslan Gelayev, Salman Raduyev, Sulim Yamadayev, Rappani Khalilov, Yassir al-Sudani. During these many operators received honors for their courage and prowess in combat, including with the title Hero of the Russian Federation. At least 106 FSB and GRU operators died during the conflict.[15]
Moscow theater hostage crisis
Main article:
Moscow theater hostage crisis
The crisis was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater on 23 October 2002 by 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya.[16] They took 850 hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War. The siege was officially led by Movsar Barayev.
Due to the disposition of the theater, special forces would have had
to fight through 100 feet of corridor and attack up a well defended
staircase, before they could reach the hall in where the hostages held
up. The terrorist also had numerous explosives, with the most powerful
in the center of the auditorium, that if detonated, could have brought down the ceiling and caused casualties in excess of 80 percent.[17] After a two-and-a-half day siege and the execution of two female hostages, Spetsnaz operators from the Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha and Vega Groups, supported by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) SOBR unit, pumped an undisclosed chemical agent into the building's ventilation system and raided it.[16]
During the raid, all 40 of the attackers were killed, with no
casualties among Spetsnaz, but about 130 hostages, including nine
foreigners, died due to adverse reactions to the gas. Russian security
agencies refused to disclose the gas used in the attack leading to
doctors in local hospitals being unable to respond adequately to the
influx of casualties.[18]
All but two of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by
the toxic substance pumped into the theater to subdue the militants.[19][20]
The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy-handed, but the
American and British governments deemed Russia's actions justifiable.[21]
Physicians in Moscow condemned the refusal to disclose the identity
of the gas that prevented them from saving more lives. Some reports said
the drug naloxone was used to save some hostages.[22]
Beslan school siege
Main article:
Beslan school hostage crisis
Beslan school victim photos.
Also referred to as the Beslan massacre[23][24][25]
started on the 1st of September 2004, lasted three days and involved
the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children),[26]
ending with the death of 334 people. The event led to security and
political repercussions in Russia; in the aftermath of the crisis, there
has been an increase in Ingush-Ossetian ethnic hostility, while contributing to a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening of the powers of the President of Russia.[27]
The crisis began when a group of armed radical Islamist combatants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion, sent by the Chechen terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya at the United Nations and the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya.
On the third day of the standoff, counter terrorism units stormed the
building using heavy weapons after several explosions rocked the
building and children started escaping. It was in this chaos most of the
officers were killed, trying to protect escaping children from gun
fire.[28] [29] At least 334 hostages were killed as a result of the crisis, including 186 children.[30][31]
Official reports on how many members of Russia's special forces died in
the fighting varied from 11, 12, 16 (7 Alpha and 9 Vega) to more than
20[32] killed. There are only 10 names on the special forces monument in Beslan.[33]
The fatalities included all three commanders of the assault group:
Colonel Oleg Ilyin, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Razumovsky of Vega, and
Major Alexander Perov of Alpha.[34] At least 30 commandos suffered serious wounds.[35]
The attack also marked the end to the mass terrorism in the North Caucasus separatist conflict until 2010, when two Dagestani female suicide bombers attacked two railway stations in Russia. After Beslan, there was a period of several years without suicide attacks in and around Chechnya.
Lessons learned
FSB Spetsnaz are particularly active. Conducting 119
targeted operations in the North Caucasus in 2006 alone, during which they killed more than 100 leaders of terrorist groups.
[36]
By the mid 2000s, the special forces gained a firm upper hand over
separatists and terrorist attacks in Russia dwindled, falling from 257
in 2005 to 48 in 2007. Military analyst Vitaly Shlykov praised the effectiveness of Russia's security agencies, saying that the experience learned in Chechnya and Dagestan had been key to the success. In 2008, the American Carnegie Endowment's
Foreign Policy magazine named Russia as "the worst place to be a
terrorist", particularly highlighting Russia's willingness to prioritize
national security over civil rights.[37]
By 2010, Russian special forces, led by the FSB, had managed to
eliminate the top leadership of the Chechen insurgency, except for Dokka Umarov.[38]
From 2009, the level of terrorism in Russia increased again.
Particularly worrisome was the increase in suicide attacks. While
between February 2005 and August 2008, no civilians were killed in such
attacks, in 2008 at least 17 were killed and in 2009 the number rose to
45.[39] In March 2010, Islamist militants organised the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, which killed 40 people. One of the two blasts took place at Lubyanka station, near the FSB headquarters. Militant leader Doku Umarov — dubbed "Russia's Osama Bin Laden" — took responsibility for the attacks. In July 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev expanded the FSB's powers in its fight against terrorism.
In 2011, Federal Security Service operators exposed 199 foreign
spies, including 41 professional spies and 158 agents employed by
foreign intelligence services.[40]
The number has risen in recent years: in 2006 the FSB reportedly caught
about 27 foreign intelligence officers and 89 foreign agents.[36] Comparing the number of exposed spies historically, the then-FSB Director Nikolay Kovalyov said in 1996: "There has never been such a number of spies
arrested by us since the time when German agents were sent in during
the years of World War II." The 2011 figure is similar to what was
reported in 1995-1996, when around 400 foreign intelligence agents were
uncovered during the two-year period.[41]
Anti terrorist operations prior to 2014 Sochi Olympics
Olympic organizers received several threats prior to the Games. In a July 2013 video release, Chechen Islamist commander Dokka Umarov called for attacks on the Games, stating that the Games were being staged "on the bones of many, many Muslims killed ...and buried on our lands extending to the Black Sea."[42] Threats were received from the group Vilayat Dagestan, which had claimed responsibility for the Volgograd bombings
under the demands of Umarov, and a number of National Olympic
Committees had also received threats via e-mail, threatening that
terrorists would kidnap or "blow up" athletes during the Games.
In response to the insurgent threats, Russian special forces began
cracking down on suspected terrorist organizations, making several
arrests and claiming to have curbed several plots,[43]
and killed numerous Islamist leaders including Eldar Magatov, a suspect
in attacks on Russian targets and alleged leader of an insurgent group
in the Babyurt district of Dagestan.[44] Dokka Umarov himself was killed on 7 September 2013 in a targeted strike.
The operations were a success and the Olympics went down without any major terrorist incident.
2014 intervention in Ukraine
Main article:
2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine
GRU Spetsnaz allegedly took part in the 2014 Crimean crisis, with several hundred members of the GRU 45th Spetsnaz Regiment and the 22nd Spetsnaz brigade sent in, disguised as civilians.[45][46][47][48]
Insurgency in the Caucasus
Although crime has been markedly reduced and stability increased
throughout Russia compared to the previous year, about 350 militants in
the North Caucasus have been killed in anti-terror operations in the
first four months of 2014, according to an announcement by Interior
Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev in the State Duma.[49]
On September 23, 2014, Russian news agencies marked the 15th anniversary of the formation of the Unified Group of Troops (OGV, or ???) in the North Caucasus. The OGV is the inter-service headquarters established at Khankala, Chechnya to command all Russian defense ministry (MOD, MVD, FSB) operations from the start of the second Chechen war in 1999.
Since its inception, the OGV combined operations has conducted 40,000
special missions, destroyed 5,000 bases and caches, confiscated 30,000
weapons, and disarmed 80,000 explosive devices and in the process has
killed over 10,000 insurgents in the time frame of 15 years. The
Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) noted that the decoration Hero of the Russian Federation
has been awarded to 93 MVD servicemen in the OGV (including 66
posthumously). Overall, more than 23,000 MVD troops have received honors
for their conduct during operations.[50]
Russian spetsnaz forces participated in the 2014 Grozny clashes.[51]
Main article:
Russian-led military intervention in Syria
Unidentified spetsnaz units are allegedly involved in search and
destroy operations, target acquisition for russian ground attack
aircraft and special reconnaissance.[52][53]
