The senior command of spetsnaz consists of colonels and generals of the
GRU who have graduated from one of the main faculties of the
Military-Diplomatic Academy -- that is, the first or second faculties, and
have worked for many years in the central apparat of the GRU and in its
rezidenturas abroad. Each one of them has a first-class knowledge of a
country or group of countries because of working abroad for a long time. If
there is a possibility of continuing to work abroad he will do so. But
circumstances may mean that further trips abroad are impossible. In that
case he continues to serve in the central apparat of the GRU or in an
Intelligence directorate of a military district, fleet or group of forces.
He then has control of all the instruments of intelligence, including
spetsnaz.
I frequently came across people of this class. In every case they were
men who were silent and unsociable. They have elegant exteriors, good
command of foreign languages and refined manners. They hold tremendous power
in their hands and know how to handle authority.
Some however, are men who have never attended the Academy and have
never been in countries regarded as potential enemies. They have advanced
upwards thanks to their inborn qualities, to useful contacts which they know
how to arrange and support, to their own striving for power, and to their
continual and successful struggle for power which is full of cunning tricks
and tremendous risks. They are intoxicated by power and the struggle for
power. It is their only aim in life and they go at it, scrambling over the
slippery slopes and summits. One of the elements of success in their life's
struggle is of course the state of the units entrusted to them and their
readiness at any moment to carry out any mission set by the higher command.
No senior official in spetsnaz can be held up by considerations of a moral,
juridical or any other kind. His upward flight or descent depends entirely
on how a mission is carried out. You may be sure that any mission will be
carried out at any cost and by any means.
___
I often hear it said that the Soviet soldier is a very bad soldier
because he serves for only two years in the army. Some Western experts
consider it impossible to produce a good soldier in such a short time.
It is true that the Soviet soldier is a conscript, but it must be
remembered that he is conscript in a totally militarised country. It is
sufficient to remember that even the leaders of the party in power in the
Soviet Union have the military ranks of generals and marshals. The whole of
Soviet society is militarised and swamped with military propaganda. From a
very early age Soviet children engage in war games in a very serious way,
often using real submachine guns (and sometimes even fighting tanks), under
the direction of officers and generals of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Those children who show a special interest in military service join the
Voluntary Society for Co-operation with the Army, Air Force and Fleet, known
by its Russian initial letters as DOSAAF. DOSAAF is a para-military
organisation with 15 million members who have regular training in military
trades and engage in sports with a military application. DOSAAF not only
trains young people for military service; it also helps reservists to
maintain their qualifications after they have completed their service.
DOSAAF has a colossal budget, a widespread network of airfields and training
centres and clubs of various sizes and uses which carry out elementary and
advanced training of military specialists of every possible kind, from
snipers to radio operators, from fighter pilots to underwater swimmers, from
glider pilots to astronauts, and from tank drivers to the people who train
military doctors.
Many outstanding Soviet airmen, the majority of the astronauts
(starting with Yuri Gagarin), famous generals and European and world
champions in military types of sport began their careers in DOSAAF, often at
the age of fourteen.
The men in charge of DOSAAF locally are retired officers, generals and
admirals, but the men in charge at the top of DOSAAF are generals and
marshals on active service. Among the best-known leaders of the society were
Army-General A. L. Getman, Marshal of the Air Force A. I. Pokryshkin,
Army-General D. D. Lelyushenko and Admiral of the Fleet G. Yegorov.
Traditionally the top leadership of DOSAAF includes leaders of the GRU and
spetsnaz. At the present time (1986), for example, the first deputy chairman
of DOSAAF is Colonel-General A. Odintsev. As long ago as 1941 he was serving
in a spetsnaz detachment on the Western Front. The detachment was under the
command of Artur Sprogis. Throughout his life Odintsev has been directly
connected with the GRU and terrorism. At the present time his main job is to
train young people of both sexes for the ordeal of fighting a war. The most
promising of them are later sent to serve in spetsnaz.
When we speak about the Soviet conscript soldiers, and especially those
who were taken into spetsnaz, we must remember that each one of them has
already been through three or four years of intensive military training, has
already made parachute jumps, fired a sub-machine gun and been on a survival
course. He has already developed stamina, strength, drive and the
determination to conquer. The difference between him and a regular soldier
in the West lies in the fact that the regular soldier is paid for his
efforts. Our young man gets no money. He is a fanatic and an enthusiast. He
has to pay himself (though only a nominal sum) for being taught how to use a
knife, a silenced pistol, a spade and explosives.
After completing his service in spetsnaz the soldier either becomes a
regular soldier or he returns to `peaceful' work and in his spare time
attends one of the many DOSAAF clubs. Here is a typical example: Sergei
Chizhik was born in 1965. While still at school he joined the DOSAAF club.
He made 120 parachute jumps. Then he was called into the Army and served
with special troops in Afghanistan. He distinguished himself in battle, and
completed his service in 1985. In May 1986 he took part in a DOSAAF team in
experiments in surviving in Polar conditions. As one of a group of Soviet
`athletes' he dropped by parachute on the North Pole.
DOSAAF is a very useful organisation for spetsnaz in many ways. The
Soviet Union has signed a convention undertaking not to use the Antarctic
for military purposes. But in the event of war it will of course be used by
the military, and for that reason the corresponding experience has to be
gained. That is why the training for a parachute drop on the South Pole in
the Antarctic is being planned out by spetsnaz but to be carried out by
DOSAAF. The difference is only cosmetic: the men who make the jump will be
the very same cutthroats as went through the campaigns in Hungary,
Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. They are now considered to be civilians, but
they are under the complete control of generals like Odintsev, and in
wartime they will become the very same spetsnaz troops as we now
label
contemptuously `conscripts'.
--------
Chapter 8. The Agent Network
Soviet military intelligence controls an enormous number of secret
agents, who, in this context, are foreigners who have been recruited by the
Soviet intelligence services and who carry out tasks for those services.
They can be divided into two networks, the strategic and the operational.
The first is recruited by the central apparat of the GRU and the GRU's
numerous branches within the country and abroad. It works for the General
Staff of the armed forces of the USSR and its agents are recruited mainly in
the capitals of hostile states or in Moscow. The second is recruited by the
intelligence directorates of fronts, fleets, groups of forces, military
districts and the intelligence departments of armies and flotillas,
independently of the central GRU apparat, and its agents serve the needs of
a particular front, fleet, army and so on. They are recruited mainly from
the territory of the Soviet Union or from countries friendly to it.
The division of agents into strategic and operational networks does not
in any way indicate a difference in quality. The central apparat of the GRU
naturally has many more agents than any military district group of forces,
in fact more than all the fleets, military district armies and so forth put
together. They are, broadly speaking, people who have direct access to
official secrets. Nevertheless the operational network has also frequently
obtained information of interest not just to local commanders but also to
the top Soviet leadership.
During the Second World War the information coming from the majority of
foreign capitals was not of interest to the Soviet Union. Useful information
came from a very small number of locations, but however vital it was, it was
insufficient to satisfy wartime demands. Consequently the operational
network of the armies, fronts and fleets increased many times in size during
the war and came to be of greater importance than the strategic network of
agents of the central GRU apparat. This could happen again in another
full-scale war if, contrary to the military and political consensus on
future wars, it proved to be long drawn-out.
The spetsnaz agent network, an operational one, works for every
military district, group of forces, fleet and front (which all have in
addition an information network). Recruitment of agents is carried out
mainly from the territory of the Soviet Union and states friendly to it. The
main places where spetsnaz looks out for likely candidates for recruitment
are: major ports visited by foreign tourists; and among foreign students.
Spetsnaz examines the correspondence of Soviet citizens and of citizens of
the satellite countries and listens in to the telephone conversations in the
hope of coming across interesting contacts between Soviet and East European
citizens and people living in countries that spetsnaz is interested in.
Usually a foreign person who has been recruited can be persuaded to recruit
several other people who may never have been in the Soviet Union or had any
contact with Soviet citizens. It sometimes happens that spetsnaz officers
turn up in somebody else's territory and recruit agents. Most of them do not
have diplomatic cover and do not recruit agents in the capital cities, but
drop off from Soviet merchant and fishing vessels in foreign ports and
appear in the foreign country as drivers of Soviet trucks, Aeroflot pilots
or stewards of Soviet trains. One proven place for recruiting is a Soviet
cruise ship: two weeks at sea, vodka, caviar, the dolce vita, pleasant
company and the ability to talk without fearing the local police.
If the reader had access to real dossiers on the secret agents of
spetsnaz he would be disappointed and probably shocked, because the agents
of spetsnaz bear no resemblance to the fine, upstanding, young and handsome
heroes of spy films. Soviet military intelligence is looking for an entirely
different type of person as a candidate for recruitment. A portrait of an
ideal agent for spetsnaz emerges something like this: a man of between
fifty-five and sixty-five years of age who has never served in the army,
never had access to secret documents, does not carry or own a weapon, knows
nothing about hand-to-hand fighting, does not possess any secret equipment
and doesn't support the Communists, does not read the newspapers, was never
in the Soviet Union and has never met any Soviet citizens, leads a lonely,
introspective life, far from other people, and is by profession a forester,
fisherman, lighthouse-keeper, security guard or railwayman. In many cases
such an agent will be a physical invalid. Spetsnaz is also on the lookout
for women with roughly the same characteristics.
If spetsnaz has such a person in its network, that means: a. that he is
certainly not under any suspicion on the part of the local police or
security services; b. that in the event of any enquiries being made he will
be the last person to be suspected; c. that there is practically nothing by
which any suspicions could be confirmed, which in turn means that in
peacetime the agent is almost totally guaranteed against the danger of
failure or arrest; d. that in the event of war he will remain in the same
place as he was in peacetime and not be taken into the army or the public
service under the wartime mobilisation.
All this gives the spetsnaz agent network tremendous stability and
vitality. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and in the rules
of intelligence gathering there are a lot of exceptions. You can come across
many different kinds of people among the agents of spetsnaz, but still
spetsnaz tries mainly to recruit people of just that type. What use are they
to the organisation?
The answer is that they are formidably useful. The fact is that the
acts of terrorism are carried out in the main by the professional athletes
of spetsnaz who have been excellently trained for handling the most
difficult missions. But the spetsnaz professionals have a lot of enemies
when they get into a foreign country: helicopters and police dogs, the
checking of documents at the roadside, patrols, even children playing in the
street who miss very little and understand a lot. The spetsnaz commandos
need shelter where they can rest for a few days in relative peace, where
they can leave their heavy equipment and cook their own food.
So the principal task of spetsnaz agents is to prepare a safe hiding
place in advance, long before the commandos arrive in the country. These are
some examples of hiding places prepared by spetsnaz agents. With GRU money a
pensioner who is actually a spetsnaz agent buys a house on the outskirts of
a town, and close to a big forest. In the house he builds, quite legally, a
nuclear shelter with electric light, drains, water supply and a store of
food. He then buys a car of a semi-military or military type, a Land Rover
for example, which is kept permanently in the garage of the house along with
a good store of petrol. With that the agent's work is done. He lives
> quietly, makes use of his country house and car, and in addition is paid for
his services. He knows that at any moment he may have `guests' in his house.
But that doesn't frighten him. In case of arrest he can say that the
commando troops seized him as a hostage and made use of his house, his
shelter and car.
Or, the owner of a car dump takes an old, rusty railway container and
drops it among the hundreds of scrap cars and a few motorcycles. For the
benefit of the few visitors to the scrapyard who come in search of spare
parts, the owner opens a little shop selling Coca-Cola, hot dogs, coffee and
sandwiches. He always keeps a stock of bottled mineral water, tinned fish,
meat and vegetables. The little shop also stocks comprehensive medical
supplies.
Or perhaps the owner of a small firm buys a large, though old yacht. He
tells his friends that he dreams of making a long journey under sail, which
is why the yacht always has a lot of stores aboard. But he has no time to
make the trip; what's more, the yacht is in need of repair which requires
both time and money. So for the moment the old yacht lies there in a
deserted bay among dozens of other abandoned yachts with peeling paint.
Large numbers of such places of refuge have been arranged. Places that
can be used as shelters include caves, abandoned (or in some cases working)
mines, abandoned industrial plants, city sewers, cemeteries (especially if
they have family vaults), old boats, railway carriages and wagons, and so
forth. Any place can be adapted as a shelter for the use of spetsnaz
terrorists. But the place must be very well studied and prepared in advance.
That is what the agents are recruited for.
This is not their only task. After the arrival of his `guests' the
agent can carry out many of their instructions: keeping an eye on what the
police are doing, guarding the shelter and raising the alarm in good time,
acting as a guide, obtaining additional information about interesting
objects and people. Apart from all that an agent may be recruited specially
to carry out acts of terrorism, in which case he may operate independently
under the supervision of one person from the GRU, in a group of agents like
himself, or in collaboration with the professionals of spetsnaz who have
come from the Soviet Union.
Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces Page 12
