Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces

by Viktor Suvorov

  dialects and he was immediately sent to the commanding officer. The officer

  asked him two questions, the traditional two:

  `Do you drink vodka? What about sport?'

  `Vodka, yes, sport no.'

  He gave completely the wrong answers. But in battle conditions a man

  speaking the language of the enemy is particularly valued. They take him on

  in spite of everything, and take very good care of him, because on his

  ability to speak and understand what is said may depend the life of the

  group or of many groups. And on the way the groups carry out their mission

  may depend the lives of thousands and in some cases millions of people. The

  one drawback to being an interpreter is that interpreters are never forgiven

  for making a mistake. But the drawback is the same for him as it is for

  everyone else in the unit.

  ___

  No soldier should be afraid of fire. Throughout the Soviet Army, in

  every branch of the forces, very close attention is paid to a soldier's or

  sailor's psychological readiness to come up against fire. In the Navy old

  submarines are grounded, and several sailors are shut in a compartment in

  which a fire is started. In the tank forces men are shut into an old tank

  and a fire is lit inside or outside and sometimes both at once.

  The spetsnaz soldier comes up against fire more often than any other

  soldier. For that reason it is constantly present in his battle training

  from the first to the last day. At least once a day he sees fire that is

  clearly threatening his life. He is forced to jump over wide ditches with

  fires raging in them. He has to race through burning rooms and across

  burning bridges. He rides a motorcycle between flaming walls. Fire can break

  out next to him at any moment -- when he is eating or sleeping. When he is

  making a parachute jump to test the accuracy of his fall a tremendous flame

  may flare up suddenly beneath him.

  The spetsnaz soldier is taught to deal with fire and to protect himself

  and his comrades by every means -- rolling along the ground to stop his

  clothes burning, smothering the flames with earth, branches or a

  groundsheet. In learning to deal with fire the most important thing is not

  so much for him to get to know ways of protecting himself (though this is

  important) as to make him realise that fire is a constant companion of life

  which is always at his side.

  Another very important element of spetsnaz training is to teach a

  soldier not to be afraid of blood and to be able to kill. This is more

  important and more difficult for spetsnaz than for the infantry, for

  example. The infantry man kills his enemy mainly at a distance of more than

  a hundred metres and often at a distance of 300 or 400 metres or more. The

  infantryman does not see the expression on the face of his enemy. His job is

  simply to take aim correctly, hold his breath and press the trigger

  smoothly. The infantryman fires at plywood targets in peacetime, and in

  wartime at people who look at a distance very much like plywood targets. The

  blood which an infantryman sees is mainly the blood of his dead comrade or

  his own, and it gives rise to anger and a thirst for revenge. After that the

  infantryman fires at his enemy without feeling any twinges of conscience.

  The training of a spetsnaz soldier is much more complicated. He often

  has to kill the enemy at close quarters, looking him straight in the face.

  He sees blood, but it is not the blood of his comrades; it is often the

  blood of a completely innocent man. The officers commanding spetsnaz have to

  be sure that every spetsnaz soldier will do his duty in a critical

  situation.

  Like fire, blood is a constant attribute of the battle training of a

  soldier. It used to be thought that a soldier could be accustomed to the

  sight of blood gradually -- first a little blood and then more day by day.

  But experts have thrown out this view. The spetsnaz soldier's first

  encounter with blood should be, they argue, quite unexpected and in copious

  quantities. In the course of his career as a fighting man there will be a

  whole lot of monstrous things which will spring up in front of him without

  any warning at all. So he should get used to being unsurprised at anything

  and afraid of nothing.

  A group of young spetsnaz soldiers are hauled out of bed at night

  because of an emergency, and sent in pursuit of a `spy'. The worse the

  weather the better. Best of all when there is torrential rain, a gusty wind,

  mud and slush. Many kilometres of obstacles -- broken-down stairs, holes in

  walls, ropes across holes and ditches. The platoon of young soldiers are

  completely out of breath, their hearts beating fast. Their feet slip, their

  hands are scratched and bruised. Forward! Everyone is bad-tempered -- the

  officers and especially the men. The soldier can give vent to his anger only

  by punching some weaker fellow-sufferer in the face and maybe getting a kick

  in the ribs in reply. The area is dotted with ruined houses, everything is

  smashed, ripped apart, and there's broken glass everywhere. Everything is

  wet and slippery, and there are never-ending obstacles with searchlights

  trained on them. But they don't help: they only hinder, blinding the men as

  they scramble over. Now they come to a dark cellar, with the doors ripped

  off the hinges. Everybody down. Along the corridor. Then there's water

  ahead. The whole group running at full tilt without slowing down rushes

  straight into some sticky liquid. A blinding light flashes on. It's not

  water they are in -- it's blood. Blood up to the knees, the waist, the

  chest. On the walls and the ceiling are chunks of rotten flesh, piles of

  bleeding entrails. The steps are slippery from slimy bits of brain.

  Undecided, the young soldiers jam the corridor. Then somebody in the

  darkness lets a huge dog off its chain. There is only one way out -- through

  the blood. Only forwards, where there is a wide passageway and a staircase

  upwards.

  Where on earth could they get so much blood? From the slaughter-house,

  of course. It is not so difficult to make the tank of blood. It can be

  narrow and not very deep, but it must be twisting and there must be a very

  low ceiling over it. The building in which the tank of blood is arranged can

  be quite small, but piles of rotten boards, beams and concrete slabs must be

  tipped into it. Even in very limited space it is possible to create the

  impression that you are in an endless labyrinth overflowing with blood. The

  most important thing is to have plenty of twists and turns, holes, gaps,

  dead ends and doors. If you don't have enough blood you can simply use

  animal entrails mixed with blood. The bottom of the tank must not be even:

  you must give the learner the possibility of tripping over and going under.

  But most important is that the first training session should take place with

  a group of really young soldiers who have joined spetsnaz but are still

  isolated and have had no opportunity of meeting older soldiers and being

  warned what to expect. And there's something else: the tank of blood must

  not be the final obstacle that night. The greatest mistake i
s to drive the

  men through the tank and then bring the exercise to an end, leaving them to

  clean themselves up and go to bed. In that case the blood will only appear

  to them as a terrible dream. Keep driving them on over more and more

  obstacles.

  Exhausting training exercises must be repeated and repeated again,

  never stopping to rest. Carry on with the exercise throughout the morning,

  throughout the day. Without food and without drink. In that way the men

  acquire the habit of not being taken aback by any surprises. Blood on their

  hands and on their uniforms, blood in their boots -- it all becomes

  something familiar. On the same day there must also be a lot of gunfire,

  labyrinths with bones, and dogs, dogs and more dogs. The tank of blood must

  be remembered by the men as something quite ordinary in a whole series of

  painful experiences.

  In the next training session there is no need to use a lot of blood,

  but it must be constantly present. The men have to crawl beneath some barbed

  wire. Why not throw some sheep's innards on to the ground and the wire? Let

  them crawl over that and not just along the ground. A soldier is firing from

  his sub-machine-gun on the firing range. Why not surround his firing

  position with chunks of rotting meat which is in any case no good for

  eating? A soldier makes a parachute jump to test the accuracy of his drop.

  Why not put on his landing spot, face down, a big puppet in spetsnaz uniform

  with a torn, twisted parachute spattered with pig's blood? These are all

  standard tricks in spetsnaz, simple and effective. To increase the effect

  the instructors are constantly creating situations in which the men are

  obliged to get blood on their hands. For example, a soldier has to overcome

  an obstacle by scrambling up a wall. When he reaches up to grab the ridge at

  the top of the wall he finds it slippery and sticky from blood. He has a

  choice -- either to drop down and break his legs (and maybe his neck) or to

  hang on tighter with both hands, rest his chin on the filthy sill, shift his

  grip, pull himself up and jump in through the window. A spetsnaz soldier

  does not fall. He pulls himself up and, with blood all over him, swearing

  hoarsely, he carries on his way, onwards, ever onwards.

  Later in the programme come half-joking exercises such as: catch a

  pregnant cat, open its belly with a razor blade and count how many kittens

  it has. This is not such an easy exercise as might appear at first. The

  soldier has no gloves, the cat scratches and he has no one to help him. As

  an instrument he is allowed to use only a blunt, broken razor blade or

  razor, and he can easily cut his own fingers.

  The process of familiarising spetsnaz men with the sight and the

  reality of blood is not in the least intended to make them into sadists. It

  is simply that blood is a liquid with which they are going to have to work

  in wartime. A spetsnaz soldier may not be scared of the red liquid. A

  surgeon works continually with blood and so does the butcher. What would

  happen if a surgeon or a butcher were suddenly to be afraid of the sight of

  blood?

  ___

  Every Soviet soldier, wherever he may be serving, must be able to run,

  to shoot accurately, to keep his weapon clean and in good working order, and

  carry out the orders of his superiors precisely and quickly and without

  asking unnecessary questions. If one studies the battle training of Soviet

  troops one notices that there are common standards for all branches of

  troops operating in any conditions. This gives the impression that training

  in the Soviet Army is the same whatever the conditions. This is not quite

  true. Many of the demands placed on officers and men are standard throughout

  the Army. Nevertheless, each Soviet military district and each group of

  forces operates in conditions unique to itself. Troops of the Leningrad

  military district have to operate in very severe northern conditions, and

  their training takes place in forests, marshes and the tundra of an arctic

  climate. Troops of the Transcaucasian military district have to operate in

  high mountains, while those of the Carpathian and Ural military districts

  have to operate in medium-high mountains. Even so, the Carpathian district

  has a mild European climate, while that of the Ural district is wildly

  different: harsh, with a very hot summer and a very cold winter.

  Every military district and group of forces has a commanding officer, a

  chief of staff and a head of Intelligence who answer with their heads for

  the battle-readiness of the troops under their command. But every district

  and group faces a specific enemy, and its own particular (though absolutely

  secret) task to perform in the event of war, and its own individual role in

  the plans of the General Staff.

  One reason that training takes place in situ is that every Soviet

  frontier district and group of forces has, as a rule, the same natural

  conditions as the territories in which it will have to fight. Conditions in

  Karelia differ very little from those in Norway, Sweden and Finland. If

  troops from the Carpathian military district cross the frontier, they find

  themselves in a country of high rugged mountains identical to that in which

  they are permanently stationed. And, if the Soviet troops in Germany cross

  the frontier, even if there are small differences of terrain and climate,

  they are at any rate still in Germany.

  Spetsnaz is concentrated at this level of fronts and armies. To make

  sure that spetsnaz training is carried out in conditions as close as

  possible to those in which the troops will have to operate the spetsnaz

  brigades now have special training centres. For example, the natural

  conditions in the Baltic military district are very similar to those in

  Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, northern Germany and France. The

  mountainous Altai is strikingly similar to Scotland. In the Carpathians

  there are places very similar to the French Alps. If troops have to be

  trained for operations in Alaska and Canada, Siberia is ideal for the

  purpose, while for operating in Australia spetsnaz units have to be trained

  in Kazakhstan. The spetsnaz brigades have their own training centres, but a

  brigade (or any other spetsnaz unit) can be ordered at any moment to operate

  in an unfamiliar training centre belonging to another brigade. For example,

  during the `Dvina' manoeuvres spetsnaz units from the Leningrad, Moscow and

  North Caucasus military districts were transferred to Belorussia to operate

  there in unfamiliar conditions. The difference in conditions was especially

  great for the units transferred from the northern Caucasus.

  These transfers are restricted mainly to troops of the internal

  military districts. It is reckoned that troops which are already located in

  Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Transcaucasian military districts will

  remain there in any circumstances, and it is better to train them thoroughly

  for operations in those conditions without wasting effort on training for

  every kind of condition. `Universal' training is needed by the troops of the

  internal districts -- the Siberi
an, Ural, Volga, Moscow and a few others

  which in the event of war will be switched to crisis points. Courses are

  also provided for the professional athletes. Every one of these is

  continually taking part in contests and travelling round the whole country

  from Vladivostok to Tashkent and Tbilisi to Archangelsk. Such trips in

  themselves play a tremendous part in training. The professional athlete

  becomes psychologically prepared to operate in any climate and any

  circumstances. Trips abroad, especially trips to those countries in which he

  will have to operate in the event of war, are of even greater assistance in

  removing psychological barriers and making the athlete ready for action in

  any conditions.

  ___

  Spetsnaz units are often involved in manoeuvres at different levels and

  with different kinds of participants. Their principal `enemies' on

  manoeuvres are the MVD troops, the militia, the frontier troops of the KGB,

  the government communications network of the KGB and the ordinary units of

  the armed forces.

  In time of war KGB and MVD troops would be expected to operate against

  national liberation movements within the Soviet Union, of which the most

  dangerous is perceived to be the Russian movement against the USSR. (In the

  last war it was the Russians who created the most powerful anti-Communist

  army -- the ROA). The Ukrainian resistance movement is also considered to be

  very dangerous. Partisan operations would inevitably break out in the Baltic

  states and the Caucasus, among others. KGB and MVD troops, which are not

  controlled by the Ministry of Defence, are equipped with helicopters, naval

  vessels, tanks, artillery and armoured personnel carriers, and exercises in

  which they operate against spetsnaz are of exceptional value to them. But

  the heads of the GRU are keen on joint manoeuvres for their own reasons. If

  spetsnaz has years' experience of operating against such powerful opponents

  as the KGB and MVD, its performance against less powerful opponents can only

  be enhanced.

  In the course of manoeuvres the KGB and the MVD (along with the Soviet

  military units which have to defend themselves) use against spetsnaz the

  whole gamut of possible means of defence, from total control of radio

  communication to electronic sensors, from hunter aircraft provided with the