Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces

by Viktor Suvorov

  Everything has been done to make sure that not one of them should fall into

  the hands of the enemy before the outbreak of war. A great deal has also

  been done to ensure that, if one of them should fall into enemy hands at

  that moment, it would be very difficult to establish his connection with any

  country whatsoever.

  The `pink' terror may continue for no more than a few hours. But those

  are the most important hours and minutes -- the very last hours and minutes

  of peace. It is very important that those hours and minutes should be spoilt

  for the enemy and used for the maximum advantage to the Soviet side. It must

  be pointed out that the `pink' terror may not be carried out at all. It is

  used only when there is absolute certainty of the success of the operations

  and equal certainty that the enemy will not be able in the remaining hours

  and minutes to assess the situation correctly and strike the first

  pre-emptive blow.

  ___

  For Soviet Communists the month of August has a special significance.

  It was in August that the First World War began, which resulted in

  revolutions in Russia, Germany and Hungary. In August 1939 Georgi Zhukov

  succeeded in doing something that no one before him had managed to do: with

  a sudden blow he routed a group of Japanese forces in the Far East. It is

  possible that that blow had very far-reaching consequences: Japan decided

  against attacking the Soviet Union and chose to advance in other directions.

  Also in August 1939 a pact was signed in the Kremlin which opened the flood

  gates for the Second World War, as a result of which the USSR became a

  super-power. In August 1945 the Soviet Union carried out a treacherous

  attack on Japan and Manchuria. In the course of three weeks of intensive

  operations huge territories roughly equal in area and population to Eastern

  Europe were `liberated'. In August 1961 the Soviet Union built the Berlin

  Wall, in violation of international agreements it had signed. In August 1968

  the Soviet Army `liberated' Czechoslovakia and, to its great surprise, did

  not meet with any opposition from the West. Suppose the Soviet Communists

  again choose August for starting a war....

  ___

  On 12 August, at 0558 local time, a van comes to a halt on the vast

  empty parking lot in front of a supermarket in Washington. Three men open

  the doors of the van, roll out the fuselage of a light aircraft and attach

  its wings. A minute later its motor bursts into life. The plane takes off

  and disappears into the sky. It has no pilot. It is controlled by radio with

  the aid of very simple instruments, only slightly more complicated than

  those used by model aircraft enthusiasts. The plane climbs to about 200

  metres and immediately begins to descend in the direction of the White

  House. A minute later a mighty explosion shakes the capital of the United

  States. The screaming of sirens on police cars, fire engines and ambulances

  fills the city.

  Three minutes later a second plane sweeps across the centre of the city

  and there is a second explosion in the place where the White House once

  stood. The second plane has taken off from a section of highway under

  construction, and has a quite different control system. Two cars with radio

  beacons in them have been left earlier in the middle of the city. The

  beacons have switched on automatically a few seconds before the plane's

  take-off. The automatic pilot is guided by the two beacons and starts to

  descend according to a previously worked-out trajectory. The second plane

  has been sent off by a second group operating independently of the first

  one.

  It was a simple plan: if the first plane did not destroy the White

  House the second would. If the first plane did destroy the White House then

  a few minutes later all the heads of the Washington police would be near

  where the explosion had taken place. The second plane would kill many of

  them.

  At 0606 all radio and television channels interrupt their normal

  programmes and report the destruction of the White House and the possible

  death of the President of the United States.

  At 0613 the programme known as Good Morning America is interrupted and

  the Vice-President of the USA appears. He announces a staggering piece of

  news: there has been an attempt to seize power in the country on the part of

  the leaders of the armed forces. The President of the United States has been

  killed. The Vice-President appeals to everyone in the armed forces to remain

  where they are and not to carry out any orders from senior officers for the

  next twenty-four hours, because the orders would be issued by traitors

  shortly to be removed from their posts and arrested.

  Soon afterwards many television channels across the country cease

  transmitting....

  ___

  The Soviet military leaders know that if it doesn't prove possible to

  destroy the President of the United States in peacetime, it will be

  practically impossible to do so at a time of crisis. The President will be

  in an underground, or airborne, command post, somewhere extremely

  inaccessible and extremely well guarded.

  Consequently the leaders, while not abandoning attempts to kill the

  President (for which purpose several groups of assassins with every kind of

  weapon, including anti-aircraft missiles, have been dropped in the country),

  decide to carry out an operation aimed at causing panic and confusion. If it

  proves impossible to kill the President then they will have to reduce his

  capacity to rule the country and its armed forces at the most critical

  moment.

  To carry out this task the Soviets have secretly transferred to

  Washington a spetsnaz company from the first spetsnaz regiment at the

  strategic level. A large part of the company is made up of women. The entire

  complement of the company is professional athletes of Olympic standard. It

  has taken several months to transfer the whole company to Washington. The

  athletes have arrived in the guise of security men, drivers and technicians

  working in the Soviet embassy and other Soviet establishments, and their

  weapons and equipment have been brought in in containers covered by

  diplomatic privilege. The company has been split into eight groups to carry

  out its mission. Each group has its own organisation, structure, weapons and

  equipment. To carry out their tasks some of the groups will have to make

  contact with secret agents recruited a long time previously by the GRU

  rezidentura.

  On 11 August the GRU rezident in Washington, a major-general known by

  the code-name of `Mudry' (officially a civilian and a high-ranking diplomat)

  receives an encyphered telegram consisting of one single word -- `Yes'. On

  the rezident's orders the spetsnaz company leave their places of work. Some

  of them simply go back home. Some are transported secretly in the boots of

  their cars by GRU officers and dropped in the woods round the city, in empty

  underground garages and other secluded places.

  The group commanders gather their groups together in previously agreed

  places and set about carrying ou
t their tasks.

  Group No. 1 consists of three men and the group is backed up by one

  secret agent. The agent works as a mechanic at an airport. In his spare time

  he builds flying models of aircraft of various sizes. This particular model

  was designed by the best Soviet aircraft designers and put together in

  America from spares bought in the open market. The agent himself does not

  play any part in the operation. A van containing a light radio-guided

  aircraft and its separate wings has been standing in his garage for some

  months. What the aircraft is for and to whom it belongs the agent does not

  know. He only knows that someone has the keys to the garage and that that

  person can at any moment come and take the van along with the aircraft. In

  the middle of the night the spetsnaz group drives the van out into the

  forest where they take the explosive charges from a secret hiding place and

  prepare the plane for flight. At dawn the van is standing in the deserted

  parking lot.

  Group No. 2 is doing roughly the same at that time. But this group has

  three agents working for it, two of whom have left their cars with radio

  beacons parked in precisely defined spots in the centre of the city.

  Group No. 3 consists of fifteen spetsnaz men and five experts from the

  REB osnaz. They are all wearing police uniforms. At night the group kidnaps

  the director of a television company and his family. Leaving the family at

  home as hostages guarded by three spetsnaz men, the rest of the group make

  their way to the studios, capturing two more highly placed officials on

  their way, also as hostages, but without giving cause for noise or panic

  among the staff. Then, with guns threatening them and supervised by Soviet

  electronics experts, the director and his assistants insert, instead of the

  usual advertising programme, a video cassette which the commander of the

  group has given him. The video cassette has been made up in advance in the

  Soviet Union. The role of the Vice-President is played by an actor.

  The Soviet high command knows that it is very difficult to cut into

  American military channels. If it is at all possible, then at best it will

  be possible to do no more than overhear conversations or interrupt them. It

  is practically impossible to use them for transmitting false orders at the

  strategic level. That is why it is decided to make use of the civilian

  television network: it is difficult to get into a television studio, but it

  is possible and there are many to choose from. Operations are carried out

  simultaneously in several different cities against various TV companies. If

  the operation succeeds in only one city it will not matter -- millions of

  people will be disoriented at the most critical moment.

  The operational plan has provided that, just after the `Vice-President'

  has spoken several retransmitters will be destroyed by other spetsnaz groups

  and one of the American communication satellites will be shot down `by

  mistake' by a Soviet satellite. This is intended to deprive the President

  and the real Vice-President of the opportunity to refute the false

  declaration.

  But events do not go entirely according to plan. The President succeeds

  in addressing the people and issuing a denial of the report. After the

  television network throughout America has suffered such major damage, the

  radio immediately becomes the principal means of communication. Radio

  commentators produce different commentaries about what is happening. The

  majority of them report that it is difficult to say which report is genuine

  and which was false, but that the only fact about which there is no doubt is

  that the White House has been destroyed.

  At the moment when all these events are taking place in Washington

  another spetsnaz company from the same regiment is ordered by the GRU

  rezident in New York to carry out the same operation but on a much larger

  scale. They do not make use of radio-guided aircraft, but seize two

  television studios and one radio studio which they use for transmitting the

  same false report. Five other spetsnaz groups emerge from official Soviet

  offices and make open, armed attacks on underground cables and some radio

  and TV transmitting and receiving aerials. They manage to damage them and

  also some transformer stations, as a result of which millions of TV screens

  go blank.

  A few hours later spetsnaz detachment I-M-7 of 120 men lands in New

  York harbour from a freighter sailing under a Liberian flag. Using its

  fire-power the detachment makes its way to the nearest subway station and,

  splitting into small groups and seizing a train with hostages, sets about

  destroying the underground communications of the city.

  In the area around the berths of America's huge aircraft-carriers and

  nuclear submarines in Norfolk, several mini-subs are discovered, as well as

  underwater saboteurs with aqualungs.

  In Alaska eighteen different places are recorded where small groups

  have tried to land from Soviet naval vessels, submarines and aircraft. Some

  of the groups have been destroyed as they landed, others have managed to get

  back to their ships or, after landing successfully, hidden in the forests.

  Spetsnaz detachment I-S-7 consisting of eighty-two men lands on the

  coast of Mexico, immediately commandeers private cars, and the next night,

  using their fire-power and new mobility, cross the United States border.

  Small spetsnaz groups land and use routes and methods employed by

  illegal immigrants, while others make use of paths and methods used by drug

  dealers.

  Islands and the military installations on them are more vulnerable to

  sabotage operations, and at the same moment spetsnaz groups are landing on

  Okinawa and Guam, on Diego Garcia, in Greenland and dozens of other islands

  on which the West has bases.

  ___

  Spetsnaz group 2-S-13 has spent three weeks aboard a small Soviet

  fishing vessel fishing close to the shores of Ireland. On receiving the

  signal `393939' the ship's captain gives the order to cut the nets, switch

  off the radio, radar and navigation lights and set course at top speed for

  the shores of Great Britain.

  In darkness two light speed-boats are lowered from the side of the

  ship. They are big enough to take the whole group. In the first boat is the

  group commander, a lieutenant with the code-name of `Shakespeare', a radio

  operator, a machine-gunner and two snipers. In the second boat is the deputy

  group commander, a junior lieutenant with the code-name `Poet', two soldiers

  with flame-throwers and two snipers. Each man has a supply of food for three

  days, which is supposed to be used only in the event of being pursued for a

  long period. For general purposes the group has to obtain its food

  independently, as best it can. The group also includes two huge German

  shepherd dogs.

  After landing the group the little fishing vessel, still without lights

  or radio, puts out into the open sea. The ship's captain is hoping to hide

  away in a neutral port in Ireland. If the vessel is stopped at sea by a

  British naval patrol the captain and his crew have
nothing to fear: the

  dangerous passengers have left the fishing boat and all traces of their

  presence on it have already been removed.

  `Shakespeare's' group lands on a tiny beach close to Little Haven. The

  landing place has been chosen long ago, and very well chosen: the beach is

  shut in on three sides by huge cliffs, so that even in daytime it is

  impossible to see from a distance what is going on on the beach itself.

  At the same time as `Shakespeare' four other spetsnaz groups are going

  ashore in different places two or three kilometres apart. Operating

  independently of each other, these four groups arrive by different routes at

  the little village of Brawdy and at 3.30 in the morning they make a

  simultaneous attack from different directions on a large building belonging

  to the United States Navy. According to reports received by the GRU,

  hundreds, and possibly thousands, of acoustic listening posts have been set

  up in the region of the Atlantic Ocean. The underwater cables from these

  posts come together at Brawdy where hundreds of American experts analyse

  with the aid of a computer a huge amount of information about the movement

  of submarines and surface ships all over the North Atlantic. According to

  the GRU's information similar establishments have been set up in Antigua in

  the Azores, in Hofn and Keflavik in Iceland, in Hawaii and on Guam. The

  GRU's commanding officers are aware that their information about Brawdy may

  not be accurate. But the decision has been taken to attack and destroy the

  Brawdy monitoring station and all the others as well. The four attacking

  groups have been given the task of killing as many as possible of the

  technical staff of the station and of destroying as much as possible of the

  electronic apparatus, and everything that will burn must be burnt. Mines

  must be laid at the approaches to the building. All four groups can then

  depart in different directions.

  The `Shakespeare' group takes no part in the raid. Its task, beginning

  with the following night, is to lay the mines at the approaches to the

  building. Apart from that, with sniper fire and open attacks, the group has

  to make it difficult for anyone to attempt to save or restore the station.

  The group commander knows that the four neighbouring groups which are taking