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Spetsnaz

Spetsnaz (Спецназ) are special forces in many post-Soviet states. Historically, this term referred to the Soviet Union's Spetsnaz GRU, special operations units of the GRU, the main military intelligence service. Today it refers to special forces branches and task forces subordinate to ministries including defence, internal affairs, or emergency situations in countries that have inherited their special purpose units from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies.

As spetsnaz is a Russian term, it is typically associated with the special units of Russia, but other post-Soviet states often refer to their special forces units by the term as well, since these nations also inherited their special purpose units from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies.

Etymology
The Russian abbreviations spetsnaz and osnaz are syllabic abbreviations of Soviet era Russian, for spetsialnogo naznacheniya and osobogo naznacheniya, both of which may be interpreted as "special purpose". As syllabic acronyms they are not normally capitalized.

In Ukrainian they are known as spetspryz (спецприз), an abbreviation of viiska spetsiialnoho pryznachennia (війська спеціяльного призначення).

They are general terms that were used for a variety of Soviet special operations (spetsoperatsiya) units. In addition, many Cheka and Internal Troops units (such as OMSDON and ODON) also included osobovo naznacheniya in their full names. Regular forces assigned to special tasks were sometimes also referred to by terms such as Spetsnaz and osnaz.

Spetsnaz later referred specifically to special (spetsialnog) purpose (naznacheniya) or special operations (spetsoperatsiya; spec ops) forces, and the word's widespread use is a relatively recent, post-perestroika development in Russian language. The Soviet public used to know very little about their country's special forces until many state secrets were disclosed under the glasnost ("openness") policy of Mikhail Gorbachev during the late 1980s. Since then, stories about spetsnaz and their purportedly incredible prowess, from the serious to the highly questionable, have captivated the imagination of Russians. A number of books about the Soviet military special forces, such as 1987's Spetsnaz: The Story Behind the Soviet SAS by defected GRU agent Viktor Suvorov, helped introduce the term to the Western public.

History and known operations
The Imperial Russian Army had hunter-commando units, formed by a decree of Emperor Alexander III in 1886, which saw action in World War I prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Also, during World War 1, General Aleksei Brusilov became one of the first senior commanders to use the tactics of fast action shock troops for assaults following concentrated accurate artillery fire in what would later be known as the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. Such tactics, considered revolutionary at the time, would later inspire people like Prussian Captain Willy Rohr in the development of the Prussian Stormtroopers (founded in 1915).

Early Soviet Union
The origins of the Spetsnaz can be found in the Russian Civil War. To act against anti-Communist workers and farmers, the Soviet regime set up so called Tschasti Osobogo Nasatschenia (Units for special use) in 1918. In the next year they were expanded to the so-called Cheka (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission), fighting counterrevolution and (alleged) sabotage. They took part in the Kronstadt rebellion 1921, setting up machine guns behind units of the Red Army, to "increase their motivation". The GRU and NKVD descended from the Cheka. Since 1927 Russians were experimenting with parachutes. Airborne units were used against central Asian and Afghan insurgents.

Second World War and Spanish Civil War
GRU and NKVD derived from the Cheka and participated in the Spanish Civil War fighting fascists behind their lines using guerilla strategies. Fighting Germany, Japan, Poland and Finland in the Second World War, new units of storm pioneers, parachuters, NKVD and GRU were set up. Thereby the soviets merged existing experiences and started to unify different military branches.

Navy
The Soviet leadership had an urgent need for intelligence on German land forces in northern Norway and Finland. On 5 July 1941 Admiral Arseniy Golovko of the Northern Fleet authorized the formation of a ground reconnaissance detachment. This unit, the 4th Special Volunteer Detachment, was to be recruited from the fleet's athletes and have an initial size of 65 to 70 personnel. Later the unit was renamed the 181st Special Reconnaissance Detachment. They were trained as frogmen. The most prominent of these new recruits was Viktor Leonov, who joined the Soviet Navy in 1937. He was assigned to a submarine training detachment and then transferred to a repair station in the Northern Fleet at Polyarnyy. Leonov had trained as a scuba diver, after which he joined 4th Special Volunteer Detachment, where he proved his daring and leadership skills conducting numerous clandestine operations and twice being awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Initially the unit was confined to performing small scale reconnaissance missions, platoon sized insertions by sea and on occasion on land into Finland and later Norway. They began conducting sabotage missions and raids to snatch prisoners for interrogation. They would also destroy German ammunition and supply depots, communication centers, and harass enemy troop concentrations along the Finnish and Russian coasts. When the European conflict ended, the Naval Scouts were sent to fight the Japanese. Leonov along with Capt. Kulebyakin and 140 men, landed on a Japanese airfield at Port Vonsan, unaware that they were opposed by over 3,500 enemy soldiers. A tense standoff ensued, until the commanding officers of the unit managed to bluff the Japanese forces into surrendering.

Army
Each Soviet front/army up to 1942 had their own independent guard-battalion (Otdelnly Gwardieskij Batalion Minerow), OGBM, so called miners, for reconnaissance and commando missions. The soldiers had to be younger than 30, were mostly athletes or hunters and had to identify 100% with their mission. Many exhausted and wounded soldiers were, even in training, left to their own devices. The selection methods qualified the troops as elite but caused high numbers of casualties. The "miners" infiltrated foreign-occupied areas by air and land, and cooperated with, and trained, local partisans.

Immediately before the major Russian offensive at Smolesk in 1943, 316 OGBM were dropped by parachute in nine groups. Up to 300 km behind the enemy lines, they blew up 700 km of railways in cooperation with local partisans, using 3,500 explosive charges.

Cold War
By the end of the Second World War the Soviet Union dissolved most of the special units. At the end of the 1950s the KGB and GRU set new special forces units up. The 3rd guard special-reconnaissance-brigade was founded in 1966, being stationed with the Soviet forces in East Germany in Fürstenberg/Havel.

The Crabb Affair
Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Crabb was a British Royal Navy frogman and MI6 diver who vanished during a reconnaissance mission around a Soviet cruiser berthed at Portsmouth Dockyard in 1956. In November 2007 the BBC and the Daily Mirror reported that Eduard Koltsov, a former Soviet frogman, claimed to have caught Crabb placing a mine on the Ordzhonikidze hull near the ammunition depot and cut his throat. In an interview for a Russian documentary film, Koltsov showed the dagger he allegedly used, as well as an Order of the Red Star medal that Koltsov claimed to have been awarded for the deed. Koltsov, 74 at the time of the interview, stated that he wanted to clear his conscience and uncover what exactly had happened to Crabb. Peter Mercer of the Special Boat Service describes this incident in his autobiography: "The cruiser [Ordzhonikidze] was carrying the two Soviet leaders, Khrushchev and Bulganin, on a goodwill visit to Britain. His [Crabb's] task was to measure the cruiser's propeller and to discover how the ship managed to travel at twice the speed originally estimated by British naval intelligence."

Prague Spring
The Warsaw pact invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 to stop the "Socialism with a Human Face" movement. Spetsnaz units secured key points in the capital, Prague, seizing the airport, bridges, radio stations and the president's palace.

Spetsnaz in Vietnam and Laos
Some 3,300 Soviet military experts, among them spetsnaz, were sent to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Within South Vietnam, rumors persisted for years that men with blue eyes were reportedly spotted doing recon missions and testing their new SVD Dragunov sniper rifles. John Stryker Meyer was with Studies and Observation Group RT Idaho and had two encounters with what they believed were spetsnaz units operating in Laos in 1968.

Their mission was twofold: first of all, to help a communist nation defeat an American ally, and secondly, test and evaluate their most sophisticated radars and missiles directly against the best aircraft America could deploy. Soviets recovered at least two very important pieces of American equipment, a cryptographic code machine, and an F-111A escape capsule, which now sits in a Moscow Museum.

Soviet–Afghan War
Soviet Spetsnaz forces took part in the Soviet–Afghan War of 1979–1989 in Afghanistan, usually fighting fast insertion/extraction-type warfare with helicopters. Their most famous operation, Operation Storm-333, was executed on 27 December 1979 which saw Soviet special forces storming the Tajbeg Palace in Afghanistan and killing Afghan President Hafizullah Amin, his son and over 300 of his personal guards in 40 minutes. The Soviets then installed Babrak Karmal as Amin's successor.

The operation involved approximately 660 Soviet operators dressed in Afghan uniforms, including ca. 50 KGB and GRU officers from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group. The Soviet forces occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target – the Tajbeg Palace.

In the first one and a half years of the war, Spetsnaz units in the form of the 459th special forces company, were exclusively responsible for reconnaissance missions and intelligence gathering for the 40th Army. Aside from reconnaissance, the 459th was also tasked with capturing prisoners, kidnapping enemy agents, and targeted assassination of leaders and field commanders of the Mujahideen.

Caravan war
By 1985, the GRU had expanded its special forces footprint to two Spetsnaz brigades in Afghanistan, comprising just under 5,000 troops. These were the:

15th Special Purpose Brigade – paired up and supported by 239th Helicopter Squadron equipped with Mi-24 (16 units), Mi-8 (16 units), deployment in Ghazni. 22nd Special Purpose Brigade – paired up and supported by 205th Helicopter Squadron equipped with Mi-24 (16 units) Mi-8 (16 units) deployed in Lashkar Gah. The Spetsnaz often conducted missions to ambush and destroy enemy supply convoys. The Mujahideen had great respect for the Spetsnaz, seeing them as a much more difficult opponent than the typical Soviet conscript soldier. They said that the Spetsnaz-led air assault operations had changed the complexion of the war. They also credited the Spetsnaz with closing down all the supply routes along the Afghan-Pakistani border in 1986. In April 1986, the rebels lost one of their biggest bases, at Zhawar in Paktia Province, to a Soviet spetsnaz air-assault. The Spetsnaz achieved victory by knocking out several rebel positions above the base, a mile-long series of fortified caves in a remote canyon. A successful long-term campaign codenamed Operation "Curtain" or "Veil", lasted from 1984 to 1988, which aimed to close off the Afghan-Pakistani border and cut off supply routes coming in from Pakistan. The operation caused great distress to the mujahedin war effort, with Spetsnaz units intercepting 990 supply caravans and killing 17,000 insurgents. For their role in Operation Curtain, the Spetsnaz suffered a total of 570 killed with a further 11 missing. Casualty breakdown by unit was: In May 1986, the Spetsnaz also succeeded in inserting air-assault forces into remote regions in Konar Valley near Barikot which were previously considered inaccessible to Soviet forces.
 * 154th Oospn
 * 177th Oospn
 * 334th Oospn
 * 668th Oospn
 * 173rd Oospn
 * 186th Oospn
 * 370th Oospn
 * 411th Oospn
 * 15th Spetsnaz Brigade – 355 killed and 10 missing.
 * 22nd Spetsnaz Brigade – 199 killed and one missing.
 * 459th Spetsnaz Company – 16 killed.

Alleged conflict with Pakistani commandos
It is believed that during the war in Afghanistan, Soviet special forces came in direct conflict with Pakistan Army's special forces, the Special Service Group. This unit was deployed disguised as Afghans, supporting the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets. A battle reported as having been fought between the Pakistanis and Soviet troops took place in Kunar Province in March 1986. According to Soviet sources, the battle was actually fought between the GRU's 15th Spetsnaz Brigade, and the Usama Bin Zaid regiment of Afghan Mujahideen under Commander Assadullah, belonging to Abdul rub a-Rasul Sayyaf's faction. Fighting is also alleged to have taken place during Operation Magistral where over 200 Mujahideen were killed in a failed attempt to capture the strategic Hill 3234 near the Pakistani border from a 39-man Soviet Airborne company.

The Beirut hostage crisis
In October 1985, specialist operators from the KGB's Group "A" (Alpha) were dispatched to Beirut, Lebanon. The Kremlin had been informed of the kidnapping of four Soviet diplomats by the militant group, the Islamic Liberation Organization (a radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood). It was believed that this was retaliation for the Soviet support of Syrian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. However, by the time the Alpha group arrived, one of the hostages had already been killed. In a tit-for-tat response, Alpha group operators first identified the terrorists using local sources, then moved into the Lebanese villages where the terrorists were from and took their relatives as hostages. Some of the hostages were dismembered, and their body parts sent to the hostage takers, with the threat that their relatives were next. The remaining hostages were released immediately.

Russian sources indicate that the release of the Soviet hostages was the result of extensive diplomatic negotiations with the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who appealed to King Hussein of Jordan and the leaders of Libya and Iran to use their influence on the kidnappers.

Either way, the show of brutal force had its effect, and for the next 20 years no Soviet or Russian officials were taken captive, until June 2006.

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 Tajikistani Civil War, Chechen Wars, Russo-Georgian War and the Russo-Ukrainian War. Spetsnaz forces also have been called upon to resolve several high-profile hostage situations such as the Moscow theatre hostage crisis and the Beslan school hostage crisis.

Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis
The crisis took place from 14 June to 19 June 1995, when a group of 80 to 200 Chechen terrorists 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).

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 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, 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.

According to official figures, 129 civilians were killed and 415 were injured in the entire event (of whom 18 later died of their wounds). This includes at least 105 hostage fatalities. However, according to an independent estimate 166 hostages were killed and 541 injured in the special forces attack on the hospital. At least 11 Russian police officers and 14 soldiers were killed. 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 40 of the surviving attackers were tracked down and have been assassinated, 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.

Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis
The mass sieges which saw people taken in the thousands also involved FSB's Alpha Group and the Spetsnaz GRU in attempted rescuing of the hostages.

Second Chechen War
Russian special forces were instrumental in Russia's and the Kremlin backed government's success in the Second Chechen War after learning lessons from the mishandling of the first war. Under joint command of Unified Group of Troops (OGV) formed on 23 September 1999. GRU, FSB and MVD spetsnaz operators conducted a myriad of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, including targeted killings of separatist leadership, in the meantime inflicting heavy casualties among Islamist separatists. Some of these successful missions were directed against separatist leaders such as Aslan Maskhadov, Abdul Halim Sadulayev, Dokka Umarov, Akhmadov brothers, 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 missions, 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.

Moscow theatre hostage crisis
The crisis was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theatre on 23 October 2002 by 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya. 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 theatre, special forces would have had to fight through 100 ft of corridor and attack up a well defended staircase, before they could reach the hall in where the hostages were held. The terrorists also had explosive devices. The most powerful of these was in the center of the auditorium; if detonated, it could have brought down the ceiling and caused casualties in excess of 80% of the auditorium's occupants. After a two-and-a-half-day siege and the execution of two hostages, spetsnaz operators from the Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha and Vympel a.k.a. 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.

During the raid, all of the attackers were killed, with no casualties among spetsnaz, but about 130 hostages, including nine foreigners, died due to poor first aid after falling unconscious from the gas. Most died after being evacuated from the theatre and laid outside on their backs instead of in the approved recovery position and then choking to death. 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. All but two of the hostages who died during the siege were killed by the toxic substance pumped into the theatre to subdue the militants. The use of the gas was widely condemned as heavy-handed.

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.

Beslan school siege
Also referred to as the Beslan massacre started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days and involved the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children), 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.

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. At least 334 hostages were killed as a result of the crisis, including 186 children. 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 killed. There are only 10 names on the special forces monument in Beslan. 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. At least 30 commandos suffered serious wounds.

Lessons learned
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. By 2010, Russian special forces, led by the FSB, had managed to eliminate the top leadership of the Chechen insurgency, except for Dokka Umarov.

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. 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 exposed 199 foreign spies, including 41 professional spies and 158 agents employed by foreign intelligence services. The number has risen in recent years: in 2006 the FSB reportedly caught about 27 foreign intelligence officers and 89 foreign agents. 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.

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." 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 cracked down on suspected terrorist organizations, making several arrests and claiming to have curbed several plots, 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. Dokka Umarov himself was poisoned on 6 August 2013, and died on 7 September 2013.

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.

On 23 September 2014, Russian news agencies marked the 15th anniversary of the formation of the Unified Group of Troops (OGV, or ОГВ) in the North Caucasus. The OGV is the inter-service headquarters established at Khankala, Chechnya to command all Russian (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.

Russian spetsnaz forces participated in the 2014 Grozny clashes.

Russo-Ukrainian War
According to multiple Western sources and Ukraine, Spetsnaz unit of the VDV RF took part in the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation. Several hundred members of the 45th Detached Guards Spetsnaz Regiment and the 22nd Spetsnaz brigade were sent in, disguised as civilians.

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On or about 26 February 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine the Russian Spetsnaz entered Kyiv in a failed attempt to hunt down Ukrainian leaders including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The spetsnaz including the "Zaslon" unit embedded themselves within the Ukrainian population disguised in civilian clothes and Ukrainian military uniform with the intention to assassinate, eliminate or arrest leading political figures. The Zaslon unit is the assassination arm for covert missions of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and the Alpha Group. It is presumed that small fire teams of spetsnaz entered Ukraine before the beginning of the invasion with the mission of obtaining precise intelligence on specific personnel to plan special operations to harm or stop personnel of importance.

On or about 2 March 2022, the Alpha Group of Ukraine, which is the Ukrainian Spetsnaz, a branch of the Security Service of Ukraine, ambushed and destroyed a convoy, composed of Kadyrovtsy paramilitary under the National Guard of Russia, in northern Kyiv around Gostomel heading to the city. It is reported that during the defeat of the unit, General Magomed Tushayev, commander of the 141st Motorized Regiment of the Chechen Rosguard, was killed.

As of September 22, 2023, 495 members of the Russian special purpose community have been confirmed KIA. This includes FSB, Army and Rosgvardia forces.

Syrian Civil War
"War on the Rocks" reports that various Russian special missions units have been openly supporting Syrian army units, and along with the Russian Aerospace Forces, have been invaluable in pushing back anti-government forces.

At the peak of the deployment, there was a detachment of approximately 250 GRU spetsnaz soldiers, probably drawn from several units, including naval spetsnaz from the 431st Naval Reconnaissance Point, while SOF operators from the KSSO, reportedly conducted mainly sniper/counter-sniper, sabotage and reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines.

Soviet Union
The Russian military theorist Colonel Mikhail Svechnykov originally proposed the concept of using special tactics and strategies. Svechnykov (executed during the Great Purge in 1938), envisaged the development of unconventional warfare capabilities to overcome disadvantages faced by conventional forces in the field. In the 1930s the "grandfather of the spetsnaz", Ilya Starinov, began the implementation of the idea.

During World War II, Red Army reconnaissance and sabotage detachments formed under the supervision of the Second Department of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces. These forces were subordinate to front commanders. The infamous NKVD internal-security and espionage agency also had their own special purpose (osnaz) detachments, including many saboteur teams who were airdropped into enemy-occupied territories to work with (and often take over and lead) the Soviet Partisans.

In 1950 Georgy Zhukov advocated the creation of 46 military spetsnaz companies, each consisting of 120 servicemen. This was the first use of "spetsnaz" to denote a separate military branch since World War II. These companies were later expanded to battalions and then to brigades. However, some separate companies (orSpN) and detachments (ooSpN) existed with brigades until the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The special-purpose forces of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union included fourteen land brigades, two naval brigades and a number of separate detachments and companies, operating under the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and collectively known as Spetsnaz GRU. These units and formations existed in the highest possible secrecy, disguised as Soviet paratroopers (Army spetsnaz) or naval infantrymen (Naval spetsnaz) by their uniforms and insignia.

Twenty-four years after the birth of spetsnaz, the Chairman of the KGB General Yuri Andropov (in that office from 1967 to 1982) established the first counter-terrorist unit. From the late 1970s through to the 1980s, a number of special-purpose units were founded in the KGB (1954–1991) and in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) (1946–1954).

KGB
Spetsgruppa 'A' (Alpha Group) counter-terrorist unit was created in 1974.

Spetsgruppa "V", abbreviation of the Directorate в (Russian Cyrillic for V), also known as "Vega" in period 1993–1995, was formed in 1981, merging two elite Cold War-era KGB special units—Cascade (Kaskad) and Zenith (Zenit)—which were similar to the CIA's Special Activities Division (responsible for clandestine / covert operations involving sabotage and assassination in other countries) and re-designated for counter-terrorist and counter-sabotage operations.

MVD
These were special forces of the MVD Internal Troops.

Post-Soviet
During the 1990s special detachments were established within the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) and the Airborne Troops (VDV). Some civil agencies with non-police functions have formed special units also known as spetsnaz, such as the Leader special centre in the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS).

In total, by December 1991, at the time of the collapse of the USSR, the GRU reconnaissance and sabotage formations had:
 * 14 special purpose brigades
 * 2 special purposes regiments
 * 29 independent special purpose companies
 * 5 naval reconnaissance point

In Russia, in 2013 a Special Operations Forces Command was established for Special Operations Forces which had earlier been established from around 2009 following a study of Western special-operations forces units and commands. The Command was not under the control of the GRU but reported directly to the General Staff – as did the GRU.

Belarusian spetsnaz
The 5th Spetsnaz Brigade is a special forces brigade of the Armed Forces of Belarus, formerly part of the Soviet spetsnaz. In addition, the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus that was formed from the inherited personnel and operators after the break up of the Soviet Union. KGB of Belarus has its own Spetsgruppa "A" (Alpha Group), which is the country's primary counter-terrorism unit.

Kazakh spetsnaz
As with many post Soviet states, Kazakhstan adopted the term Alpha Group to be used by its special forces. The Almaty territorial unit of Alpha was turned into the special unit Arystan (meaning "Lions" in Kazakh) of the National Security Committee (KNB) of Kazakhstan. In 2006, five members of Arystan were arrested and charged with the kidnapping of the opposition politician Altynbek Sarsenbayuly, his driver, and his bodyguard; the three victims were then allegedly delivered to the people who murdered them.

Kokhzal (meaning wolf pack in Kazakh language) is a special forces unit of Kazakhstan responsible for carrying out anti terror operations as well as serving as a protection detail for the President of Kazakhstan.

Administrative History
The elite units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are controlled, for the most part, by the military-intelligence GRU (Spetsnaz GRU) under the General Staff. They were heavily involved in secret operations and training pro-Russian forces in the civil war in Chechnya during the 1990s and 2000s. In 2010, as a result of the 2008 Russian military reform, GRU special forces came under the control of the Russian Ground Forces, being "directly subordinated to commanders of combined strategic commands." However, in 2013, these spetsnaz forces were placed back under the GRU. The Russian Airborne Troops (VDV, a separate branch of the Soviet and Russian Armed Forces) includes the 45th Guards Spetsnaz Brigade. In 2009, a Directorate of Special Operations was established that reported directly to the General Staff not the GRU to establish the Special Operations Forces which in 2013 became the Special Operations Forces Command. Most Russian military special forces units are known by their type of formation (company, battalion or brigade) and a number, like other Soviet or Russian military units. Two exceptions were the ethnic Chechen Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad (East and West) that existed during the 2000s. Below is a 2012 list of special purpose units in the Russian Armed Forces:

Training
The FSB Spetsnaz maintain a training base near the village of Averkyevo. There is a "killing house" providing training similar to the SAS close to Moscow.

Uniform
Russian special forces wear different berets depending on the branch of the armed forces they belong to. These include:
 * Ground Forces and Airborne Forces – Blue beret
 * Navy and Marines – Black beret
 * National Guard – Maroon beret

Ground Forces
Following units belong to their specific military branches, but come under GRU operational control during wartime operations.
 * Special Operations Forces Command (KSSO)
 * Special Operations Forces (SOF)
 * Special Purpose Center "Senezh"
 * Special Purpose Center "Kubinka-2"
 * Special Purpose Center "Terskol"
 * 54th Special Reconnaissance Center
 * 561st Naval Rescue Center
 * 344th Army Aviation Combat Center
 * Main Intelligence Directorate (G.R.U)
 * Special Forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (Spetsnaz GRU)
 * Russian Ground Forces – fields 7 spetsnaz brigades of varying sizes and one spetsnaz regiment.
 * 2nd Special Purpose Brigade – based in Promezhitsa, Pskov Oblast
 * Brigade HQ
 * Signals Battalion (2x Company)
 * Support Company
 * 70th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 329th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 700th Special Purpose Detachment
 * Training Battalion (2x Company)
 * 3rd Special Purpose Brigade – based in Tolyatti 3 brigada specnaza.jpg on parade, 9 May 2011]]
 * Brigade HQ
 * Signals Company
 * Special Weapons Company
 * Support Company
 * Logistics Company
 * 1st Special Purpose Detachment (1st Battalion)
 * 790th Special Purpose Detachment (2nd Battalion)
 * 791st Special Purpose Detachment (3rd Battalion)
 * Training School
 * 10th Special Purpose Brigade – based in Mol'kino, Krasnoyarsk Territory
 * Brigade HQ
 * Signals Company
 * Special Weapons Company
 * Support Company
 * Logistics Company
 * K-9 Unit
 * 325th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 328th Special Purpose Detachment
 * Training Battalion (2x Company)
 * 14th Special Purpose Brigade – based in Ussuriysk
 * Brigade HQ
 * Signals Company
 * Logistics Company
 * 282nd Special Purpose Detachment
 * 294th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 308th Special Purpose Detachment
 * Training Battalion (2x Company)
 * 16th Special Purpose Brigade – based in Tambov, with all units deployed in Tambov except for the 664th SPD. ReconnaissanceExercise2017-01.jpg
 * Brigade HQ
 * EOD company
 * Signals Company
 * Logistics Company
 * 370th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 379th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 585th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 664th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 669th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 22nd Special Purpose Brigade – entire unit is based in Stepnoi, Rostov Oblast Anti-TerroristExercise2017-07.jpg
 * Brigade HQ
 * Signals Company
 * Support Company
 * Special Weapons Company
 * Logistics Unit
 * Engineer Unit
 * 108th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 173rd Special Purpose Detachment
 * 305th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 411th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 24th Special Purpose Brigade – based in Irkutsk, with all units and units deployed in Irkutsk
 * Brigade HQ
 * Signals Company
 * Special Weapons Company
 * Logistics Unit
 * 281st Special Purpose Detachment
 * 297th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 641th Special Purpose Detachment
 * 25th Special Purpose Regiment in Stavropol
 * Russian Airborne Troops
 * 45th Special Purpose Airborne Brigade

Navy

 * Naval Special Reconnaissance (OMRP) – Reconnaissance divers under operational subordination to the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
 * 42nd Marine Reconnaissance point (Pacific Fleet)
 * 388th Marine Reconnaissance point (Black Sea Fleet) – reorganized from the former 431st MRP
 * 420th Marine Reconnaissance point (Northern Fleet)
 * 561st Marine Reconnaissance point (Baltic Fleet)

The Russian Navy also fields dedicated maritime sabotage and counter-sabotage diver units. These units also include combat swimmers, trained to conduct underwater combat, mining and clearance diving. The task is to protect ships and other fleet assets from enemy underwater special forces. The term "combat swimmers" is correct term in relation to the staff of the OSNB PDSS. Every PDSS unit has approximately 50–60 combat swimmers. There are PDSS units in all major Naval Bases.
 * Counteraction Underwater Diversionary Forces and Facilities (PDSS)
 * 101st PDSS Detachment – based in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
 * 102nd PDSS Detachment – based in Sevastopol
 * 136th PDSS Detachment – based in Novorossiysk
 * 137th PDSS Detachment – based in Makhachkala
 * 140th PDSS Detachment – based in Vidyayevo
 * 152nd PDSS Detachment – based in Polyarny, Murmansk Oblast
 * 153rd PDSS Detachment – based in Ostrovnoy, Murmansk Oblast
 * 159th PDSS Detachment – based in Razboynik
 * 160th PDSS Detachment – based in Murmansk
 * 269th PDSS Detachment – based in Gadzhiyevo
 * 311th PDSS Detachment – based in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
 * 313rd PDSS Detachment – based in Baltiysk
 * 473rd PDSS Detachment – based in Kronstadt

Russian special forces of the FSB

The Centre of Special Operations of the FSB TsSN FSB, центр специального назначения ФСБ) is officially tasked with combating terrorism and protecting the constitutional order of the Russian Federation. The TsSN FSB consists of estimated 4,000 operators in at least 5 operative divisions:
 * Directorate "A" (Spetsgruppa Alpha)
 * Directorate "V" (Spetsgruppa Vympel)
 * Directorate "S" (Spetsgruppa Smerch – Special Operations Executive – SOE) – TsSN of Moscow city and Moscow Oblast
 * Directorate "K" (Spetsgruppa Kavkaz) – formerly Special Purpose unit for the city of Yessentuki
 * Directorate "T" (Spetsgruppa Tavrida) (Crimea, previously – 2nd service "SN" of FSB)
 * Sn SV - Service of Use of Special Weapons

TsSN FSB headquarters is a large complex of buildings and training areas, with dozens of hectares of land and scores of training facilities. The average training period for a TsSN officer is about five years.

Spetsgruppa 'A' (Alpha Group) is the premier counter-terrorism unit of the FSB. Consisting of about 720 personnel, of which about 250–300 are trained for assault operations and the rest are support personnel. These are dispersed in five operational detachments, including one permanent detachment in the Chechen Republic. Other units are stationed in Moscow, Krasnodar, Yekaterinburg and Khabarovsk. All Alpha operators undergo airborne, mountain and counter-sabotage dive training. Alpha has operated in other countries, most notably Operation Storm-333 on a mission to overthrow and kill Afghan president Hafizullah Amin).

Spetsgruppa "V", abbreviation of the Directorate в (Russian Cyrillic for V), also known as "Vega" in period 1993–1995, was formed in 1981, continues the lineage of two elite Cold War-era KGB special units—Cascade (Kaskad) and Zenith (Zenit). Its modern function is the protection of strategic installations, such as factories and transportation centers. With its Alpha counterparts, it is heavily used in the North Caucasus. Vympel has four operative units in Moscow, with branch offices in nearly every city containing a nuclear power plant.

Spetsgruppa "S", abbreviation of the Directorate C (Russian Cyrillic for S), also known as Smerch, but also known as the Special Operations Executive (SOE), is a relatively new unit formed in July 1999. Officers from Smerch are frequently involved with the capture and transfer of various bandit and criminal leaders who help aid disruption in the North Caucasus and throughout Russia. Operations include both direct action against bandit holdouts in Southern Russia as well as high-profile arrests in more densely populated cities and guarding government officials. Because of its initials, this group is casually referred to as "Smerch". With the Centre of Special Operations and its elite units, many FSB special forces units operate at the regional level. These detachments are usually known as ROSN or ROSO (Regional Department of Special Designation), such as Saint Petersburg's Grad (Hail) or Murmansk's Kasatka (Orca).

Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia
The SVR RF, formerly the First Chief Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, has its own top secret elite special force within the Operations Department of Directorate Z known as (Заслон) (meaning Screen, Barrier or Shield) about which extremely little is known. Formerly in PGU KGB SSSR called Vympel (e.g. French counterpart; Action Division).

However, mere existence of such group within SVR is denied by Russian authorities. Nevertheless, there were some rumors that such group does indeed exist and is assigned to execute very specific special operations abroad primarily for protection of Russian embassy personnel and internal investigations. It is believed that the group is deep undercover and consists of approximately 300–500 highly experienced operatives speaking several languages and having extensive record of operations while serving in other secret units of the Russian military.

Russian National Guard special forces

The Russian government established the National Guard of Russia in 2016. The Guard's special forces (consolidating and replacing the forces of the MVD Internal Troops, SOBR, and OMON) includes a number of Russian Internal Troops (VV, Внутренние войска (ВВ), successors to the Soviet Internal Troops) paramilitary units to combat internal threats to the government, such as insurgencies and mutinies. These units usually have a unique name and an official OSN (previously known as OSNAZ (ОСНАЗ) or Отряд особого назначения (Otryad osobogo naznacheniya) meaning "special purpose unit") number, and some are part of the ODON (also known as the Dzerzhinsky Division). OBrON (Independent Special Designation Brigade) VV special groups (spetsgruppa) were deployed to Chechnya.

National Guard of Russia
The following is a list of National Guard OSNs (отряды специального назначения, otryady spetsial'novo naznacheniya or "special purpose detachments") in 2012:
 * Dzerzhinsky Division (O.D.O.N.)
 * 604th Special Purpose Center
 * 7th OSN Rosich (Novocherkassk)
 * 12th OSN Ural (Nizhny Tagil)
 * 15th OSN Vyatich (Armavir)
 * 17th OSN  Edelveys (Mineralnye Vody)
 * 19th OSN Ermak (Novosibirsk)
 * 21st OSN Tayfun (Sosnovka)
 * 23rd OSN Mechel (Chelyabinsk)
 * 25th OSN Merkuriy (Smolensk)
 * 26th OSN Bars (Kazan)
 * 27th OSN Kuzbass (Kemerovo)
 * 28th OSN Ratnik (Arkhangelsk)
 * 29th OSN Bulat (Ufa)
 * 30th OSN Svyatogor (Stavropol)
 * 33rd OSN Peresvet (Moscow)
 * 34th OSN Skif (Grozny)
 * 35th OSN Rus (Simferopol)

Furthermore, the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR/Russia also had numerous naval detachments that conducted maritime operations. These include:
 * 1st Marine Detachment of the MVD (Khabarovsk);
 * 2nd Marine Detachment of the MVD (Murmansk);
 * 31st Marine Training Detachment of the MVD (Severobaikalsk);
 * 32nd Marine Detachment of the MVD (Ozersk)

These detachments today form the National Guard Naval Service Corps and report to the National Guard HQ.

Police
In addition, the MVD has Politsiya (formerly Militsiya) police special forces stationed in nearly every Russian city. Most of Russia's special-police officers belong to OMON units, which are primarily used as riot police and not considered an elite force—unlike the SOBR (known as the OMSN from 2002 to 2011) rapid-response units consisting of experienced, better-trained and -equipped officers. The Chechen Republic has unique and highly autonomous special-police formations, supervised by Ramzan Kadyrov (who has served as Head of the Chechen Republic since 2007) and formed from the Kadyrovtsy, including the (Akhmad or Akhmat) Kadyrov Regiment ("Kadyrov's spetsnaz").

From 2003 until 2016 The Federal Drug Control Service of Russia has operated the OSN "Grom", which became part of the Federal Police in April 2016, and now is subordinate to the MVD's Main Directorate for Drugs Control.

Russian Ministry of Justice
The Russian Ministry of Justice maintains several spetsnaz organizations:

The following is a list of Federal Penitentiary Service OSNs:
 * OSN "Fakel"
 * OSN "Rossy"
 * OSN "Akula"
 * OSN "Ajsberg"
 * OSN "Gyurza"
 * OSN "Korsar"
 * OSN "Rosomakha"
 * OSN "Sokol"
 * OSN "Saturn"
 * OSN "Tornado"
 * OSN "Kondor"
 * OSN "Yastreb"
 * OSN "Berkut"
 * OSN "Grif"
 * OSN "Titan"
 * OSN "Gepard"
 * OSN Saturn.

Ukrainian spetsnaz
Like many other post-Soviet states, Ukraine inherited its spetsnaz units from the remnants of the Soviet armed forces, GRU and KGB units. Ukraine now maintains its own spetsnaz structure under the control of the Ministry of Interior, and under the Ministry of Defence, while the Security Service of Ukraine maintains its own spetsnaz force, the Alpha group. The term "Alpha" is also used by many other post Soviet states such as Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as these units are based on the Soviet Union's Alpha Group. Ukraine's Berkut special police force gained mainstream attention during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity as it was alleged to have been used by the government to quell the uprising. However, this is disputed as many officers were also wounded and killed in the action. Current Ukrainian spetsnaz units with soviet lineage:
 * 3rd Spetsnaz Regiment - formed on the basis of the 10th Spetsnaz Brigade
 * 8th Spetsnaz Regiment - formed on the basis of the 8th Spetsnaz Brigade
 * 73rd Maritime Special Operations Center - formed on the basis of the 17th Naval Spetsnaz Brigade
 * Ukraine's Alpha Group (SBU) - formed on the basis of Kyiv-based 10th Group of the KGBs Alpha Group

In popular culture
The video game, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege features five spetsnaz operators named Glaz, Fuze, Kapkan, Tachanka, and Finka. In another Tom Clancy game, Endwar, Spetsnaz Guard Brigades is the name of the élite branch of the Russian army. The spetsnaz have also been referenced and featured multiple times in the video game series Call of Duty, mainly in the Modern Warfare titles. Spetsnaz are also featured in multiple entries in the ARMA series.

Two gangsters in the Guy Ritchie film RocknRolla have a 'scar competition' in which they show healed wounds (and describe how they occurred) from injuries they incurred whilst on several spetsnaz operations.

Season 1, Episode 4 of MacGyver (2016 TV series) focuses on stopping spetsnaz agents from activating a Cold War era bomb.

title: Spetsnaz


text:
Drummer of Tedworth

The Drummer of Tedworth is the case of an alleged poltergeist manifestation in the West Country of England, recorded by Joseph Glanvill in his book Saducismus Triumphatus (1681).

History
Early accounts reported that in 1661 a local landowner, John Mompesson, owner of a house in the town of Tedworth (now called Tidworth, in Wiltshire), had brought a lawsuit against an unlicensed vagrant drummer William Drury, whom he accused of collecting money by false pretences. After he had won judgment against the drummer, the drum was turned over to Mompesson by the local bailiff. Mompesson then found his house plagued by nocturnal drumming noises. It was alleged that the drummer had brought these plagues of noise upon Mompesson's head by witchcraft. Drury was said to have been associated with a band of gypsies.

Glanvill, who visited the house in 1663, had claimed to have heard strange scratching noises under a bed in the children's room.

On Christmas Day 1667, Samuel Pepys, in his diary, records his wife, Elizabeth, reading the story to him. He found it to be "a strange story of spirits and worth reading indeed."

In 1668, Glanvill published one of the earlier versions of Saducismus Triumphatus, his A Blow at Modern Sadducism ... To which is added, The Relation of the Fam'd Disturbance by the Drummer, in the House of Mr. John Mompesson.

Reverent John Wesley made reference to the Drummer at Tedworth in his journal: "The famous instance of this, which has been spread far and wide, was the drumming in Mr Mompesson's house at Tedworth; who, it was said, acknowledged, 'It was all a trick, and that he had found out the whole contrivance.' Not so, my eldest brother, then at Christ Church, Oxon, inquired of Mr Mompesson, his fellow collegian, 'Whether his father had acknowledged this or not.' He answered, 'The resort of gentlemen to my father's house was so great, he could not bear the expense. He therefore took no pains to confute the report, that he had found out the cheat: although he and I, and all the family knew the account which was published, to be punctually true.'"

Critical reception
In 1716 the Whig writer and politician Joseph Addison wrote a play The Drummer inspired by events at Tedworth. However, he updated the story to the recent War of the Spanish Succession and gave a rational explanation for the ghostly drumming; a returning veteran thought killed in action does it to scare off two suitors from his now wealthy "widow."

Charles Mackay, in his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), considered the phenomena to be undoubtedly fraudulent produced by confederates of the drummer and suggested Mompesson was easily deceived.

Amos Norton Craft (1881) also suggested that the phenomena were the result of trickery:

"We are to remember also, that the house of Mr. Mompesson contained several servants who doubtless possessed a good degree of human nature; Mr. Mompesson had caused the arrest and imprisonment of a member of a band of gypsies, who were intensely enraged at him on that account that the disturbance ceased as soon as the gypsy was transported beyond the sea and his associates had no farther hope of his release; that these manifestations began again as soon as the gypsy returned from transportation; that the gypsy professed to be the cause of the disturbance, and that the excited imagination would naturally add to the manifestations which the enraged trickster really produced."

Addington Bruce (1908) has argued that the phenomenon was fraudulently manufactured by Mompesson's own children, especially his oldest daughter, a girl of ten. Bruce wrote that the noises and movement of objects were reminiscent of pranks and often occurred in the children's bedroom. Bruce noted that Glanvill "passed only one night in the haunted house, and of his several experiences there is none that cannot be set down to fraud plus imagination, with the children the active agents."

Andrew Lang of the Society for Psychical Research wrote that "the Drummer was suspected, but, consciously or not, the children were probably the agents."

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Drummer of Tedworth


text:
Trow (folklore)

A trow (also trowe, drow, or dtrow) is a malignant or mischievous fairy or spirit in the folkloric traditions of the Orkney and Shetland islands. Trows may be regarded as monstrous giants at times, or quite the opposite, short-statured fairies dressed in grey.

Trows are nocturnal creatures, like the troll of Scandinavian legend with which the trow shares many similarities. They venture out of their 'trowie knowes' (earthen mound dwellings) solely in the evening, and often enter households as the inhabitants sleep. Trows traditionally have a fondness for music, and folktales tell of their habit of kidnapping musicians or luring them to their dens.

Terminology
The trow, in the Scots language, is defined as a ‘sprite or fairy’ of mischievous nature in dictionaries of Scots, particularly Orcadian and Shetland dialects.

Etymology
The standard etymology derives the term trow from troll (trold; troll) of Scandinavian folklore. Norwegian trold (troll) can signify not just a 'giant', but a 'specter, ghost' (spøkelse) as well.

As an alternate etymology, John Jamieson's Scottish dictionary conjectured that the word trow may be a corruption of Scandinavian draug. It may be worth noting that the Norwegian "sea-draug" (draug; søe-drau, søe-draul ) was either a sub-type or equivalent to the sea-troll/sea-trold, according to 18th century tracts by Dano-Norwegians.

drow
The trow is also called drow under its variant spelling in the Insular dialects of Scots; the "drow" being mentioned by Walter Scott. However, the term "drow" could also be used in the sense of ‘the devil’ in Orkney.

The word drow also occurs in the Shetland Norn language, where it means ‘huldrefolk’("the hidden people", fairies), ‘troll-folk’, or ‘ghost’. As drow is not a Norse language spelling, linguist Jakob Jakobsen proposed it was taken from the common (Scots) term "trow" altered to drow by assimilation with Old Norse or Norwegian draug. The reconstructed Shetland word would be *drog if it did descend from Old Norse draugr, but this is unattested, nor was it adopted into the Nynorn vocabulary to supersede the known form.

General description
It was considered taboo to speak about trows. It was also considered unlucky to catch sight of a trow, though auspicious to hear one speaking.

Their portrayed appearance can vary greatly: in some telling gigantic and even multi-headed, as are some giants in English lore; else small or human-sized, like ordinary fairies, but dressed in grey.

Trows consist of two kinds, the hill-trows (land trows) and sea-trows, and the two kinds are said to be mortal enemies.

Of the hill-dwelling types, it is said they can only appear out of their dwellings ("knowes"=knolls; "trowie knowes") after sunset, and if they miss the opportunity to return before sunrise, they do not perish but must await above ground and bide his time until "the Glüder (the sun) disappears again".

The trows are fond of music and constantly play the fiddle themselves. Sometimes a human learns such tunes, and there are traditional tunes purported to have been learned from the supernatural creatures (cf. §Trowie tunes below).

Tales are also told of human fiddlers being abducted by trows to their mounds, and although released after what seems a brief stay, many long years have elapsed in the outside world, and the victim turns to dust, or chooses to die.

Sea-trow
There are varying descriptions concerning the sea-trow.

An early account is that of the trow (Troicis ' Trowis''') of Stronsay, as described by Jo. Ben (i.e., John or Joseph Ben)'s Description of the Orkney Islands (1529); it was a maritime monster resembling a colt whose entire body was cloaked in seaweed, with a coiled or matted coat of hair, sexual organs like a horse's, and known to engage in sexual intercourse with the women of the island.

The sea-trow of Orkney is "the ugliest imaginable" according to W. Traill Dennison, who says that it has been represented as a scaly creature with matted hair, having monkey-like face and sloping head. It was said to be frail-bodied with disproportionately huge sets of limbs, disc-shaped feet ("round as a millstone") with webbings on their hands and feet, causing them to move with a lumbering and "wabbling" slow gait.

However, in Shetland, "da mokkl sea-trow", a great evil spirit that dwelled in the depths, was said to take on the shape of a woman, at least in some instances.

It is blamed for awaiting in the depths and stealing from the fish caught on fishermen's lines, and otherwise feared for causing storms or causing ill luck to fishermen. In the form of the wailing woman, she portends some misfortune befalling the witness/audience.

According to Samuel Hibbert the sea-trow was a local version of the neckar, and he specified that it was reputed to be decked with various stuff from out of the sea, especially fuci (Fucus spp. of seaweed), whose larger forms near shore are known as "tang" in Shetland. And though Hibbert does not make the connection, E. Marwick equated the sea-trow with the "tangy", as already noted.

Landmarks
Most mounds in Orkney are associated with "mound-dweller[s]" (hogboon; haugbúinn; haugbonde) living inside them, and though local lore does always specify, the dweller is commonly the trow.

A reputedly trow-haunted mound may not in fact be a burial mound. The Long Howe in Tankerness, a glacial mound, was believed to contain trows, and thus avoided after dark. A group of mounds around Trowie Glen in Hoy are also geological formations, but feared for its trows throughout the valley, and also unapproached after dark.

The stone circle on Fetlar has been dubbed the Haltadans (meaning ‘Limping Dance’) since according to legend, they represent a group of petrified music-loving trows who were so engrossed by dancing to the trowie fiddler's tunes that they failed to hide before dawn's break.

On the mainland in Canisbay, Caithness is a "Mire of Trowskerry" associated with trows.

Trowie tunes
Some Shetland fiddle tunes are said to have come to human fiddlers when they heard the trows playing, and are known as "Trowie Tunes". A selection is offered in the anthology Da Mirrie Dancers (1985).

"Da Trøila Knowe" ('The Knoll of the Trolls') is one example. "Da Trowie Burn" is also an alleged trowie tune, though its composition is attributed to Friedemann Stickle. This apparent contradiction is resolved in the case of "Da Trow's Reel", which was allegedly a tune that another man reputedly obtained from a trow, and he had whistled the tune over to Stickle on a different boat for him to set down the score. "Da Peerie Hoose in under da Hill" ('The Little House under the Hill') is yet another trowie tune as well.

Another trowie tune "Winyadepla", performed by Tom Anderson on his album with Aly Bain, The Silver Bow.

Kunal trows
A Kunal-Trow (or King-Trow) is a type of trow in the lore of Unst, Shetland. The Kunal-Trow is alleged to be a race without females, and said to wander after dark and sometimes found weeping due to the lack of companionship. But they do take human wife, once in their lives, and she invariably dies after giving birth to a son. The Kunal-Trow would subsequently require the service of a human wet-nurse, and may abduct a midwife for this purpose.

They are said to consume earth formed into shapes of fish and fowl, even babies, which taste and smell like the real thing.

One (a King-Trow) famously haunted a broch ruin. Another married a witch who extracted all the trow's secrets, and gave birth to Ganfer (astral body) and Finis (an apparition who appears in the guise of someone whose death is imminent), yet she has cheated death with her arts.

Parallels
Ben's sea-trow (trowis) bore resemblance to the anciently known incubus, as it "seems to have occupied the visions of the female sex", as noted by John Graham Dalyell (1835).

The learning of music from fairies is recognized as a recurring theme in Scandinavian and Celtic folklore. Examples in Irish tradition relate how a lutharachán (dialect form of leprechaun) or púca teaches tunes, like the Shetlandic trow who lets his music be heard from his fairy mound or otherwise; such tales classifiable as Migratory Legends "Type 4091, Music Taught by Fairie (Fiddle on the Wall)" under Bo Almqvist's modified system

The tale of a fiddler being taken to a fairy mound by fairies or trows is known by several versions in Shetland, but has also been collected from Orkney and the Scottish mainland (Inverness), and the group is assigned "F24. Fiddler Enlisted to Play for Fairy Dancers" under Alan Bruford's provisional classification scheme.

Origins
Book author Joan Dey (1991) speculates that the tradition concerning the trows may be based in part on the Norse invasions of the Northern Isles. She states that the conquest by the Vikings sent the indigenous, dark-haired Picts into hiding and that "many stories exist in Shetland of these strange people, smaller and darker than the tall, blond Vikings who, having been driven off their land into sea-caves, emerged at night to steal from the new land owners".

Shetland folklore spoke of the presence of the Pechs (mythologized version of the Picts) inside the fairy knolls ("trowie knowe"), who could be heard clinking their tools on silver and gold.

title: Trow (folklore)


text:
Russian Airborne Forces

The Russian Airborne Forces (Воздушно-десантные войска России, ВДВ) is the airborne forces branch of the Russian Armed Forces. It was formed in 1992 from units of the Soviet Airborne Forces that came under Russian control following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Troops of the Russian Airborne Forces have traditionally worn a blue beret and blue-striped telnyashka undershirt and are called desant (Russian: Десант), from the French Descente.

The Russian Airborne Forces utilizes a range of specialist airborne warfare vehicles and are fully mechanized. Traditionally they have had a larger complement of heavy weaponry than most contemporary airborne forces.

History
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Airborne Forces were reduced from seven divisions to five, which were the 7th, 76th, 98th, 104th, and 106th. Out of these, the 104th was disbanded, and the four existing divisions had their size reduced to only two regiments instead of three. A new unit was also formed, the 45th Separate Reconnaissance Regiment, which was subordinated to the GRU military intelligence for operations despite being part of the Airborne Forces. The VDV had about 35,000 personnel at this time. In 2006, the 7th and 76th were re-designated as air assault divisions, while the 98th and 106th remained as airborne divisions. The main difference was that the latter still had the ability to parachute troops into a location while the air assault divisions would simply be transported there by aircraft. The 7th Division was also designated as a "mountain" air assault division. The 31st Separate Air Assault Brigade had all of its artillery and armored vehicles removed, which made it more comparable to a Western airborne unit.

The 11th Air Assault Brigade in the Central Military District (formerly the Siberian Military District) and the 56th Air Assault Brigade in the Southern Military District (formerly the North Caucasus Military District) were partially infantry formations reporting directly to the military districts they are stationed in. The VDV's training institute is the Ryazan Institute for the Airborne Forces named for General of the Army V.F. Margelov. In addition, in the mid-late 1990s, the former 345th Guards Airborne Regiment was stationed in Gudauta, Abkhazia AR, Georgia. It later became the 10th Independent Peacekeeping Airborne Regiment. The unit was further designated the 50th Military Base.

In the early 1990s, General Pavel Grachev, the first Russian Defence Minister, planned for the VDV to form the core of the planned Mobile Forces. This was announced in Krasnaya Zvezda, the Ministry of Defence's daily newspaper, in July 1992. However, the Mobile Forces plan was never enacted. The number of formations available for the force was far less than anticipated, since much of the Airborne Forces had been 'nationalised' by the republics their units had been previously based in, and other arms of service, such as the GRU and Military Transport Aviation, who were to provide the airlift component, were adamantly opposed to ceding control of their forces.

From 1996 the VDV dispatched the 1st Airborne Brigade to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of IFOR's Multi-National Division North. The brigade, unusually, used Russian Ground Forces equipment such as BTR-80s.

After an experimental period, the 104th Parachute Regiment of 76th Airborne Division became the first Russian Ground Forces regiment that was fully composed of professional soldiers (and not of srochniki – conscripted soldiers aged eighteen). It was announced that the 98th Airborne Division was also earmarked for contract manning, and by September 2006, it was confirmed that 95% of the units of the 98th Division had shifted to contract manning.

With the reduction in forces after 1991, the 61st Air Army, Russia's military air transport force, has enough operational heavy transport aircraft to move one airborne division, manned at peacetime standards, in two-and-a-half lifts. The single independent brigade, the 31st at Ulyanovsk, however, is not equipped with its own armor or artillery and may be equivalent to Western airborne troops in that it functions as light infantry, on foot when reaching their destination. The 31st was the former 104th Guards Airborne Division.

VDV troops participated in the rapid deployment of Russian forces stationed in Bosnian city Ugljevik, in and around Pristina Airport during the Kosovo War. A confrontation between elements of the 1st Separate Airborne Brigade and British lead element of the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (NATO) took place over the airport on 12 June 1999, in the aftermath of the Kosovo War. VDV troops occupied the airport ahead of a NATO deployment, resulting in a tense stand-off, which was resolved peacefully. The VDV also took part in the invasion of Chechnya.

Notable former Airborne Forces officers include Aleksandr Lebed, who was involved in responses to disorder in the Caucasus republics in the last years of the Soviet Union, and Pavel Grachev who went on to become the first Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation.

On 26 May 2009 Lieutenant-General Vladimir Anatolevich Shamanov became the commander of the VDV, replacing Lieutenant-General Valeriy Yevtukhovich who was being discharged to the reserve. Shamanov had been decorated as a Hero of Russia for his combat role in the campaigns in Chechnya. His previous posts were as chief of the combat training directorate and commander of the 58th Army, and later chief of the main combat training directorate. Shamanov and the acting commander of the 106th Airborne Division were severely injured in a car crash on 30 October 2010, with the driver being killed.

On 28 January 2010, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the VDV's air components had been placed under the VVS.

Under the 2008 reform programme, the four existing two-regiment divisions should have been transformed into 7–8 air-assault brigades. However, once General Shamanov became commander-in-chief of the Airborne Forces, it was decided to keep the original structure. The divisions were strengthened, becoming four independent airborne/air-assault brigades, one for each military district. The 332nd School for Praporshchiks of the VDV (332 Школа прапорщиков ВДВ) in Moscow was disbanded in December 2009 (also under the 2008 reform programme, all praporshchik (WO) posts in the Russian Armed Forces were formally abolished).

In October 2013 it was reported that the three airborne brigades under military district control (apparently the 11th and 83rd (Ulan-Ude and Ussuriysk) in the Eastern Military District and the 56th at Kamyshin in the Southern Military District) would be returned to VDV command. The process was completed by July 2015. In October 2013, Commander-in-Chief of the VDV Vladimir Shamanov announced that a new air assault brigade would be formed in Voronezh in 2016 with the number of the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment. The establishment of the brigade was postponed to 2017–18, according to a June 2015 announcement. It was announced in July 2015 that plans called for the 31st Airborne Brigade to be expanded into the 104th Guards Airborne Division by 2023, and for an additional airborne regiment to be attached to each division.

Elements of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division's 104th Guards Air Assault Regiment allegedly participated in the war in Donbas. These units allegedly were used as spearhead forces during the August 2014 DPR and LPR counteroffensive. During the August 2014 counteroffensive, battalion tactical groups of the 7th Guards Airborne Division's 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment, the 98th Guards Airborne Division's 331st Guards Airborne Regiment, the 106th Guards Airborne Division's 137th Guards Airborne Regiment, and the 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade allegedly were sent into Ukraine. Reconnaissance teams from the 45th Detached Reconnaissance Brigade and the 106th's 173rd Guards Separate Reconnaissance Company were previously deployed to Ukraine alongside Ground Forces units.

In February 2016, it was reported that an airborne battalion would be permanently deployed to Dzhankoy, Crimea, in 2017–18, and upgraded to a regiment in 2020. In May 2017, Shamanov announced that the battalion would be formed at Feodosiya by 1 December 2017 as part of the 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division, and would be expanded into the 97th Air Assault Regiment with three battalions by late 2019. Since the 2014 annexation, the status of Crimea is under dispute between Russia and Ukraine; Ukraine and the majority of the international community considers Crimea an integral part of Ukraine, while Russia considers Crimea to be an integral part of Russia.

In August 2016, Russian paratroopers placed 1st place in the Airborne Platoon competition during the International Army Games in Russia, defeating teams from China, Iran, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

On 4 October 2016, Colonel General Andrey Serdyukov was appointed commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, replacing Shamanov, who became chief of the Duma Committee on Defense.

During 2016, three reconnaissance battalions and six tank companies, and two companies of electronic warfare and unmanned aerial vehicles were formed. 188 new and upgraded armored vehicles were delivered, with the Russian Airborne Forces equipment level of modern weapons at 47%. From 2015 to 2016 five intelligence units and six tank units have been formed, over 3,000 new pieces of weaponry and special military equipment were supplied, the number of contract servicemen had grown by 1.5 times, while the troops' training intensity had risen by 20 percent.

The Russian Airborne Forces received over eleven thousand new and upgraded weapons in 2017. The share of modern armaments and hardware comprises 62 percent. In two years four battalion sets of 120 BMD-4M and BTR-MDM Rakushka vehicles were supplied. Besides that, the force received over 100 upgraded weapons, including 2S9-1M self-propelled guns. From 2015 to 2017 the air defense units received close to 500 modern automated reconnaissance and command complexes, new Verba portable missiles, and over 30 upgraded Strela-10MN missile complexes.

On December 1, 2017, the organizational events to create a separate airborne assault battalion in Novorosiisk mountain division deployed in Feodosiya and a separate repairs and maintenance battalion in the Moscow region were completed. Contracted servicemen comprised over 70 percent of the troops. Barnaul-T R&D produced a planning module paradropped to airborne units to simultaneously track a hundred air objects, and a paradroppable reconnaissance and command module to detect targets in a 40-km range, deployable in five minutes.

State tests of a new Bakhcha-U-PDS parachute platform for the BMD-4M and BTR-MDM vehicles were completed in May 2018. Deliveries of new 'heavy drop' systems PBS-950U and PBS-955 began in 2020. In 2019, two battalion sets of BMD-4M airborne combat vehicles and BTR-MDM Rakushka armored personnel carriers, more than 200 units of various automotive equipment, including special armored vehicles, army snowmobiles, four-wheelers and buggies and more than 9,000 parachute systems D-10 and "Arbalet-2" were delivered to the troops.

In April 2020, military personnel from the Russian Airborne Forces, performed the world's first HALO paradrop from the lower border of the Arctic stratosphere. The Russian commando group used "next-generation special-purpose parachute system", military-tested oxygen equipment, navigation devices, special equipment, and uniforms. This was the first high-altitude landing in the Arctic latitudes over 10 km in the history of Russian aviation.

As part of its mission in the Arctic region, the aircrew provided landing of airborne units from altitudes of between 10 and 1.8 kilometres, as well as landing of cargo with a total weight of about 18 tons. After conducting practical combat training, the Il-76 aircrews landed at the Nagurskoe airfield in the northern part of the island of Franz Josef Land. The high-altitude landing was dedicated to the 75th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic war of 1941–1945, and the 90th anniversary of the formation of the Airborne troops.

In 2020, the VDV continued to modernize and re-equip its command posts, started to receive the Stayer high-altitude parachute system which enable airdrops from up to 10 km altitude, and completed receiving special-purpose controllable parachute systems.

Two air assault regiments were set up in Pskov and Crimea as part of air assault divisions in 2021. The Russian Defense Ministry also accepted the Zavet-D artillery fire control vehicle for the Airborne Forces. In 2021-2022, the Airborne Forces received about 30,000 sets of landing equipment and parachute systems. Sergey Shoigu claimed in September 2023 that VDV have received more than 2,000 hardware units and 5,500 landing means and also a new airborne regiment formed since the beginning of the year. The Russian Ministry of Defense said on 1 January 2024 that the VDV received during the past year over 2,500 units of weapons, military and special equipment, including more than 780 samples of "newest and contemporary ones". Among the newest samples were T-90M tanks and BMD-4M IFVs as well as BTR-MDM "Rakushka" and BTR-82A APCs. It was also reported on 3 January that 20 military units were created in 2023, including the Ulyanovsk air assault division. About 16,000 landing means were also reportedly delivered and 1,000 more in the first quarter of 2024.

Russian invasion of Ukraine
The VDV participated heavily in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In the opening hours of the invasion the VDV attempted to secure key airports and support assaults around Ukraine. These paratroopers were recognizable by the orange-and-black Saint George ribbons decorating their helmets and arms.

The VDV attempted to paradrop and transport troops with Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters and take the Hostomel Airport in northern Kyiv, in order to use the airport to airlift more troops and heavy equipment to take Kyiv as a form of forward "air bridge" that would enable rapid deployment of Russian forces far in advance of the Russian land front, in an action that became known as the Battle of Antonov Airport. The VDV troops at the airport then engaged the Ukrainian National Guard's 4th Rapid Reaction Brigade, which with the help of the Ukrainian Air Force encircled the unsupported VDV troops and recaptured the airport, with the Russians escaping to nearby woods.

The next day battle resumed, and the VDV again attempted to land troops at the airport. Deploying around 200 helicopters and with support from the Ground Forces arriving from the north (Belarus and Chernobyl), they finally broke through the Ukrainian defenses and established Russian control over the airport. In the end, however, the Ukrainians claimed that the airport became too damaged from the battle to be used as an airstrip.

40 kilometers south of Kyiv in Vasylkiv, VDV paratroopers also dropped in an attempt to secure the Vasylkiv Air Base. Without any support from air or ground forces, the VDV troops in Vasylkiv were eventually encircled and were unsuccessful in achieving their objectives, giving victory in the Battle of Vasylkiv to the Ukrainians.

On February 27, VDV troops with BMD-2s and BTR-Ds were seen advancing south of Hostomel in Bucha. The VDV and Ground Forces' units were hit on the same day by Bayraktar air strikes. The Ukrainian government claimed that "more than 100 units of enemy equipment were destroyed”. On the following weeks the VDV served as mechanized infantry and light infantry during the Kyiv offensive.

During the Battle of Kharkiv, VDV paratroopers landed in Kharkiv on March 2 in an attempt to capture the contested city. They attempted a raid on a local military hospital but were repelled by local Ukrainian forces.

According to the UK Ministry of Defence in June 2023, Russia was redeploying regular military units to the Bakhmut sector following withdrawal of Wagner forces. These included elements of the 76th and 106th VDV divisions and two additional brigades. The MoD added that the VDV was much degraded from its pre-invasion "elite" status.

Analysis of losses
On 3 March 2022, it was reported that Major General Andrei Sukhovetsky of the VDV's 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division, who was the appointed deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army, was killed in action in Ukraine. His death is attributed to sniper fire either near Mariupol (which was besieged by Russian forces) or Hostomel during the Kyiv offensive. Ukrainian sources said he was killed on 2 March and his death was first confirmed on VKontakte by "Combat Brotherhood", a Russian veterans group, and later by President Vladimir Putin. The VDV suffered similar losses in Bucha and Irpin with poor command and control being cited. The VDV also joined the assault on the city of Mykolaiv during the Battle of Mykolaiv, but were pushed back by a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

On 18 March it was reported that Colonel Sergei Sukharev along with deputy Major Sergei Krylov of the 331st Guards Airborne Regiment had been killed during fighting in Mariupol.

In late April, Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev claimed that he "personally checked" and that Russia had lost "almost 90% of its best paratroopers" in the first echelon of the invasion. Many helicopters were shot down by Ukrainian defenses, and the paratroopers were stranded without armored vehicles or air support. In early May, the UK MoD stated that the VDV units and other elite forces had suffered high losses and that it would "probably take years for Russia to reconstitute these forces."

On 19 June 2022, it was reported by Odesa military-civilian spokesperson Serhiy Bratchuk that Putin had sacked Serdyukov for his doomed bid to take Hostomel airfield, which few of the invading soldiers survived. This was confirmed by Russian media reports. He was replaced by Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky.

According to BBC News Russian and the Mediazona news website, 1,937 VDV deaths had been documented by the end of August 2023, which included 340 officers, accounting for 6% of the 31,665 Russian fatalities who had been identified by name, and 8% of those who could identified by both name and service branch.

UK intelligence estimate that around 30,000 paratroop forces were deployed to Ukraine in 2022 and that 50% of those have been killed or wounded by summer 2023. A Russian General in August 2023 stated that 3,500 wounded paratroopers had refused to leave the front for treatment and 5,000 had returned to the front after treatment.

As of 21 December 2023 at least 248 BMD-2, 101 BMD-4M, 83 BTR-D and 11 unknown BTR-D/BMD-2 have been lost in the invasion.

Creation of new VDV forces
After the invasion it was announced that the Airborne Forces would create two new divisions. Teplinsky announced on August 2, 2023 that the VDV is expanding the 31st Air Assault Brigade into the 104th Guards Air Assault Division. The 299th and 119th Parachute-Landing Regiments were also reestablished, expanding two other divisions from two to three regiments.

Also reported was the creation of a new Airborne Forces artillery brigade and the 44th Air Assault Division, created on the basis of the 111th and 387th Motor Rifle Regiments of the 1st Donetsk Army Corps of the turncoat Donetsk People's Republic. The 44th Air Assault Division recalls the number of the Soviet-era 44th Training Airborne Division. But formed from newly-formed motor rifle regiments, it would not be anything like the quality of existing Air Assault formations.

Command personnel

 * Commander Air Landing Forces – Colonel-General
 * Chief of Staff and First Deputy Commander of the Air Landing Forces – Lieutenant-General
 * Deputy Commander of the Air Landing Forces – Major-General
 * Deputy Commander of the Air Landing Forces for Peacekeeping Operations and Collective Rapid Reaction Forces – Major-General
 * Chief of Air Landing Training and Deputy Commander of the Air Landing Forces for Air Landing Training – Major-General
 * Chief of Combat Training and Deputy Commander of the Air Landing Forces – Major-General
 * Deputy Commander of the Air Landing Forces for Educational Work – Colonel

Forces

The Air Landing Forces combine Parachute Landing (парашютно-десантние) and Landing Assault (десантно-штурмовие) units. The difference between the two is that while both were airborne qualified and mechanised with BMD, BTR-D, 2S9 Nona, the parachute landing units are lighter (only quarter mechanised) and play the role of entry element, while landing assault units were fully mechanised and were intended to develop the breach opened by the parachute landing forces.

 * Great emblem of the command of the Russian Airborne Troops.svg Airborne Forces Command, Moscow
 * 38ОПС.png 38th Guards Command and Control Brigade of the VDV, Medvezhyi Ozera near Shchyolkovo, Moscow Oblast
 * Great emblem of the 45th Guards Spetznaz Brigade.svg 45th Guards Spetsnaz Brigade, Kubinka, Moscow Oblast
 * 150th Repair and Overhaul Battalion of the VDV, Orekhovo-Zuyevo, Moscow Oblast
 * Great emblem of the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School.svg Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School, Ryazan, Ryazan Oblast
 * Airborne Forces Faculty of the  'Mikhaylovskaya' Artillery Military Academy, Saint Petersburg
 * Ulyanovsk Guards Suvorov Military School of the VDV, Ulyanovsk, Ulyanovsk Oblast
 * Tula Suvorov Military School, Tula, reformed 2016
 * Omsk Cadet Military Corps of the VDV, Omsk, Omsk Oblast
 * Great emblem of the 242nd Training Centre.svg 242nd Training Centre for Training of Junior Specialists of the VDV, Omsk, Omsk Oblast
 * 309th Center for Specialized Parachute Training of the VDV (formerly the Central Parachute Sports Club of the VDV) (trains parachute sportsmen and also parachute instructors for the special forces of the other branches), Ryazan, Ryazan Oblast
 * Great emblem of the 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division.svg 7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division
 * 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment, Feodosia in Crimea
 * 108th Guards Air Assault Regiment, Novorossiysk, Krasnodar Krai
 * 247th Guards Air Assault Regiment, Stavropol, Stavropol Krai
 * Great emblem of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division.svg 76th Guards Air Assault Division
 * 104th Guards Air Assault Regiment, Cheryokha village near Pskov, Pskov Oblast
 * 234th Guards Air Assault Regiment, Pskov, Pskov Oblast
 * 237th Guards Air Assault Regiment
 * Great emblem of the 98th Guards Airborne Division.svg 98th Guards Airborne Division
 * 217th Guards Airborne Regiment, Ivanovo, Ivanovo Oblast
 * 331st Guards Airborne Regiment, Kostroma, Kostroma Oblast
 * Great emblem of the 31st Guards Air Assault Brigade.svg 104th Guards Airborne Division
 * 328th Airborne Regiment
 * Great emblem of the 106th Guards Airborne Division.svg 106th Guards Airborne Division
 * 51st Guards Parachute Regiment (MU 33842), Tula, Tula Oblast
 * 137th Guards Parachute Regiment, Ryazan, Ryazan Oblast
 * Great emblem of the 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade.svg 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade
 * 49th Air Assault Brigade
 * Great emblem of the 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade.svg 83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade

Armament and equipment
Personal firearms and crew served weapons include:
 * AK-74M (including upgraded variants with the KM-AK Obves modernization kit) and AKS-74 assault rifles, and AKS-74U special purpose and self-defence carbine (5.45×39mm)
 * AK-12 assault rifles (5.45×39mm)
 * RPK-74, light weight machinegun (5.45×39mm), now largely withdrawn from service and replaced by the PKM/PKP
 * PKM, general purpose machinegun (7.62×54mmR)
 * 6P41 "Pecheneg" (PKP) general purpose machine gun (7.62×54mmR), currently replacing the PKM as the general purpose machine gun throughout the Russian Armed Forces
 * Dragunov SVDS, sniper rifle (7.62×54mmR)
 * Dragunov SVU, modified SVD in bullpup configuration and its variants are in limited use
 * SV-98, main sniper rifle (7.62×54mmR)
 * ASVK-M Kord-M anti-materiel sniper rifle (12.7×108mm)
 * VSS Vintorez, silenced sniper rifle (9×39mm)
 * AS Val special assault rifle
 * MP-443 Grach, semi-automatic pistol (9×19mm Parabellum)
 * Makarov, semi-automatic pistol (9×18mm Mak) & Glock 17, semi-automatic pistol (9x19 Parabellum)
 * GP-25, GP-30 and GP-34, under-barrel 40 mm grenade launchers for fragmentation and gas grenades
 * AGS-17 Plamya (Flame), 30 mm automatic grenade launcher
 * RPO-A Shmel (Bumblebee), infantry rocket flamethrower, currently replacing the older RPO Rys (Lynx)
 * RPG-7D anti-tank rocket launcher, or more modern systems such as the RPG-22 and RPG-26
 * 2B14 Podnos 82 mm mortar or the 120 mm 2S12 Sani on UAZ vehicles
 * 9K38 Igla man-portable SAM system, or the more modern 9K338 Igla-S
 * 9K333 Verba man-portable SAM system, currently entering service
 * 9K111 Fagot, 9K115 Metis and 9M133 Kornet man-portable anti-tank systems
 * MTS-566 sniper rifle

The VDV are fully equipped with Barmitsa and Ratnik infantry combat suits as of 2018. Andromeda-D, Barnaul-T and Dozor automated control systems, AS-1 snowmobiles, four wheelers, a specially-created uniform for hot climates and Nanuk Arctic gear, reconnaissance-control and planning modules and the REX-1 counter-unmanned aerial vehicle rifle-like, man-portable jammer developed by Kalashnikov Group subsidiary ZALA Aero Group are also being introduced into service. Portable versions of the Garmony air defence radar, modernized reconnaissance and artillery fire control posts and Aistyonok and Sobolyatnik radars are being supplied to the VDV. The Russian Airborne Forces have also received new special-purpose controlled wing-type parachutes. VDV servicemen performing tasks in Ukraine received VKPO 3.0 all-season field uniform kits in 2023. The automatic cargo parachute system Junker-DG-250 passed acceptance trials and began to be supplied in November 2023. VDV also reportedly use the Lesochek EW system.

Armoured vehicles
There are over 1,800 armored fighting vehicles, mostly BMD-1 (since 1969), of which all but around 100 are in storage, and at least several hundred BMD-2 (since 1985). There are over 100 BMD-3 (1990) that were partially upgraded to BMD-4 level. All of them are amphibious, moving at around 10 km/h in water. The BMD-4 is capable of full, continuous fire while in deep water, unlike any other vehicle with such heavy weaponry (100 mm gun and 30 mm auto cannon). However, some units (such as those who served on peacekeeping duties in the Balkans) are known to have used BTR armored personnel carriers rather than BMD's. T-72B3 tanks supplied to the Russian Airborne Forces in 2018 have been upgraded and are equipped with Andromeda automatic control system and some of them with top-attack defence screens. As of 2021, the Russian Airborne Forces have 150 T-72B3 and 10 T-72B3 mod. 2016. T-90M tanks are also attached to VDV units as of August 2023.

There is a turret-less variant of the BMD-1, the BTR-D, which is used as troop carrier and serves as the basis for specialised versions such as anti-tank, command and signals. The BTR-D will be partially replaced by the new multi-purpose APC BTR-MD "Rakushka" that will also come in several different versions. Approximately 280 vehicles in all BTR-D configurations are in service. As part of the 2011 state defence order (GOZ), 10 BMD-4M and 10 "Rakushka's" have been ordered, but according to the VDV's CinC General Colonel Shamanov, Kurganmashzavod did not give a guarantee it would produce them.

The Russian Defense Ministry adopted the BMD-4M in April 2016. The first production batch of the new armored vehicles BMD-4M and BTR-MDM "Shell" in the amount of 24 units (12 each) transferred to the Russian Airborne Forces in 2015. The VDV equipped the first regiment with BMD-4Ms and BTR-MDMs in 2016. In 2017, they received two battalion sets of BMD-4M combat airborne vehicles and BTR-MDM APCs, over 80 Rys’ and UAZ Pickup armored automobiles.

Russian airborne brigade-level units have received SPM-2 GAZ-233036 Tigr armored cars. They have ordered Kamaz Typhoon armored infantry transports, following modifications to meet the demands of the airborne troops and accepted them for supply in August 2021. The Russian Airborne Forces have received about 100 Tigr and Rys special armored vehicles, 200 Snegohod A-1 snow-going and AM-1 all-terrain vehicles, UAZ Patriot light motor vehicles, Toros 4x4 armored vehicles and Kamaz trucks that can be air-dropped.

The VDV currently receives Berkyt protected snowmobiles for personnel transportation and fire support in arctic conditions. Infauna and Leer-2 EW systems alongside Aileron-3SV UAVs and P-230T command vehicles are also received. The RKhM-6 chemical reconnaissance vehicle based on the BTR-80 armored personnel carrier, the BTR-D airborne assault armored personnel carrier with a ZU-23 anti-aircraft gun and the R-149MA1 and the R-142DA command and staff vehicles were demonstrated in August 2021. The Sarmat-2 light tactical buggy participated in the Zapad-2021 drill.

On 1 August 2013, it was reported that the Russian Airborne Forces will develop a hybrid combat vehicle that combines features of an airborne infantry fighting vehicle and a helicopter. To meet the demands of future armed conflicts, a combat module that combines a light combat vehicle and an attack helicopter is being considered, with a crew of three-four people. The vehicle will be developed for the VDV by 2030.

Artillery
The airborne self-propelled artillery guns ASU-57 and ASU-85 have been withdrawn. They had light armour and limited anti-tank capability, but provided invaluable fire support for paratroopers behind enemy lines (the caliber of the gun in mm is the number next to the ASU designation).

Also withdrawn were the multiple rocket launch systems RPU-14 (8U38) of 140 mm and the BM-21V "Grad-V" (9P125) of 122 mm on GAZ-66, as well as the 85 mm gun SD-44.

Today the VDV operates the following systems:
 * 2S9 Nona and modernized 2S9M 120 mm self-propelled gun-mortar. Currently being replaced by the 2B23 Nona-M1 120 mm towed mortar and 2S31 Vena 120 mm self-propelled gun-mortar/2S12A modernized 120 mm self-propelled mortar
 * 2S25 Sprut-SD 125 mm self-propelled artillery/anti-tank gun based on BMD-3 hull
 * D-30 (2A18) 122 mm howitzer and anti-tank weapon, towed by truck, not amphibious, able to make 360 degree turns as it is deployed on a tripod
 * ZU-23-2 23 mm air-defence gun, is either mounted on the BTR-D, or can be towed by a jeep or truck as it has wheels. Since 2011, some ZU-23s are being replaced by the Strela-10M3/MN and since 2016 by the newest versions of the Buk missile system.
 * TOS-1A 220 mm self-propelled 24-barrel thermobaric/incendiary unguided rocket launcher since 2022.
 * 2S36 Zauralets-D – future 120 mm self-propelled gun-howitzer based on the BMD-4
 * 2S37 – future 152 mm self-propelled gun-howitzer based on the BMD-4

The VDV is equipped with numerous types of airborne capable trucks and jeeps, for example the Ural-4320, the GAZ-66V and the GAZ-2975 "Tigr" for transporting cargo, specialist crews and equipment (e.g. mortars, ammunitions), but not infantry (all fighting paratroopers are transported in armoured vehicles). Currently, the GAZ-66 is being replaced by the KamAZ-43501.

UAVs

 * Compact recon complex "Iskatel" (The Seeker) with 2 UAVs
 * UAV complex Orlan-10
 * UAV complex Granat
 * UAV complex Takhion
 * Kamikaze FPV drone Boomerang
 * ZALA Lancet kamikaze drone
 * Albatross M5 reconnaissance drone

Ranks and rank insignia

 * Officer ranks

 * Other ranks

Symbols

 * Nickname(s): Blue Berets, Winged Infantry
 * Patron: Saint Elijah the Prophet
 * Motto(s): Никто, кроме нас! (Nobody, but us!)
 * Beret Color: Sky Blue

Paratroopers' Day celebrations
Russian airborne troops had their own holiday during the Soviet era, which continues to be celebrated on 2 August. Their most emblematic mark of distinction is a blue beret. VDV soldiers are often called "blue berets". Each year, current and former paratroopers, often in an inebriated state, celebrate by meeting up and wandering city streets and parks. The day is notorious for two common sights: paratroopers frolicking in fountains and picking fights with hapless passers-by. On Airborne Forces Day in many Russian cities, it is customary to turn off the fountains and hold veteran reunions near those fountains.

Bands

The Combined Military Band of the Airborne Forces is an integral part of all the solemn events of the Airborne Forces. Every year, the band's personnel take part in the Victory Parade on Red Square, as well as the opening ceremony of the International Army Games. In the ranks of the combined band were musicians of the military bands of the airborne and assault formations of the Airborne Forces. There were six other military bands in the airborne forces.

The Song and Dance Ensemble of the Airborne Forces is the theatrical troupe of the VDV. It began its creative activity in 1937, as the Red Army Song and Dance Ensemble of the Kiev Military District, numbering only 18 people. On 3 May 1945, three days after the signing of the German armistice, the ensemble gave a concert on the steps of the destroyed Reichstag.

During the Cold War, the unit was known as the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. During this time, it had participated in concerts in the cities of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. It gained its current status in 1994. The Song and Dance Ensemble also contains the Blue Berets musical group.

title: Russian Airborne Forces