Spetsnaz GRU was an elite military formation under the control of the military intelligence service GRU. It was the first Soviet/Russian spetsnaz (special forces) force, more than two decades older than its KGB/FSB and MVD counterparts. The full acronym is GRU GSh (Russian: ГРУ ГШ) or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye Generalnovo Shtaba (Russian: Главное Разведывательное Управление Генерального Штаба) meaning Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (of the Russian Federation). The acronym, however, is usually shortened to just GRU (Russian: ГРУ) which stands for Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye (Russian: Главное Разведывательное Управление) (English: Main Intelligence Directorate). The word "Spetsnaz" is often written in all capital letters ("SPETSNAZ"). The concept of using special forces tactics and strategies was originally proposed by the Russian military theorist Michael Svechnykov (executed during the Great Purge in 1938), who envisaged the development of unconventional warfare capabilities in order to overcome disadvantages that conventional forces may face in the field. Practical implementation was begun by the "grandfather of the spetsnaz" Ilya Starinov. During World War II, reconnaissance and sabotage forces were formed under the supervision of the Second Department of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces. These forces were subordinate to the commanders of Fronts. The situation was reviewed after the war ended, and between 1947 and 1950 the whole of GRU was reorganized. The first 'independent reconnaissance companies of special purpose' were formed in 1949, to work for tank and combined-arms armies, which were tasked to eliminate amongst others enemy nuclear weapons systems such as the MGR-3 Little John and MGM-1 Matador. In 1957, the first Spetsnaz battalions were formed, five to operate beyond the 150--200 km range of the reconnaissance companies. The first brigades were formed in 1962, reportedly to reach up to 750 kilometres in the rear to destroy U.S. weapons systems such as the MGM-52 Lance, MGM-29 Sergeant, and MGM-31 Pershing. Two 'study regiments' were established in the 1960s to train specialists and NCOs, the first in 1968 at Pechora near Pskov, and the second in 1970 at Chirchik near Tashkent. According to Vladimir Rezun, a GRU defector who used the pseudonym "Viktor Suvorov", there were 20 GRU Spetsnaz brigades plus 41 separate companies at the time of his defection in 1978. The Soviet Union started frogman operations during World War II. The first unit of combat divers (or RON team), was formed in Leningrad in 1941. Russian combat swimmers (formerly called "combat divers"), are nowadays part of the Naval Spetsnaz which is a branch of Intelligence. According to major Russian generals, the Russian commando frogmen are an equivalent to the Navy SEALs and Shayetet 13. After Dissolution January--May 1995: Several seamen, midshipmen, warrant officers and officers from different OMRPs took part in the First Chechen War as volunteers. They were included in naval infantry units and operated as conventional marines in reconnaissance units, not as a separate Spetsnaz unit. 2004: The Russian state-controlled Channel One showed a documentary film dedicated to some Spetsnaz operations which were not known to the general public. The film is called Spetsnaz: the Operations. Among other stories, the film depicted an episode about the tactics of Russian combat swimmers from a PDSS unit. The episode was based on a real incident that occurred a few years earlier in a Russian naval base. Agents of a Russian PDSS team had detected activity of foreign frogmen. According to the film's narrator, these frogmen were well-trained professionals who planned to accomplish a terrorist act inside the base as a Russian battleship[vague] was arriving in harbour. The intruders had recruited a local man as a source of information. They planned to destroy a pier, together with the relatives of naval officers and sailors, by the remote detonation of a special mine. During fast and bloody combat, all the foreign frogmen were killed; their weaponry, explosive devices and diving equipment were captured by a PDSS team. 2008, August 12 : during the 2008 South Ossetia war, combat swimmers from the Russian Black Sea Fleet successfully demolished Georgian torpedo boats and missile boats inside Poti harbour.

• published: 06 Apr 2013
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