Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces Read online

  the entrance before the arrival of recruits did not originate in spetsnaz

  but in the penal battalions. It is possible that it was handed on to the

  present-day penal battalions from the prisons of the past.

  The links between spetsnaz and the penal battalions are invisible, but

  they are many and very strong.

  In the first place, service in spetsnaz is the toughest form of service

  in the Soviet Army. The physical and psychological demands are not only

  increased deliberately to the very highest point that a man can bear; they

  are frequently, and also deliberately, taken beyond any permissible limits.

  It is quite understandable that a spetsnaz soldier should find he cannot

  withstand these extreme demands and breaks down. The breakdown may take many

  different forms: suicide, severe depression, hysteria, madness or desertion.

  As I was leaving an intelligence unit of a military district on promotion to

  Moscow I suddenly came across, on a little railway station, a spetsnaz

  officer I knew being escorted by two armed soldiers.

  `What on earth are you doing here?' I exclaimed. `You don't see people

  on this station more than once in a month!'

  `One of my men ran away!'

  `A new recruit?'

  `That's the trouble, he's a starik. Only another month to go.'

  `Did he take his weapon?'

  `No, he went without it.'

  I expressed my surprise, wished the lieutenant luck and went on my way.

  How the search ended I do not know. At the very next station soldiers of the

  Interior Ministry's troops were searching the carriages. The alarm had gone

  out all over the district.

  Men run away from spetsnaz more often than from other branches of the

  services. But it is usually a case of a new recruit who has been stretched

  to the limit and who usually takes a rifle with him. A man like that will

  kill anyone who gets in his path. But he is usually quickly run down and

  killed. But in this case it was a starik who had run off, and without a

  rifle. Where had he gone, and why? I didn't know. Did they find him? I

  didn't know that either. Of course they found him. They are good at that. If

  he wasn't carrying a rifle he would not have been killed. They don't kill

  people without reason. So what could he expect? Two years in a penal

  battalion and then the month in spetsnaz that he had not completed.

  Spetsnaz has no distinguishing badge or insignia -- officially, at any

  rate. But unofficially the spetsnaz badge is a wolf, or rather a pack of

  wolves. The wolf is a strong, proud animal which is remarkable for its quite

  incredible powers of endurance. A wolf can run for hours through deep snow

  at great speed, and then, when he scents his prey, put on another

  astonishing burst of speed. Sometimes he will chase his prey for days,

  reducing it to a state of exhaustion. Exploiting their great capacity for

  endurance, wolves first exhaust and then attack animals noted for their

  tremendous strength, such as the elk. People say rightly that the `wolf

  lives on its legs'. Wolves will bring down a huge elk, not so much by the

  strength of their teeth as by the strength of their legs.

  The wolf also has a powerful intellect. He is proud and independent.

  You can tame and domesticate a squirrel, a fox or even a great elk with

  bloodshot eyes. And there are many animals that can be trained to perform. A

  performing bear can do really miraculous things. But you cannot tame a wolf

  or train it to perform. The wolf lives in a pack, a closely knit and well

  organised fighting unit of frightful predators. The tactics of a wolf pack

  are the very embodiment of flexibility and daring. The wolves' tactics are

  an enormous collection of various tricks and combinations, a mixture of

  cunning and strength, confusing manoeuvres and sudden attacks.

  No other animal in the world could better serve as a symbol of the

  spetsnaz. And there is good reason why the training of a spetsnaz soldier

  starts with the training of his legs. A man is as strong and young as his

  legs are strong and young. If a man has a sloppy way of walking and if he

  drags his feet along the ground, that means he himself is weak. On the other

  hand, a dancing, springy gait is a sure sign of physical and metal health.

  Spetsnaz soldiers are often dressed up in the uniform of other branches of

  the services and stationed in the same military camps as other especially

  secret units, usually with communications troops. But one doesn't need any

  special experience to pick out the spetsnaz man from the crowd. You can tell

  him by the way he walks. I shall never forget one soldier who was known as

  `The Spring'. He was not very tall, slightly stooping and round-shouldered.

  But his feet were never still. He kept dancing about the whole time. He gave

  the impression of being restrained only by some invisible string, and if the

  string were cut the soldier would go on jumping, running and dancing and

  never stop. The military commissariat whose job it was to select the young

  soldiers and sort them out paid no attention to him and he fetched up in an

  army missile brigade. He had served almost a year there when the brigade had

  to take part in manoeuvres in which a spetsnaz company was used against

  them. When the exercise was over the spetsnaz company was fed there in the

  forest next to the missile troops. The officer commanding the spetsnaz

  company noticed the soldier in the missile unit who kept dancing about all

  the time he was standing in the queue for his soup.

  `Come over here, soldier.' The officer drew a line on the ground. `Now

  jump.'

  The soldier stood on the line and jumped from there, without any

  run-up. The company commander did not have anything with him to measure the

  length of the jump, but there was no need. The officer was experienced in

  such things and knew what was good and what was excellent.

  `Get into my car!'

  `I cannot, comrade major, without my officer's permission.'

  `Get in and don't worry, you'll be all right with me. I will speak up

  for you and tell the right people where you have been.'

  The company commander made the soldier get into his car and an hour

  later presented him to the chief of army intelligence, saying:

  `Comrade colonel, look what I've found among the missile troops.'

  `Now then, young man, let's see you jump.'

  The soldier jumped from the spot. This time there was a tape measure

  handy and it showed he had jumped 241 centimetres.

  `Take the soldier into your lot and find him the right sort of cap,'

  the colonel said.

  The commander of the spetsnaz company took off his own blue beret and

  gave it to the soldier. The chief of intelligence immediately phoned the

  chief of staff of the army, who gave the appropriate order to the missile

  brigade -- forget you ever had such a man.

  The dancing soldier was given the nickname `The Spring' on account of

  his flexibility. He had never previously taken a serious interest in sport,

  but he was a born athlete. Under the direction of experienced trainers his

  talents were revealed and he immediately performed brilliantly. A year

  later, when he comple
ted his military service, he was already clearing 2

  metres 90 centimetres. He was invited to join the professional athletic

  service of spetsnaz, and he agreed.

  The long jump with no run has been undeservedly forgotten and is no

  longer included in the programme of official competitions. When it was

  included in the Olympic Games the record set in 1908, was 3 metres 33

  centimetres. As an athletic skill the long jump without a run is the most

  reliable indication of the strength of a person's legs. And the strength of

  his legs is a reliable indicator of the whole physical condition of a

  soldier. Practically half a person's muscles are to be found in his legs.

  Spetsnaz devotes colossal attention to developing the legs of its men, using

  many simple but very effective exercises: running upstairs, jumping with

  ankles tied together up a few steps and down again, running up steep sandy

  slopes, jumping down from a great height, leaping from moving cars and

  trains, knee-bending with a barbell on the shoulders, and of course the jump

  from a spot. At the end of the 1970s the spetsnaz record in this exercise,

  which has not been recognised by the official sports authorities, was 3

  metres 51 centimetres.

  A spetsnaz soldier knows that he is invincible. This may be a matter of

  opinion, but other people's opinions do not interest the soldier. He knows

  himself that he is invincible and that's enough for him. The idea is

  instilled into him carefully, delicately, not too insistently, but

  continually and effectively. The process of psychological training is

  inseparably linked to the physical toughening. The development of a spirit

  of self-confidence and of independence and of a feeling of superiority over

  any opponent is carried out at the same time as the development of the

  heart, the muscles and the lungs. The most important element in training a

  spetsnaz soldier is to make him believe in his own strength.

  A man's potential is unlimited, the reasoning goes. A man can reach any

  heights in life in any sphere of activity. But in order to defeat his

  opponents a man must first overcome himself, combat his own fears, his lack

  of confidence and laziness. The path upwards is one of continual battle with

  oneself. A man must force himself to rise sooner than the others and go to

  bed later. He must exclude from his life everything that prevents him from

  achieving his objective. He must subordinate the whole of his existence to

  the strictest regime. He must give up taking days off. He must use his time

  to the best possible advantage and fit in even more than was thought

  possible. A man aiming for a particular target can succeed only if he uses

  every minute of his life to the maximum advantage for carrying out his plan.

  A man should find four hours' sleep quite sufficient, and the rest of his

  time can be used for concentrating on the achievement of his objective.

  I imagine that to instil this psychology into a mass army formed by

  means of compulsory mobilisation would be impossible and probably

  unnecessary. But in separate units carefully composed of the best human

  material such a philosophy is entirely acceptable.

  In numbers spetsnaz amounts to less than one per cent of all the Soviet

  armed forces in peacetime. Spetsnaz is the best, carefully selected part of

  the armed forces, and the philosophy of each man's unlimited potential has

  been adopted in its entirety by every member of the organisation. It is a

  philosophy which cannot be put into words. The soldier grasps it not with

  his head, but with his feet, his shoulders and his sweat. He soon becomes

  convinced that the path to victory and self-perfection is a battle with

  himself, with his own mental and physical weakness. Training of any kind

  makes sense only if it brings a man to the very brink of his physical and

  mental powers. To begin with, he must know precisely the limits of his

  capabilities. For example: he can do 40 press-ups. He must know this figure

  precisely and that it really is the limit of his capacity. No matter how he

  strains he can do no more. But every training session is a cruel battle to

  beat his previous record. As he starts a training session a soldier has to

  promise himself that he will beat his own record today or die in the

  attempt.

  The only people who become champions are those who go into each

  training session as if they are going to their death or to their last battle

  in which they will either win or die. The victor is the one for whom victory

  is more important than life. The victor is the one who dives a centimetre

  deeper than his maximum depth, knowing that his lungs will not hold out and

  that death lies beyond his limit. And once he has overcome the fear of

  death, the next time he will dive even deeper! Spetsnaz senior lieutenant

  Vladimir Salnikov, world champion and Olympic champion swimmer, repeats the

  slogan every day: conquer yourself, and that was why he defeated everyone at

  the Olympic Games.

  An excellent place to get to know and to overcome oneself is the

  `Devil's Ditch' which has been dug at the spetsnaz central training centre

  near Kirovograd. It is a ditch with metal spikes stuck into the bottom. The

  narrowest width is three metres. From there it gets wider and wider.

  Nobody is forced to jump the ditch. But if someone wants to test

  himself, to conquer himself and to overcome his own cowardice, let him go

  and jump. It can be a standing jump or a running jump, in running shoes and

  a track suit, with heavy boots and a big rucksack on your back, or carrying

  a weapon. It is up to you. You start jumping at the narrow part and

  gradually move outwards. If you make a mistake, trip on something or don't

  reach the other side you land with your side on the spikes.

  There are not many who wanted to risk their guts at the Devil's Ditch,

  until a strict warning was put up: `Only for real spetsnaz fighters!' Now

  nobody has to be invited to try it. There are always plenty of people there

  and always somebody jumping, summer and winter, on slippery mud and snow, in

  gas-masks and without them, carrying an ammunition box, hand-in-hand, with

  hands tied together, and even with someone on the back. The man who jumps

  the Devil's Ditch has confidence in himself, considers himself invincible,

  and has grounds for doing so.

  The relations within spetsnaz units are very similar to those within

  the wolf pack. We do not know everything about the habits and the ways of

  wolves. But I have heard Soviet zoologists talk about the life and behaviour

  of wolves and, listening to them, I have been reminded of spetsnaz. They say

  the wolf has not only a very developed brain but is also the noblest of all

  the living things inhabiting our planet. The mental capacity of the wolf is

  reckoned to be far greater than the dog's. What I have heard from experts

  who have spent their whole lives in the taiga of the Ussuri, coming across

  wolves every day, is sharply at odds with what people say about them who

  have seen them only in zoos.

  The experts say that the she-wolf never kills her sickly wolf-cubs. She

  makes her other cubs do it. The she-wolf
herself gives the cubs the first

  lesson in hunting in a group. And the cubs' first victim is their weaker

  brother. But once the weaker ones are disposed of, the she-wolf protects the

  rest. In case of danger she would rather sacrifice herself than let anyone

  harm them. By destroying the weaker cubs the she-wolf preserves the purity

  and strength of her offspring, permitting only the strong to live. This is

  very close to the process of selection within spetsnaz. At the outset the

  weaker soldier is naturally not killed but thrown out of spetsnaz into a

  more restful service. When a unit is carrying out a serious operation behind

  enemy lines, however, the wolf-cubs of spetsnaz will kill their comrade

  without a second thought if he appears to weaken. The killing of the weak is

  not the result of a court decision but of lynch law. It may appear to be an

  act of barbarism, but it is only by doing so that the wolves have retained

  their strength for millions of years and remained masters of the forests

  until such a time as an even more frightful predator -- man -- started to

  destroy them on a massive scale.

  But the she-wolf has also another reputation, and it is no accident

  that the Romans for centuries had a she-wolf as the symbol of their empire.

  A strong, wise, cruel and at the same time caring and affectionate she-wolf

  reared two human cubs: could there be a more striking symbol of love and

  strength?

  Within their pack the wolves conduct a running battle to gain a higher

  place in the hierarchy. And I never saw anything inside spetsnaz that could

  be described as soldier's friendship, at least nothing like what I had seen

  among the tank troops and the infantry. Within spetsnaz a bitter battle goes

  on for a place in the pack, closer to the leader and even in the leader's

  place. In the course of this bitter battle for a place in the pack the

  spetsnaz soldier is sometimes capable of displaying such strength of

  character as I have never seen elsewhere.

  The beating up of the young recruits who are just starting their

  service is an effort on the part of the stariki to preserve their dominating

  position in the section, platoon or company. But among the recruits too

  there is right from the beginning a no less bitter battle going on for

  priority. This struggle takes the form of continual fighting between groups