to be able to move fast enough to get to the bridge and take over with some
of its men. The spetsnaz group will stay at the bridge, while the forward
detachment runs ahead, and then, after the main body of Soviet forces has
arrived at the bridge the spetsnaz group will again, after briefing, be
dropped by parachute far ahead.
Sometimes spetsnaz at the front level will operate in the interests of
the army's forward detachments, in which case the army's own spetsnaz will
turn its attention to the most successful forward detachments of the army's
divisions.
Forward detachments are a very powerful weapon in the hands of the
Soviet commanders, who have great experience in deploying them. They are in
reality the best units of the Soviet Army and in the course of an advance
will operate not only in a similar way to spetsnaz, but in very close
collaboration with it too. The success of operations by spetsnaz groups in
strategic warfare depends ultimately on the skill and fighting ability of
dozens of forward detachments which carry out lightning operations to
overturn the enemy's plans and frustrate his attempts to locate and destroy
the spetsnaz groups.
--------
Chapter 13. Spetsnaz and Deception
Secrecy and disinformation are the most effective weapons in the hands
of the Soviet Army and the whole Communist system. With the aim of
protecting military secrets and of disinforming the enemy a Chief
Directorate of Strategic Camouflage (GUSM) was set up within the Soviet
General Staff in the 1960s. The Russian term for `camouflage' -- maskirovka
-- is, like the word razvedka, impossible to translate directly. Maskirovka
means everything relating to the preservation of secrets and to giving the
enemy a false idea of the plans and intentions of the Soviet high command.
Maskirovka has a broader meaning than `deception' and `camouflage' taken
together.
The GUSM and the GRU use different methods in their work but operate on
the same battlefield. The demands made of the officers of both organisations
are more or less identical. The most important of these demands are: to be
able to speak foreign languages fluently; and to know the enemy. It was no
coincidence that when the GUSM was set up many senior officers and generals
of the GRU were transferred to it. General Moshe Milshtein was one of them,
and he had been one of the most successful heads the GRU had had; he spent
practically the whole of his career in the West as an illegal. Milshtein
speaks English, French and German fluently, and possibly other languages as
well. He is the author of a secret textbook for GRU officers entitled An
Honourable Service. I frequently attended lectures given by him about
operations by Soviet `illegals' and the theory upon which the practice of
disinformation is based. But even the briefest study of the writings of this
general in Soviet military journals, in the Military-Historical Journal
(VIZ) for example, reveals that he is one of the outstanding Soviet experts
in the field of espionage and disinformation.
___
The GUSM is vast. It is continually gathering a colossal number of
facts on three key subjects:
1. What the West knows about us.
2. What the West shows us it does not know.
3. What the West is trying to find out.
The GUSM has long-term plans covering what must be concealed and what
must have attention drawn to it in the Soviet Army and armaments industry.
The experts of the GUSM are constantly fabricating material so that the
enemy should draw the wrong conclusions from the authentic information in
his possession.
The extent of the powers given to the GUSM can be judged from the fact
that at the beginning of the 1970s REB osnaz (radio-electronic warfare) was
transferred from the control of the KGB to the control of the GUSM, though
still preserving the name osnaz.
There are very close links existing between the GUSM and the GRU and
between spetsnaz and the REB osnaz. In peacetime the REB osnaz transmits by
radio `top-secret' instructions from some Soviet headquarters to others. In
time of war spetsnaz operations against headquarters and centres and lines
of communications are conducted in the closest co-operation with the REB
osnaz, which is ready to connect up with the enemy's lines of communication
to transmit false information. An example of such an operation was provided
in the manoeuvres of the Ural military district when a spetsnaz company
operated against a major headquarters. Spetsnaz groups cut the communication
lines and `destroyed' the headquarters and at the same time an REB osnaz
company hooked into the enemy's lines and began transmitting instructions to
the enemy in the name of the headquarters that had been wiped out.
___
Even in peacetime the GUSM operates in a great variety of ways. For
example, the Soviet Union derives much benefit from the activities of
Western pacifists. A fictitious pacifist movement has been set up in the
Soviet Union and Professor Chazov, the personal physician of the General
Secretary of the Communist Party, has been made head of it. There are some
who say that the movement is controlled by the Soviet leadership through the
person of Chazov. Chazov, in addition to being responsible for the health of
the General Secretary, is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party, i.e. one of the leaders who has real power in his hands. There are
very few people who can manipulate him.
The mighty machinery of the GUSM was brought into operation in order to
give this Communist leader some publicity. General Moshe Milshtein himself
arrived in London in April 1982 to attend a conference of doctors opposed to
nuclear warfare. There were many questions that had to be put to the
general. What did he have to do with medicine? Where had he served, in what
regiments and divisions? Where had he come by his genuine English accent?
Did all Soviet generals speak such good English? And were all Soviet
generals allowed to travel to Great Britain and conduct pacifist propaganda,
or was it a privilege granted to a select few?
The result of this publicity stunt by the GUSM is well known -- the
`pacifist' Chazov, who has never once been known to condemn the murder of
children in Afghanistan or the presence of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia,
and who persecutes opponents of Communism in the USSR, received the Nobel
Prize.
`But,' as Stalin said, `in order to prepare new wars pacifism alone is
not enough. That is why the Soviet leaders are preparing for another war
not only with the aid of the pacifists but with the help of many other
people and organisations which, knowingly or unwittingly, spread information
which has been `made in the GUSM'.
___
One of the sources spreading Soviet military disinformation is the
GRU's network of agents, and in particular the agents of spetsnaz.
In the preparation of a strategic operation the GUSM's most important
task is to ensure that the operation is totally unexpected by the enemy
,
particularly the place where it is to take place and the time it is due to
start; its nature, and the weapons the troops will be using; and the number
of troops and scope of the operation. All these elements must be planned so
that the enemy has not prepared to resist. This is achieved by many years of
intensive effort on the part of the GUSM at concealment. But concealment is
twofold: the GUSM will, for example, conceal from the enemy advances in
Soviet military science and the armaments industry, and at the same time
demonstrate what the enemy wants to see.
This would provide material for a separate and lengthy piece of
research. Here we are dealing only with spetsnaz and with what the GUSM does
in connection with spetsnaz. GUSM experts have developed a whole system
aimed at preventing the enemy from being aware of the existence of spetsnaz
and ensuring that he should have a very limited idea of its strength and the
nature of the operations it will conduct. Some of the steps it takes we have
already seen. To summarise:
1. Every prospective member of spetsnaz is secretly screened for his
general reliability long before he is called into the Army.
2. Every man joining spetsnaz or the GRU has to sign a document
promising not to reveal the secret of its existence. Any violation of this
undertaking is punished as spying -- by the death sentence.
3. Spetsnaz units do not have their own uniform, their own badges or
any other distinguishing mark, though it very often uses the uniform of the
airborne troops and their badges. Naval spetsnaz wear the uniform of the
naval infantry although they have nothing in common with that force.
Spetsnaz units operating midget submarines wear the usual uniform of
submariners. When they are in the countries of Eastern Europe the spetsnaz
units wear the uniform of signals troops.
4. Not a single spetsnaz unit is quartered separately. They are all
accommodated in military settlements along with airborne or air-assault
troops. In the Navy spetsnaz units are accommodated in the military
settlements of the naval infantry. The fact that they wear the same uniform
and go through roughly the same kind of battle training makes it very
difficult to detect spetsnaz. In Eastern Europe spetsnaz is located close to
important headquarters because it is convenient to have them along with the
signals troops. In the event of their being moved to military settlements
belonging to other branches of the forces spetsnaz units immediately change
uniform.
Agent units in spetsnaz are installed near specially well-defended
targets -- missile bases, penal battalions and nuclear ammunition stores.
5. In the various military districts and groups of forces spetsnaz
troops are known by different names -- as reidoviki (`raiders') in East
Germany, and as okhotniki (`hunters') in the Siberian military district.
Spetsnaz soldiers from different military districts who meet by chance
consider themselves as part of different organisations. The common label
spetsnaz is used only by officers among themselves.
6. Spetsnaz does not have its own schools or academies. The officer
class is trained at the Kiev Higher Combined Officers' Training School
(reconnaissance faculty) and at the Ryazan Higher Airborne School (special
faculty). It is practically impossible to distinguish a spetsnaz student
among the students of other faculties. Commanding officers and officers
concerned with agent work are trained at the Military-Diplomatic Academy
(the GRU Academy). I have already mentioned the use made of sports sections
and teams for camouflaging the professional core of spetsnaz.
There are many other ways of concealing the presence of spetsnaz in a
particular region and the existence of spetsnaz as a whole.
In spetsnaz everyone has his own nickname. As in the criminal
underworld or at school, a person does not choose his own nickname, but is
given it by others. A man may have several at the outset, then some of them
are dropped until there remains only the one that sounds best and most
pleases the people he works with. The use of nicknames greatly increases the
chances of keeping spetsnaz operations secret. The nicknames can be
transmitted by radio without any danger. A good friend of mine was given the
nickname Racing Pig. Suppose the head of Intelligence in a district sent the
following radiogram, uncyphered: `Racing Pig to go to post No. 10.' What
could that tell an enemy if he intercepted it? On the other hand, the
commander of the group will know the message is genuine, that it has been
sent by one of his own men and nobody else. Spetsnaz seldom makes use of
radio, and, if the head of Intelligence had to speak to the group again he
would not repeat the name but would say another name to the deputy commander
of the group: `Dog's Heart to take orders from Gladiolus,' for example.
Before making a jump behind enemy lines, in battle or in training, a
spetsnaz soldier will hand over to his company sergeant all his documents,
private letters, photographs, everything he does not need on the campaign
and everything that might enable someone to determine what unit he belongs
to, his name, and so on. The spetsnaz soldier has no letters from the
Russian alphabet on his clothes or footwear. There may be some figures which
indicate the number he is known by in the Soviet armed forces, but that is
all. An interesting point is that there are two letters in that number, and
for the spetsnaz soldier they always select letters which are common to both
the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets -- A, K, X, and so forth. An enemy coming
across the corpse of a spetsnaz soldier will find no evidence that it is
that of a Soviet soldier. One could, of course, guess, but the man could
just as easily be a Bulgar, a Pole or a Czech.
___
Spetsnaz operates in exceptionally unfavourable conditions. It can
survive and carry out a given mission only if the enemy's attention is
spread over a vast area and he does not know where the main blow is to be
struck.
With this aim, drops of large numbers of spetsnaz troops are not
carried out in a single area but in smaller numbers and in several areas at
the same time. The dropping zones may be separated from each other by
hundreds of kilometres, and apart from the main areas of operation for
spetsnaz other, subsidiary areas are chosen as well: these are areas of real
interest to spetsnaz, so as to make the enemy believe that that is the area
where the main spetsnaz threat is likely to appear, and they are chosen as
carefully as the main ones. The decision as to which area will be a prime
one and which a subsidiary is taken by the high command on the very eve of
the operation. Sometimes circumstances change so rapidly that a change in
the area of operation may take place even as the planes are over enemy
territory.
The deception of the enemy over the main and subsidiary areas of
operation begins with the deception of the men taking part in the operation.
Companies, battalions, regiments and brigades exist as single fighting
/>
units. But during the period of training for the operation, groups and
detachments are formed in accordance with the actual situation and to carry
out a specific task. The strength and armament of each group is worked out
specially. Before carrying out an operation every detachment and every group
is isolated from the other groups and detachments and is trained to carry
out the operation planned for that particular group. The commander and his
deputy are given the exact area of operations and are given information
about enemy operations in the given area and about operations there by
spetsnaz groups and detachments. Sometimes this information is very detailed
(if groups and detachments have to operate jointly), at others it is only
superficial, just enough to prevent neighbouring commanders getting in each
other's way.
Sometimes the commander of a group or detachment is told the truth,
sometimes he is deceived. A spetsnaz officer knows that he can be deceived,
and that he cannot always detect with any certainty what is true and what is
a lie.
Commanders of groups and detachments who are to take part in operations
in reserve areas are usually told that their area is the main one and the
most important, that there is already a large force of spetsnaz operating
there or that such a force will soon appear there. The commander of a group
that is operating in the main area may be told, on the contrary, that apart
from his groups there are very few groups operating in the area.
Irrespective of what the comander is told he is given quite specific tasks,
for whose accomplishment he answers with his head in the most literal sense.
In any operation the GRU high command keeps a spetsnaz reserve on its
own territory. Even in the course of the operation some groups may receive
an order to withdraw from the main areas into the reserve areas. Spetsnaz
reserves may be dropped into the reserve areas, which then become main areas
of operations. In this way the enemy obtains information about spetsnaz
simultaneously in many areas, and it is exceptionally difficult to determine
where the main areas and where the reserve ones are. Consequently the
enemy's main forces may be thrown against relatively small groups and
detachments which are conducting real military operations but which are none
Spetsnaz: The Inside Story of the Soviet Special Forces Page 22