Soviet/Russian Military Special Forces
The elite units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were mostly formerly controlled by the military intelligence GRU (Spetsnaz GRU). They were heavily involved in the wars in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Chechnya in the 1990s and 2000s, as well as in the training of pro-Soviet forces and various secret operations during the Cold War. The Russian Airborne Troops (VDV, a separate branch of the Russian armed forces) have the 45th Detached Reconnaissance Regiment.
Most units of the military spetsnaz have no official names and are generally referred to by the type of its formation (company, battalion, brigade) and a number, much like any other Soviet/Russian military unit. An exception was given to the ethnic Chechen Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad during the 2000s.
Read more about this topic: Spetsnaz
Famous quotes containing the words soviet, russian, military, special and/or forces:
““Is there life on Mars?” “No, not there either.””
—Russian saying popular in the Soviet period, trans. by Vladimir Ivanovich Shlyakov (1993)
“What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble. Or be alive again
And dare me to the desert with thy sword.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)