On February 27, the Russian Federation celebrates the Day of Special Operations Forces. This is a relatively new holiday among other professional holidays of the Russian Armed Forces. Its history is only four years old.
On February 26, 2015, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the introduction of the Day of Special Operations Forces. February 27 was not chosen by chance as the date. It was on this day, February 27, 2014, that Russian special forces entered the territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and ensured the protection of the population of the peninsula and the safe holding of a referendum on the entry of Crimea and Sevastopol into the Russian Federation.
Russian special forces in Crimea behaved so tactfully and correctly in relation to the local population, the press, and the Ukrainian military that journalists immediately called them "polite people." Since that time, the epithet "polite people" has forever been attached to the soldiers of the Russian Special Operations Forces. And today "polite people" celebrate their professional holiday.
Until the end of the 2000s, there were no separate special operations forces in the Russian army. Separately, there were special units of the GRU of the General Staff and the Airborne Forces. Meanwhile, the growth of terrorist activity and the number of local wars demanded a certain modernization from the army in terms of the tasks performed.
One of the first to think about the need to create such forces was General of the Army Anatoly Kvashnin, in 1997-2004. served as Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. At that time, hostilities were going on in the Chechen Republic, which revealed the need for a large-scale modernization of certain forces and means of the Russian army for the needs of local wars and conflicts.
On the initiative of Kvashnin, a Specialist Training Center was created, which became part of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. The "backbone" of the center was made up of officers and fighters of the 16th and 22nd separate special-purpose brigades of the GRU General Staff. In the same 1999, divisions of the center were deployed in Chechnya. The sunflower became the center's emblem. It was this plant that was depicted on the chevron of the center until it was renamed the center "Senezh".
On the territory of the Chechen Republic, the fighters of the center solved the tasks of reconnaissance, search and destruction of enemy bases, and the elimination of terrorists. In the course of their activities, they interacted with special forces of the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, and other army special forces. At the same time, the strengthening and development of the center itself continued, as well as the improvement of personnel training. As part of the center, five directions were deployed - landing, assault, mountain, sea and security of high-ranking officials in combat zones. The center began to select officers and warrant officers not only from the special forces of the GRU and the Airborne Forces, but also from other branches of the military, up to the signal troops, since the center needed specialists of a very different profile.
Throughout the 2000s, the center solved a number of important tasks in the fight against terrorism and the protection of Russia's national interests not only in the North Caucasus, but also in other regions of the world. However, for now, the military prefer not to dwell on this. But there were also certain disadvantages. So, serious problems were created by the lack of centralized management. The head of the center was supposed to go to the head of the GRU, he - to the chief of the General Staff, and the latter had already given instructions, for example, to the commander-in-chief of the Air Force on the provision of aviation. Accordingly, such a “tricky” system significantly reduced the efficiency of the center and influenced the efficiency of its operations.
On February 15, 2007, Anatoly Serdyukov was appointed Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation. Although, in general, his activities as head of the Russian defense department evoke harsh criticism from many military, it should be noted that it was during the years of Serdyukov's ministry that the Russian Special Operations Forces were officially created.
First, Serdyukov subordinated the Senezh center directly to the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. After that, the special training center was renamed the Special Operations Center of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. By order of Serdyukov, a military transport squadron Il-76 was allocated to the Center, and then a helicopter squadron from the 344th Center for Combat Use of Army Aviation. In 2009, the Special Operations Directorate was created, subordinate personally to the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.
The next stage in the development of the Special Operations Forces of Russia was associated with the arrival of Lieutenant General Alexander Miroshnichenko, a veteran and commander of the Alpha group, from the Federal Security Service to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. He brought new training methods to the life of the Special Operations Center, recruited a number of Alpha officers who had joined the Ministry of Defense from the FSB.
In 2012, the then Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Nikolai Makarov, transformed the Special Operations Directorate into the Command of Special Operations Forces (KSSO). As part of the KSSO, it was planned to deploy nine special forces brigades. However, in 2013, the new chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, announced the creation of the Russian Special Operations Forces.
Colonel Oleg Viktorovich Martyanov, a native of the GRU special forces, was appointed the first commander of the Russian Special Operations Forces. Oleg Martyanov, a graduate of the Ryazan Higher Airborne School, served in the GRU special forces since 1982, fought in Afghanistan, where he commanded a group, and then a special forces company in the 154th separate special forces detachment. After graduating from the Military Academy. M. V. Frunze commanded a special forces detachment, was the chief of the operational department and chief of staff in individual special forces brigades, participated in counter-terrorist operations in the North Caucasus, for which he received the Order of Courage.
Oleg Martyanov made a very significant contribution to the further development and strengthening of the Russian Special Operations Forces. Unlike the Airborne Forces, the Marine Corps and even the GRU special forces, it was decided to staff the Special Operations Forces exclusively with contract servicemen, since the MTR was supposed to be used to protect the interests of the Russian state around the world and in a variety of situations. The main personnel of the Special Operations Forces were natives of the GRU special forces, the Airborne Forces, but a serious difference of the new structure was that many officers from the FSB special forces were included in it, which was previously an extremely rare phenomenon - usually "army men" went to the security organs, and not vice versa.
So, in 2014, Major General Alexey Dyumin became the new commander of the Special Operations Forces. A graduate of the Voronezh Higher Military Engineering School of Radio Electronics, Dyumin began serving in special communications units, in 1999 he moved to the Presidential Security Service. He worked in the personal security of Vladimir Putin, was the head of the security of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Viktor Zubkov and Putin's personal adjutant when Vladimir Vladimirovich was the head of government.
In 2012, Dyumin took the position of Deputy Head of the Directorate of the Security Service of the President of Russia, FSO of Russia. However, in 2014, the president made an extraordinary decision - he transferred 42-year-old Dyumin, who had worked in the presidential and government security system all his life, from the Federal Security Service to the Russian Ministry of Defense, to the post of deputy chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff - commander of the Special Operations Forces.
It was Alexey Dyumin who commanded the Special Operations Forces at their "finest hour" - in the spring of 2014, when "polite people" ensured the safety of the reunification of Crimea with Russia. The entry of Crimea into the Russian Federation instantly made the MTRs known throughout the country and attracted the attention of the domestic and foreign press to them. And then it turned out that in addition to Crimea, the MTR still has a lot of good deeds. For example, fighters of the Special Operations Forces participated in the fight against Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, in the fight against terrorists in the North Caucasus.
In 2015, Alexey Dyumin received a promotion - he became chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces of the RF Armed Forces, and then Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation. Since September 22, 2016, Hero of Russia, Lieutenant General Alexei Dyumin is the governor of the Tula region.
In 2015, Alexander Matovnikov replaced Dyumin as commander of the MTR. He also comes from the special services - in 1986 he graduated from the Higher Frontier Military-Political School of the KGB of the USSR, after which he served in the Alpha group for almost thirty years.
Matovnikov was one of those Alpha officers who was transferred to the Russian Ministry of Defense to reinforce the Special Operations Forces. And this was the right decision, since Alexander Matovnikov is a real military officer, a participant in both Chechen wars, a number of counter-terrorist operations, including the storming of a hospital in Budennovsk and "Nord-Ost".
Since 2015, the MTR began to take an active part in the hostilities in Syria. The liberation of Aleppo and Palmyra was the work of brave "polite people".
The MTR fighters showed not only excellent training, but also incredible personal courage, fighting on the territory of Syria with militants of terrorist groups. Unfortunately, there were some losses. For example, in Syria, Senior Lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko (1990-2016), a graduate of the Military Academy of Military Air Defense, who served as an advanced aircraft pilot, died. Surrounded by militants, Prokhorenko did not surrender, but fought to the last, and then called an air strike on himself.
Several servicemen of the Special Operations Forces for their courage in Syria were presented to the highest award of the Russian Federation - the title of Hero of Russia. Among them is corporal Denis Portnyagin, who was part of a group of special forces - aircraft controllers. On August 16, 2017, in the area of the city of Akerbat, a group of air controllers was attacked by militants, and Lance corporal Portnyagin, after being wounded, took command of the group and summoned aviation and artillery fire on himself. But fate turned out to be favorable to the corporal - Portnyagin's group waited for the cover group to approach and was able to leave the area of hostilities.
Colonel Vadim Baykulov, a graduate of the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School, who served in “hot spots” in the North Caucasus and once commanded the 370th separate special-purpose detachment of the 16th separate special-purpose brigade, received the Gold Star "for Syria" GRU.
As we can see, the Special Operations Forces have their own heroes, their losses, their own glorious combat history. Five years have passed since the "polite people" gained national and world fame. And for four years there has been a professional holiday - the Day of the Special Operations Forces of Russia. The time is short, but even these few years for real warriors from the MTR is a whole life. These are operations in the Caucasian mountains and deserts of Syria, this is the fight against pirates in the distant southern seas and hard and daily combat training. Even now, despite the relative short duration of its existence, the Special Operations Forces can be called among the most elite components of the Russian Armed Forces.
