Word: spetsnaz
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...landed, several not very military-looking young men - one dressed like a student, one in a cheap jacket and tie - were also strapping on large side arms and testing their mikes. Presumably some sort of covert backup. The soldiers behind them were standing, guns at the ready, in full Spetsnaz battle dress, as if they were somehow expecting us to be attacked on the tarmac of the largest Russian base in the North Caucasus. Koshman clearly takes no chances. We landed between a line of helicopter gunships to our left and fighter bombers to our right. Koshman...
...small, improvised army of Chechen guerrillas, Russia last week was once again in a state of undeclared war with the mountainous republic. And the conflict is about to escalate dramatically. The first Russian ground forces have crossed the frontier, thrusting into two northern Chechen districts, while Russian commandos--the Spetsnaz--are reportedly moving into the northeast. In keeping with the best traditions of Soviet propaganda, Moscow announced that "the local people" in several Chechen districts are rising up against Islamic extremists. An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 additional Russian troops are massed on Chechnya's borders, awaiting the order...
Russian commanders have, in fact, learned nothing at all since the first Chechnya war. Officers and NCOs who took part in battles last month against Chechen rebels in western Dagestan described their own commanders as corrupt, ill-organized and incompetent. Sources close to the Spetsnaz, the best-trained and most combat-experienced soldiers, say they lost officers to misdirected Russian "precision bombings" in Dagestan. They also speak of corrupt commanders who allowed Chechen leader Basayev to buy his way out of Dagestan after a failed offensive, and of helicopter-gunship crews who were bribed by the Chechens to hit empty...
Wretched salaries are not the only source of demoralization. Living conditions would provoke a mutiny in many countries. Sergei, the Spetsnaz noncommissioned officer, lives in a slum. Officially called noncommissioned officers' married quarters, his single room measures 5 ft. by 8 ft., and he lives there with his wife and daughter. Ten families share a rat-infested kitchen and a single toilet whose walls are rotting from dampness. Sergei does not wear his uniform when he goes into the city--civilians view soldiers as losers, he says...
...when he first joined the Spetsnaz, he felt great pride of accomplishment. In those days, it was rare to be recruited for the Spetsnaz, and even harder to qualify. Spetsnaz veterans across the country acted as informal talent scouts, identifying promising soldiers for their old units. The recruits were fit and tough, and sometimes edging dangerously close to trouble with the law. "The saying used to be," Ivan recalls, "that you went either into the Spetsnaz or into prison." They had something else in common, veterans say: though often unsophisticated, they were usually very bright. Volodya, a well-educated officer...