The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Special Operations Forces (abbr. SOF; Russian: Силы специальных операций; ССО, romanized: Sily spetsial’nykh operatsiy; SSO), are strategic-level special forces under the Special Operations Forces Command (Russian: Командование сил специальных операций, KCCO, romanized: Komandovaniye sil spetsial'nykh operatsiy, abbr. KSSO or KSO) of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It is also a structural branch and an independent unit of the Armed Forces.

The first units of what would become the Special Operations Forces were transferred from the GRU in 2009 as part of the continuing 2008 Russian military reform. The Special Operations Forces Command was established in 2012 and announced in March 2013 by the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to Gerasimov, the SOF was designed as a strategic-level asset, elite special operations force units of the KSSO whose primary missions would be foreign interventions including counter-proliferation, foreign internal defense operations and undertaking the most complex special operations and clandestine missions for protecting interests of the Russian Federation.

The SOF is distinct from the Spetsnaz GRU with their use of soldiers hired on contract; or, to put it simply, mercenaries. All soldiers of the SOF are personnel who serve on contract; many of which all are full-time servicemen consisting of commissioned officers and regular soldiers.

On 26 February 2015, President Vladimir Putin decreed that 27 February be the Day of the SOF, according to multiple Russian official news agencies (albeit not acknowledged formally), to mark the establishment of Russian control over the building of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Simferopol, Crimea on 28 February 2014.

The Special Operations Forces are a highly mobile, well-trained and equipped, constant combat prepared special operations force of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Designed for performing specific tasks, the SOF have the ability to function both within the country and abroad, in peacetime and in wartime (with application of military force, by necessity).

The Russian Ministry of Defense defines the term "special operation" as "methods and ways of fighting not characteristic of conventional forces: reconnaissance and sabotage, subversion and sedition, counter-terrorism, counter-sabotage, counterintelligence, guerrilla, counter-guerrilla and other activities".

The SOF have been primarily involved in Syria, conducting target acquisition for Russian Air Force combat planes conducting airstrikes and Russian Navy sea-launched cruise missile strikes, serving as military advisors training Syrian government troops, seek and destroying critical enemy objects, disruption behind enemy lines through ambushes, high value targeted assassinations and retaliation strikes against select groups of fighters.

In 2009, as a part of the comprehensive reform of the Russian Federation's Armed Forces, Special Operations Directorate, subordinate directly to the Chief of the General Staff, was created on the basis of the GRU's 322nd Specialist Training Center in the Moscow region (Military Unit 92154). The unit saw extensive action in the Caucasus region and earned the nickname podsolnukhi (sunflowers), a nickname given to the soldiers assigned to the unit while serving in Chechnya. It was reported that Colonel Oleg Martianov, who later became a member of the board of the Military-Industrial Commission, was one of the founders and first commander of the SOF from 2009 to 2013.