Spetsnaz

Spetsnaz (Russian: Спецназ) are special forces in many post-Soviet states. Historically, this term referred to the Soviet Union's Spetsnaz GRU, special operations units of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff (GRU). Today it refers to special forces branches and task forces subordinate to ministries including defence, internal affairs, or emergency situations in countries that have inherited their special purpose units from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies.

As spetsnaz is a Russian term, it is typically associated with the special units of Russia, but other post-Soviet states often refer to their special forces units by the term as well, since these nations also inherited their special purpose units from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies.

The Russian abbreviations spetsnaz and osnaz are syllabic abbreviations of Soviet era Russian, for spetsialnogo naznacheniya and osobogo naznacheniya, both of which may be interpreted as "special purpose". As syllabic acronyms they are not normally capitalized.

In Ukrainian they are known as spetspryz (спецприз), an abbreviation of viiska spetsiialnoho pryznachennia (війська спеціяльного призначення).

They are general terms that were used for a variety of Soviet special operations (spetsoperatsiya) units. In addition, many Cheka and Internal Troops units (such as OMSDON and ODON) also included osobovo naznacheniya in their full names. Regular forces assigned to special tasks were sometimes also referred to by terms such as Spetsnaz and osnaz.

Spetsnaz later referred specifically to special (spetsialnogo) purpose (naznacheniya) or special operations (spetsoperatsiya; spec ops) forces, and the word's widespread use is a relatively recent, post-perestroika development in Russian language. The Soviet public used to know very little about their country's special forces until many state secrets were disclosed under the glasnost ("openness") policy of Mikhail Gorbachev during the late 1980s. Since then, stories about spetsnaz and their purportedly incredible prowess, from the serious to the highly questionable, have captivated the imagination of Russians. A number of books about the Soviet military special forces, such as 1987's Spetsnaz: The Story Behind the Soviet SAS by defected GRU agent Viktor Suvorov, helped introduce the term to the Western public.

The Imperial Russian Army had hunter-commando units, formed by a decree of Emperor Alexander III in 1886, which saw action in World War I prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Also, during World War I, General Aleksei Brusilov became one of the first senior commanders to use the tactics of fast action shock troops for assaults following concentrated accurate artillery fire in what would later be known as the Brusilov Offensive of 1916. Such tactics, considered revolutionary at the time, would later inspire people like Prussian Captain Willy Rohr in the development of the Prussian Stormtroopers (founded in 1915).

The origins of the Spetsnaz can be found in the Russian Civil War. To act against anti-Communist workers and farmers, the Soviet regime set up so called Tschasti Osobogo Nasatschenia (Units for special use) in 1918. In the next year they were expanded to the so-called Cheka (The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission), fighting counterrevolution and (alleged) sabotage. They took part in the Kronstadt rebellion 1921, setting up machine guns behind units of the Red Army, to "increase their motivation". The GRU and NKVD descended from the Cheka. Since 1927 Russians were experimenting with parachutes. Airborne units were used against central Asian and Afghan insurgents.