our partners InformNapalm, in which Victory Krm talks about the dead special forces of the GRU of the Russian Federation and understands why their graves are hidden.
The other day, one of the Russian provincial newspapers, Rodnikovsky Prospekt, published the death of intelligence officer Sergei Pechalnov.
The interview with the parents of the deceased serviceman talks about Sergei’s service in the special forces of the GRU of the Russian Federation and the participation of a senior lieutenant in a ground operation in Syria. It is reported that the officer was killed in June 2016 in Syria by a mine. He and another colleague were flown by plane to Moscow, to the Burdenko Institute, but, despite the artificial coma, the servicemen could not be saved. On June 17, 2016, Sergei Pechalnov was buried in a cemetery in his small homeland, in the village of Mikhailovskoye, Rodnikovsky district, Ivanovo region (RF). Neither official sources of the Russian Ministry of Defense nor the Russian media provided any other comments, except for the above-mentioned publication, about the so-called feat of the serviceman.
From an interview with the father of the deceased GRU officer, Alexander, it becomes clear that the second person who was blown up by a mine was Oleg Arkhireev. In August 2016, Ruslan Leviev already wrote about him. It was said that on June 9, 2016, during a combat mission, captain Oleg Arkhireev died. Thus, Oleg was a colleague of Sergei Pechalnov.
The social profile feed of Sergei Pechalnov’s wife Victoria posted a photograph of a monument with a memorial plaque.
This monument was apparently installed on the territory of military unit 92154, located in a closed military camp Senezh, which is located in the city of Solnechnogorsk, Moscow region. This is evidenced not only by the buildings located on the territory, which resemble barracks, but also by the names of other military personnel, whose memory they decided to perpetuate with a monument:
1. Captain Suslov Sergey Borisovich. Photos of his grave with the date of death 06/14/2014 are also posted in the CIT material about the dead GRU special forces servicemen. Sergei Suslov was awarded the Order of Courage posthumously. Ruslan Leviev suggested that the death of the serviceman is related to the military actions of Russian troops in the Donbass.
2. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Kononov Ivanovich. Died on August 12, 2014. Lived in Solnechnogorsk, place of service - special purpose center "Senezh", awarded the title Hero of Russia (posthumously). According to official data, he allegedly died in Dagestan. We should not exclude the possibility of concealing Ukrainian losses behind other special operations.
3. Senior Lieutenant of the GRU Alexander Zharov. Died
In Syria, Russian Special Operations Forces took part in the rescue of a platoon of Russian military police that was surrounded by terrorists. During the operation, SOF fighters were able to break through to the blockaded military personnel and, together with them, reach the area where government troops were located without losses. This is not the first time that SOF units have made a decisive contribution to the victory over jihadist detachments. What role do Special Operations Forces play in the Syrian conflict - in the RT material.
On September 19, 2017, after powerful fire preparation, units of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group* began an attack on the positions of Syrian troops in the area of the de-escalation zone in Idlib. Under pressure from militants using tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, government troops were forced to retreat 12 km, and in some areas of the front up to 20 km. As a result, a platoon of Russian military police was surrounded by terrorists and fought off attacks by superior enemy forces for several hours.
To the rescue of our military, the Russian command in Syria sent a release group, headed by the deputy head of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties, Major General Viktor Shulyak. The group included units of the Special Operations Forces, Russian military police, as well as Syrian special forces.
Air support was provided by two Su-25 attack aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces and Mi-24 helicopters. During the operation, the encirclement ring was broken, units of the Russian Armed Forces reached the area where government troops were located without losses. Three Russian servicemen were injured in the battle with terrorists.
- Operation to release the Russian military in Syria
Shoigu's Falcons
Special Operations Forces are a fundamentally new structural unit of the Russian Armed Forces, which arose as a result of large-scale military reform carried out in recent years in the Russian Army. In 2009, the Directorate of Special Operations Forces was created in the Russian Armed Forces, which was transformed in 2012 into the Command of Special Operations Forces. Activities to create a new unit began to be carried out more intensively after Sergei Shoigu headed the Russian Ministry of Defense in 2012.
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
“This is the absolute merit of Shoigu. He created units that can carry out combat missions in a variety of countries where the interests of Russia require it,” said RT, head of the Center for the Study of Public Applied Problems of National Security, retired Colonel Alexander Zhilin.
In 2013, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Army General V.V. Gerasimov, citing the need to take into account world experience, announced the creation of Special Operations Forces in Russia.
“Special operations troops were created not so long ago. This is a centralized structure engaged in carrying out operations in the interests of the state, primarily abroad,” Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Political Conjuncture, explained the appointment of the SSO.
According to the expert, the MTR are in many ways the heirs of the special forces units that previously existed in the army. “Many of the methods and means that were used by our special forces earlier have not gone away,” the political scientist notes.
The main difference from what was before is the unified management structure.
“There is now a centralized structure that manages all such operations. This didn't happen before. Previously, special forces acted in the interests of various types and branches of the military. Now this is a branch of the military in itself,” the expert emphasized.
New reality
In the United States, the Pentagon's Office of Special Operations appeared in 1980. The UK Special Forces Directorate was formed in 1987. The French Special Operations Forces Command was created in 1992.
All these units, like the command of the Russian Special Operations Forces, were created for one purpose - coordinating the actions of special units in fundamentally new conditions of war.
“This is due to the methods of warfare that now exist in the world. War is not always waged by direct means,” Konovalov notes.
According to him, the Russian Special Operations Forces are a response to the West’s use of a hybrid war strategy, when both regular armed forces and irregular military formations participate in hostilities. The operations are mostly in the nature of hidden sabotage and partisan attacks.
“We did not invent this term - “hybrid war”, it was invented by the Americans, who came up with hybrid war, but we cannot stand aside. To wage such a war, Special Operations Forces are needed,” Konovalov emphasizes.
According to Zhilin, special forces are elite units.
“At one time, the best fighters were delegated there and underwent intensive training: this is tactics, this is work in different territories - mountainous areas, desert. This is the pride of the country in military terms,” the expert noted.
The MTR is armed with the most modern Russian weapons and military equipment. Promptness is key to their actions.
“They are always in touch with the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, which coordinates. And if earlier, since Soviet times, our commands took a very long time, now operational control of the battle in Syria can be carried out in real time from Moscow,” the expert emphasized.
In 2015, a new holiday appeared - Special Operations Forces Day. It is celebrated on February 27th.
Syrian experience
SOF have been operating in Syria since 2015. Their main tasks are to perform reconnaissance functions, adjust Russian air strikes against terrorists, and also carry out various combat missions in the advanced formations of the advancing Syrian army.
In March 2016, Russia learned of the death of senior lieutenant of the Special Operations Forces of the Russian Armed Forces Alexander Prokhorenko near Palmyra. While behind the lines of IS militants, he served as a forward air controller. When the Russian officer was discovered and surrounded by militants, he drew fire on himself. Alexander Prokhorenko was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.
- A participant in the “Immortal Regiment” procession carries a poster with a photo of Hero of Russia Alexander Prokhorenko, who died in Syria
The SOF participated in the re-liberation of Palmyra in 2017 and the liberation of Aleppo in 2016. In May 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally awarded a group of special forces who held the Aleppo front for two days. 16 Special Operations Forces officers faced 300 militants. In the battle, they destroyed a terrorist tank, two infantry fighting vehicles and a vehicle with a suicide bomber. The group commander was awarded the title of Hero of Russia, and the rest of the officers were given state awards.
“Their goals are varied, but the most important function of our special forces is to operate in the advanced formations of the Syrian army and correct their actions,” Konovalov explained.
According to experts, it is the leadership and guiding role of the Russian Special Operations Forces that is the secret of the successful military operations of the Syrian government army.
“The most important thing that we brought to Syria and after which a radical change began was the fighting spirit,” Zhilin asserts. “Having seen how our guys were fighting, the Syrians realized that it was possible and necessary to destroy the enemy.”
According to Konovalov, the actions of the Russian Special Operations Forces in Syria demonstrate that they are head and shoulders above similar units in other countries, primarily in the United States.
* “Islamic State” (IS, ISIS), “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” are terrorist groups banned in Russia.
The first combat groups of the Marine Corps and the GRU appeared there in September last year, some still remain
Photo: RIA Novosti
Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov, who commanded the Russian military group in Syria since September last year, legalized what Novaya Gazeta wrote about last year. In an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the general admitted:
“I will not hide the fact that units of our Special Operations Forces are also operating in Syria. They carry out additional reconnaissance of targets for Russian air strikes, guide aircraft to targets in remote areas, and solve other special tasks.”
Dvornikov did not explain what “special operations” he was talking about. But from several sources we know that fighters of Russian special forces, for example, took part in rescuing the crew of the Russian Su-24 front-line bomber, which was shot down on the Syrian-Turkish border on November 24 last year by an F-16 fighter of the Turkish Air Force. Back on November 25, in the publication “How the pilot of a downed Su-24 was rescued,” we reported: five Mi-8 helicopters took part in the rescue operation, on board each there were 7-8 soldiers of the Marine Corps and special forces of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense (formerly called special forces GRU).
The navigator of the downed Su-24, Captain Konstantin Murakhtin, was found and evacuated to a safe place, but the crew commander Oleg Peshkov could not be saved. As it turned out later, he was shot from the ground by militants of a bandit group led by Turkish citizen Alpaslan Celik. There were losses during this operation. While landing, one of the Russian helicopters was fired upon from the ground by small arms. Marine Alexander Pozynich was killed and the helicopter was damaged. After landing, when all the special forces left the Mi-8, the helicopter was destroyed by militants using the BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missile system.
Another operation of Russian special forces in Syria is the unblocking of the Quires airbase in Aleppo province. On October 22 last year, advanced units of the Syrian army reached an air base at a distance of 5-6 kilometers with heavy fighting and were stuck at this point for several weeks. The main problem for the armored vehicles of the Syrian army has become mobile units of militants armed with anti-tank systems.
Russian Aerospace Forces aviation and artillery attacked the militants' positions, but this helped little: as soon as the Syrian tanks left their positions, they were met with targeted fire by the BGM-71 TOW ATGM gunner operators. On the approaches to the Quires airbase, the Syrian army lost several dozen tanks and armored personnel carriers. It was then that the decision was made to use sabotage and reconnaissance groups.
According to our information, Russian special forces conducted three night raids near Quires, during which several dozen terrorist anti-tank systems were eliminated. And after such a “cleansing”, the Syrian army unblocked the airbase.
General Dvornikov. Photo: RIA Novosti
In fact, a military transport plane with the first groups of Special Operations Forces landed at the Khmeimim airbase back in September last year. It was planned that the fighters would ensure flight safety by participating in the elimination of terrorist sabotage groups in the immediate vicinity of the air base in the province of Latakia. Initially this was the case.
But last October
The Pentagon has admitted that there are more than three thousand Green Berets on special missions and that US Army Special Forces soldiers are taking part in the offensive against ISIS (banned in Russia) by the Iraqi army and Kurdish militia in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk, formally as “military advisers”, and de facto - as independent combat units.
It was then that the leadership of the Russian military department decided to use American tactics. And last November, the 104th Brigade of the Republican Guard of the Syrian Army was “reinforced with Russian military advisers, whose personal files are kept in the GRU of the General Staff of the Russian Defense Ministry.”
Today, after the revelations of Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov, we can say with confidence that the Syrian 104th Army was reinforced by Russian special forces.
Soldiers of the special operations forces of the Russian Armed Forces remain in Syria today. The exact timing of their return to Russia is not yet known.
Russia is recruiting former and current US allies in Syria. American and Arab media write about this.
Thus, one of the commanders of a detachment that received assistance from the CIA told a correspondent for the American publication BuzzFeed that he, like some other oppositionists, recently received an interesting offer. It was made on behalf of the Russian special services, it was conveyed by Syrian intermediaries. First, he, the detachment commander, met with them in the Turkish city of Antakya, and then on the territory of Syria.
The idea behind the proposal is to select rebel-held territory in northern Syria and go there with people, many of whom have been trained by the CIA to fight the Islamic State or al-Nusra. Russia will supposedly protect them - “from any group” and “any country” - with the help of aviation, which the detachment commander can call personally. He will also receive “as much money and weapons as he needs.”
- We will always support you. We will not leave you to the mercy of fate, as your former friends did,” the oppositionist reports the words of the agents. “To be honest, I’m still thinking about this proposal.
These kinds of contacts show that Russia, in an attempt to force the United States out of Syria, is not only bombing current and former US allies, but is also working to win them over to its side, BuzzFeed notes.
As he told the publication Syrian opposition politician Anas al-Shami, Russia is working “with some groups that have broken off their relations with the Americans,” but declined to name them. And Robert Ford, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute and ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, noted that “the United States is becoming a less and less influential player in this civil war.”
To what extent do such publications reflect reality? Are the Russian intelligence agencies - the SVR and the GRU - really capable of converting oppositionists fighting against the regime? Bashar al-Assad?
The former head of the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, believes that Western journalists are not lying - Russian intelligence services are indeed actively working in Syria.
— In general, working with the opposition, various segments of the population, and providing shadow support for the state’s foreign policy is the direct responsibility of intelligence. The intelligence services of all countries of the world carry out such work in peacetime and especially in wartime, when diplomatic methods alone are difficult to ensure the success of the state’s foreign policy aspirations. Of course, everyone has different opportunities - Americans have more money, with which they actively buy and repurchase agents. German, French, British, and Turkish intelligence services are also actively working in Syria. Another thing is that some departments mainly carry out “subversive” work aimed at destabilizing the situation in a particular state, changing the regime, carrying out terrorist acts there, inciting interethnic and interfaith conflicts. Our intelligence services, since the times of the Soviet Union, have been on the contrary—working for peace, not chaos.
Are Western journalists exaggerating the successes of our intelligence services in Syria? To some extent, maybe yes, but in general, the fruitful work of the Russian intelligence agencies is obvious. Because the visits of certain heads of Middle Eastern states to Moscow and their attempts to reach an agreement are caused not only by the successful work of our public diplomacy, but also by special services.
In the 90s, frankly speaking, they were disoriented by the policies of the then leadership of the country. After all, intelligence officers have always been guided by the fact that our main enemy is the West, and in the 90s de-ideologization occurred - the Americans, Western Europeans, and Turks almost became our brothers. The intelligence services were confused: if the West is our friend, partner and brother, and Boris Yeltsin hugs with Bill Clinton, then how should residencies report negative information, of which there was plenty? After all, such reports became dangerous primarily for the residencies and directorates themselves. It is not surprising that the Middle East was practically abandoned: why did military and foreign intelligence take risks and obtain information if it was not in demand either in the Kremlin or in the government? Today, a clear position has been outlined - the West is our main enemy, so the intelligence services can work more seriously and more purposefully.
The main feature of Western publications devoted to the work of Russian intelligence services in Syria and neighboring Turkey is that they certainly highlight the successes of the GRU and the SVR and highlight the failures of the American CIA and RUMO (Defense Intelligence Agency), says RIAC and Middle East Institute expert Sergei Balmasov.
“It is clear that this has little to do with the work of the intelligence service itself and is more related to the journalistic craft - if the publication is calm and restrained, then they will not pay much attention to it. This is precisely what is associated with the cries of Western journalists and experts in the spirit of “everything is lost, all accounts and passwords have been revealed.”
The Americans have established ties with both the Kurds and opposition groups. The United States’ interaction with the Kurds is now generally rapidly strengthening against the backdrop of the ongoing events in Syria - the encirclement of the border city of Manbij, the attack on Raqqa, etc. Yes, everyone has mistakes, no one is immune from them. But due to individual failures, it is still not true to say that the United States is losing its leverage over the opposition. Although in fairness it should be said that the Americans (if we do not take the Kurds) really don’t have many opportunities on the “ground”.
The United States did not have its own serious intelligence network in Syria before; their main support at the moment is the Kurds. Now the Americans are making certain attempts to interact with the Druze, al-Nusra, and Ahrar al-Sham, but so far these successes have been rather modest. Naturally, they can use Turkish, Saudi, Qatari channels, but the tool of others is someone else’s tool, especially in such a delicate matter as intelligence.
Syria was more under the “cap” of the KGB (later SVR) and the GRU, which worked closely with numerous Syrian intelligence agencies, than under the American CIA, Turkish MIT or French DGSE. Let's say, in addition to our PMTO in Tartus, the Ministry of Defense had other facilities in the SAR, for example, radar installations. We are talking not only about the Sigma radio interception center, which was opened after the Six-Day War of 1967 and was under the jurisdiction of the First Main Directorate of the KGB, but also about other, more modern facilities. Let me also remind you about the mysterious death in Syria Deputy Chief of the GRU, Major General Yuri Ivanov in 2010 year. Then he was allegedly there to inspect certain military facilities. The fact that influential Russian intelligence officers were present in the Syrian Arab Republic even before the “Arab Spring” suggests that even then the interaction between Syria and Russia through the intelligence agencies was in full swing.
Now our task in Syria is to fight the radicals with the help of local forces, without getting too involved in the conflict, including with the hands of the opposition itself. And as you know, one of the manifestations of the skill of the special services is to pit opponents, the same Mujahideen, against each other, as was the case, for example, in Chechnya.
It is worth noting that the jihadist front and the front of Assad’s opponents are extremely fragile and loose. He can be manipulated, taking into account disagreements that often result in military clashes, the presence of various external forces of influence, etc. An Arab is first and foremost a merchant and only then a warrior. You can always offer him something, and here our special services cannot be underestimated - they have certain resources. Starting from food (and in the Syrian war, water and food are an important resource) to old weapons, which we have plenty of in our warehouses.
Another thing is that such work is probably possible mainly only with natives of Syria and Turkey, since it is quite difficult to recruit Libyans and Saudis, especially since they, one way or another, interact with their intelligence services. But the Saudi (General Intelligence Presidency) or Qatari intelligence services have a lot of money, and in order to interest their “wards” in something, they have to try hard.
* The “Islamic State” (IS, ISIS) was recognized as a terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on December 29, 2014, and its activities in Russia are prohibited.
** Jabhat al-Nusra was recognized as a terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on December 29, 2014, and its activities in Russia are prohibited.