Alpha Group


Spetsgruppa "A", also known as Alpha Group, officially Directorate "A" of FSB Special Purpose Center, is a sub-unit of Russian special forces within the Russian Special Purpose Center of the Federal Security Service. It was created by the Soviet KGB in 1974. Although little is known about the exact nature of its primary directives, it is speculated that the unit is authorised to act under the direct control and sanction of Russia's top political leadership, similar to its sister unit, the Directorate "V", which is officially tasked with protecting Russia's strategic installations, as well as conducting black operations inside and outside Russia. It is also available for extended police duties, for paramilitary operations, and for covert operations, both domestically and internationally.

In the Soviet Union

Creation and organization

On 28 July 1974, Alpha Group was created on the orders of the KGB Chairman, Yuri Andropov, in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich massacre. It might have been established as a response to West Germany's creation of the Grenzschutzgruppe 9. By attaching a special-purpose unit to the office of the First Chief Directorate in Moscow, it was hoped that the Soviet Union's defensive capacity against terrorist attacks would increase significantly. At the time, other, more offensive special forces of the KGB included the groups Zenit and Kaskad/Omega. Another important mission for Alpha was to provide security for the Soviet leadership against enemy special forces in times of crisis or war.
Later, territorial Alpha units were established across the Soviet Union:
Initially, this special-purpose counter-terrorism unit was involved in delicate operations which necessitated its members have a unique skill set. In 1979, the Alpha Group shot a young Soviet Ukrainian, named Yuri Vlasenko, who was occupying a room in the Consular Section of the Embassy of the United States in Moscow, demanding he be granted asylum in the United States. He was either killed by gunfire, or by the detonation of his home-made bomb, which also slightly damaged the building. Throughout the 1980s, Alpha became increasingly deployed domestically to respond to a rising number of hostage taking situations, including at least two cases which involved buildings being taken over and hostages taken by violent groups of deserters from the Soviet Army, as well as other armed organizations.
Airline hijackings were another growing security concern within the Soviet Union which Alpha were deployed to solve. Between the 1970 Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair and 1986, sixteen incidents of air piracy had occurred on Aeroflot flights, six in 1978 alone. Notably, the 1983 hijacking of Aeroflot Flight 6833 in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, was thwarted when Alpha stormed the airplane, killing three and capturing three other hijackers who were attempting to escape to the west, which also resulted in the loss of five hostages. Alpha members also participated in the storming of a Tu-134 during an attempted Tu-134 hijacking by deserters at Ufa International Airport on September 20, 1986. The two hijackers, having previously killed two policemen in a shootout, then killed two passengers while seizing the aircraft. Alpha operatives stormed the plane, killing one hijacker and wounding the other.
The unit also became involved in the ethnic conflicts throughout the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Alpha was also used as the "spearhead" of KGB counterintelligence operations, interdicting hostile intelligence operations on Soviet territory and seizing enemy spies such as CIA agent Adolf Tolkachev in 1985. Two commanding officers of Group "A" were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union: Gen. Viktor Karpukhin and Gen. Gennady Zaitsev.

Foreign operations

Soon, Alpha was assigned missions far exceeding its formal scope. On 27 December 1979, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev launched a surprise armed intervention and regime change operation in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Soviet forces, including KGB commandos who had infiltrated the country on a pretense to guard the Soviet Embassy, were able to quickly secure important government institutions throughout Kabul. Those institutions included: the Ministry of the Interior; the headquarters of the KHAD security service; the Ministry of Defense ; and the Tajbeg Palace, in which, during a 34-minute storming, they successfully assassinated President Hafizullah Amin, along with his mistress and his young son. The assault on Tajbeg Palace was given the name Operation Storm-333 and involved a combined force of Soviet Airborne paratroopers, and special forces groups from the GRU and the KGB, including 24 men from the "Thunder" detachment of Alpha Group. The Alpha detachment were dressed in Afghan uniforms and headed by Grigoriy Boyarinov, commandant of the special operations school of the KGB's Department 8. It was Boyarinov who ordered that all Afghan witnesses of the operation be killed, and he was accidentally shot dead by Alpha troops when he was mistaken for a palace guard. According to Russian sources, the members of this highly trained group performed remarkably well, losing only two men; the lightest casualties of any of the forces involved in the raid. However, the success of Storm-333, and the initial invasion, marked the beginning of the ten-year Soviet–Afghan War, and subsequently, Alpha Group's extensive involvement throughout the conflict.
Six years later, in October 1985, Alpha Group was dispatched to war-torn Beirut, Lebanon. The Kremlin was informed of the kidnapping of four Soviet diplomats by the militant group, the Islamic Liberation Organization. It was believed that this was retaliation for the Soviet support of Syrian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. However, by the time Alpha arrived, one of the hostages had already been killed. Through a network of supporting KGB operatives, members of the task-force identified each of the perpetrators involved in the crisis, and once identified, began to take the relatives of these militants as hostages. Following the standard Soviet policy of no negotiations with terrorists, one of the hostages taken by Alpha Group had his testicles removed and sent to the militants before being killed. The warning was clear: more would follow unless the remaining hostages were released immediately. The show of force worked; and, for a period of 20 years, no Soviet or Russian officials were taken captive, until the 2006 abduction and murder of four Russian embassy staff in Iraq. However, the veracity of this story has been brought into question. Another version says that the release of the Soviet hostages was the result of extensive diplomatic negotiations with the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, who appealed to King Hussein of Jordan, and the leaders of Libya and Iran, to use their influence on the kidnappers.

Fall of the Soviet Union

Intervention in the Baltics

On 11 March 1990, the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic made public their intent to secede from the Soviet Union and re-establish the independent Republic of Lithuania. As a result of this pronouncement, on 9 January 1991, the Soviet leadership dispatched Alpha Group to quell the independence movement and maintain Lithuania's status as a Soviet republic. This attempt to re-establish Soviet dominance culminated in the violent seizure of the Vilnius TV Tower on 13 January 1991, during which the Soviet forces killed 13 unarmed Lithuanian protesters, as well as one Alpha operative. In 2011, the former commander of Alpha Group, retired KGB Col. Mikhail Golovatov, was detained at Vienna International Airport on a European Arrest Warrant due to this incident, issued by Lithuania, but Austrian authorities released him within 24 hours, claiming that the information provided by Lithuania was "too vague". In response, the Lithuanian parliament discussed breaking diplomatic ties with Austria in protest. A joint statement by the Foreign Ministers of all three Baltic States condemned Golovatov's release, and said that it should have been one of "... the occasions when suspects are detained and extradited, particularly when they are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity..." as "... the crimes performed in 1991 in Vilnius and Riga have no limitation...".

1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt

During the events of the Soviet coup attempt in August 1991, Alpha Group's commanding officer, Gen. Karpukhin, was commanded by KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to forcibly enter the White House, Russia's acting parliament, after paratroopers secured the entrance, to eliminate the President of the Russian SFSR, Boris Yeltsin, and various other anti-coup leaders assembled there. In addition to Alpha Group, Gen. Karpukhin was also given authority of Vega Group, elements of the Soviet Airborne, Internal Troops, special units of the Dzerzhinsky Division, mobilised units of the Moscow OMON, three tank companies, and a squadron of helicopters. On-site analysis of the area was conducted by Airborne deputy commander Alexander Lebed, and other senior officers who mingled with the crowds of anti-coup protesters nearest to the White House. There was a general consensus among the military officials who gathered that day, as evidenced by their statements months after the botched coup attempt, that had they followed through on their endeavour it would have succeeded. The stated mission objectives could have been reached in no more than half-an-hour, but it would have come at a terrible human cost. Shortly after their assessment was made, Gen. Karpukhin and Vympel's Boris Beskov convinced the KGB Deputy chairman, Gennady Ageyev, that such a massive undertaking should be cancelled.