Spetsgruppa "A", also known as Alpha Group (a popular English name), or Alfa, whose official name is Directorate "A" of the FSB Special Purpose Center (TsSN FSB) (Russian: ""), is a stand-alone sub-unit of Russia's special forces within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). 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" (Vympel), 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.
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 (or the GSG 9).[4] By attaching a special-purpose unit to the office of the First Chief Directorate in Moscow (later the Seventh Directorate[5]), 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.[6]
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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.[8][9] 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.[8] 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. The unit also became involved in the ethnic conflicts throughout the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[10] Alpha was also used as the "spearhead" of KGB counterintelligence operations, interdicting hostile intelligence operations[11] on Soviet territory and seizing enemy spies such as CIA agent Adolf Tolkachev in 1985.[12] Two commanding officers of Group "A" were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union: Gen. Viktor Karpukhin and Gen. Gennady Zaitsev.[3]
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 (a radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood). It was believed that this was retaliation for the Soviet support of Syrian involvement in the Lebanese Civil War.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21]
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 (Lt. Viktor Shatskikh, who was apparently struck in the back by friendly fire). 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".[22] In response, the Lithuanian parliament discussed breaking diplomatic ties with Austria in protest.[citation needed] 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 ..." ("Riga" referring to a similar crackdown in January 1991, when six Latvian policemen and civilians were killed by Soviet OMON and KGB forces, possibly including Alpha Group members).[23]
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 (Vympel), elements of the Soviet Airborne, Internal Troops, special units of the Dzerzhinsky Division (OMSDON), 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.[24] 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.[25][26][27][28]
Alpha Group was severely downgraded during the dissolution and collapse of the Soviet Union. After the fall of the USSR, both Alpha and Vympel were transferred to the newly formed Main Guard Directorate (GUO), which was established on the basis of the KGB's Ninth Chief Directorate. In 1993, they were taken from GUO control, and for a time being put under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).[5] As part of the government shakeup following the June 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis in which the Alpha Group had a leading role, Yeltsin fired the first Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Sergei Stepashin. Two months later, Alpha and Vityaz were both transferred from the MVD to the FSB. Simultaneously, Mikhail Barsukov became the new head of the organization, and created the FSB Anti-Terrorist Center (ATC), headed by Gen. Viktor Zorkin.[5][10] Directorate "A" (Alpha) was tasked with protecting transportation and buildings while Directorate "V" (Vega/Vympel) was tasked with protecting strategic sites (another Directorate, "K", was tasked with ideological counterintelligence); "A" and "V" were soon joined in a Tsentr Spetsnaz (Special Purpose Center) under Gen. Vladimir Pronichev.[5]
In October 1995, Alpha killed the armed man who hijacked a bus carrying South Korean tourists in Moscow. He had demanded $1 million and to be flown out of the country.[8][32] In December 1997, Alpha freed the Swedish trade counsellor Jan-Olof Nystrm who was kidnapped in Moscow by a gunman similarly demanding a ransom and a flight out of Russia. The hostage was swapped for Alpha's Colonel Anatoly Saveliev (Savelyev), and the hostage-taker was killed during the storming of the embassy. Colonel Savelyev was injured during the action, and died in hospital of a heart attack shortly thereafter.[33]
In 1993, during the Russian constitutional crisis, Yeltsin, who by then was President of the Russian Federation, used Alpha and Vympel during a deadly showdown in central Moscow against the pro-parliament forces that sided with Vice-President Alexander Rutskoy (declaring him an acting president).[2] The pro-parliament faction had seized the Russian White House, along with several Supreme Soviet deputies who had been taken hostage. Yeltsin ordered Russian troops to storm the building, including elements of the paratroopers, the Alpha and Vympel Groups, Russian ground forces, and the Internal Troops's special forces unit, Vityaz. However, the Alpha troops initially refused to attack the White House,[34] reportedly bringing their commander, Gen. Zaitsev, to the brink of suicide over the open insubordination of his troops in the face of a presidential order.[35] When one of the Alpha troops, Lt. Sergeyev, who was near the White House, was mortally wounded by sniper fire from the nearby Hotel Ukraina, the unit finally agreed to move.[35] Opposition gunmen were blamed for the shooting, but it is possible that the shots were actually fired by members of a special unit loyal to Yeltsin; it was rumoured that the snipers in the hotel were commanded by Alexander Korzhakov, chief of the Presidential Security Service (SBP).[36] The crisis ended when Yeltsin's forces, paratroopers supported by tanks and armoured personnel carriers, many of which were manned not by conscripts but members of the Union of Afghanistan Veterans,[35] stormed and seized the White House on 4 October 1993, killing dozens, and possibly hundreds, of people, and ensuring the total victory of Yeltsin's faction.[35][36][37][38] In the end, Rutskoy and the other leaders of anti-Yeltsin faction, including Ruslan Khasbulatov, Vladislav Achalov and Viktor Barannikov, all negotiated their surrender to the Alpha troops, who had entered the shelled and burning building after the shooting stopped, and brought them, along with the detained Supreme Soviet deputies, to Lefortovo Prison.[35][36] 152ee80cbc
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