Alpha Group

• 1. Introduction

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  Spetsgruppa "A", known to the world as Alpha Group, was created on the 28th of July 1974 by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov. The order came two years after the Munich massacre, which exposed the Soviet Union's lack of any plan for a televised hostage crisis. Within two decades this same unit would storm a presidential palace in Kabul. It would kill three hijackers on an airport tarmac in Tbilisi. It would later be accused of gassing hundreds of its own countrymen inside a Moscow theatre. How did a unit built to guard against foreign terrorism become the tool Soviet and Russian leaders reached for against their own citizens?

• 2. West Germany's Mirror

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  West Germany had already answered the Munich massacre by forming the Grenzschutzgruppe 9, known as GSG 9. Alpha Group may have been organized partly as a response to that West German model. The new unit was attached to the office of the First Chief Directorate in Moscow, later renamed the Seventh Directorate. At the time the KGB already ran more aggressive special-purpose groups named Zenit and Kaskad, later called Omega, which handled offensive missions rather than defense. Alpha's other founding task was protecting the Soviet leadership itself from enemy special forces during any crisis or war. Over the following years the KGB seeded matching detachments across the union. The 7th Group formed in Khabarovsk Krai, the 10th in Kiev Oblast, and the 11th in Minsk Oblast. The 12th Group formed in Almaty Oblast, the 13th in Krasnodar Krai, and the 14th in Sverdlovsk Oblast. Those regional groups outlived the Soviet Union itself. Kiev's unit became the basis of Ukraine's Alpha Group, Minsk's became Belarus's, and Almaty's became Kazakhstan's Arystan unit.

• 3. Hostages and Hijackers

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  In 1979 a young Soviet Ukrainian named Yuri Vlasenko barricaded himself inside the Consular Section of the United States Embassy in Moscow, demanding asylum. Alpha shot him; he died either from that gunfire or from the detonation of his own home-made bomb, which also damaged the building. Through the 1980s Alpha was called out more and more often to handle hostage situations at home. That included at least two standoffs where deserters from the Soviet Army seized buildings and took hostages. Airline hijacking was a parallel and growing problem. Between the 1970 Dymshits-Kuznetsov hijacking affair and 1986, sixteen hijackings hit Aeroflot flights, with six occurring in 1978 alone. In 1983 Alpha stormed Aeroflot Flight 6833 in Tbilisi, killing three hijackers and capturing three others who were trying to escape to the West. Five hostages died during that operation. Three years later, on the 20th of September 1986, two deserters hijacked a Tu-134 at Ufa International Airport. They had already killed two policemen in a shootout, and then killed two passengers while seizing the plane. Alpha stormed that aircraft too, killing one hijacker and wounding the other. The unit also worked as what the KGB called its spearhead against hostile spies, and it captured CIA agent Adolf Tolkachev in 1985. Two of Group A's commanders, Gen. Viktor Karpukhin and Gen. Gennady Zaitsev, were named Hero of the Soviet Union for their service. Karpukhin's name would resurface years later, in a far more dangerous operation.

• 4. Operation Storm-333

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  On the 27th of December 1979 Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev launched a surprise intervention in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, aiming for regime change. KGB commandos had already infiltrated Kabul under the pretense of guarding the Soviet Embassy. They helped secure the Ministry of the Interior, the KHAD security service headquarters, the Ministry of Defense at Darul Aman Palace, and the Tajbeg Palace. At Tajbeg Palace a 34-minute assault killed President Hafizullah Amin along with his mistress and young son. The orders were to kill every Afghan inside the building. The operation was named Storm-333 and combined Soviet Airborne paratroopers, GRU special forces, and 24 men from Alpha's "Thunder" detachment, disguised in Afghan uniforms. The detachment was led by Grigoriy Boyarinov, commandant of the KGB's special operations school, who had ordered that all Afghan witnesses be killed. Boyarinov was then shot dead by his own troops after being mistaken for a palace guard. According to Russian sources Alpha lost only two men, the lightest casualties among all the forces in the raid. But Storm-333 opened the ten-year Soviet-Afghan War, and Alpha stayed involved in that conflict for years afterward. Six years later, in October 1985, the unit was sent to Beirut after the Islamic Liberation Organization kidnapped four Soviet diplomats. The group was a radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Some accounts link the kidnapping to retaliation for Soviet support of Syria in the Lebanese Civil War. One hostage was already dead by the time Alpha arrived, so KGB operatives tracked down the kidnappers and began seizing their relatives instead. One captured relative had his testicles removed and was killed before being returned to the militants, a warning that more would follow. No Soviet or Russian official was taken hostage again for twenty years, until four embassy staff were abducted and killed in Iraq in 2006. Other accounts credit the 1985 release instead to negotiations led by Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. Fadlallah reportedly appealed to King Hussein of Jordan and to the leaders of Libya and Iran to press the kidnappers. That reprieve for Soviet personnel abroad would not extend to Alpha's own operatives, who were about to be turned against Soviet citizens instead.

• 5. Vilnius and the White House

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  On the 11th of March 1990 the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic declared its intent to secede and restore an independent Republic of Lithuania. On the 9th of January 1991 Soviet leadership sent Alpha Group to Lithuania to put down the independence movement. That mission turned violent on the 13th of January 1991, when Soviet forces seized the Vilnius TV Tower. Thirteen unarmed Lithuanian protesters were killed, along with one Alpha operative, Lt. Viktor Shatskikh, apparently struck by friendly fire. In 2011 retired KGB Col. Mikhail Golovatov, Alpha's former commander, was detained at Vienna International Airport under a European Arrest Warrant tied to Vilnius. Austrian authorities released him within 24 hours, calling Lithuania's evidence "too vague." Lithuania's parliament then discussed cutting diplomatic ties with Austria over the release. The Baltic states' foreign ministers issued a joint statement condemning it, noting that war crimes from the Vilnius killings and a similar 1991 crackdown in Riga carry no statute of limitations. Later that year, during the August 1991 Soviet coup attempt, KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov ordered Gen. Karpukhin to storm the White House, Russia's parliament, and eliminate President Boris Yeltsin along with other anti-coup leaders. Karpukhin was given command not just of Alpha but also of Vega Group, Soviet Airborne elements, and Internal Troops. He also controlled the Dzerzhinsky Division, Moscow OMON, three tank companies, and a helicopter squadron. Officers who scouted the crowds around the White House, including Airborne deputy commander Alexander Lebed, concluded the assault could succeed in under half an hour, but at a terrible human cost. Karpukhin and Vympel's Boris Beskov then convinced KGB Deputy Chairman Gennady Ageyev to call the operation off. Two years later Alpha faced the White House again. During the 1993 constitutional crisis, pro-parliament forces loyal to Vice President Alexander Rutskoy seized the White House and took several Supreme Soviet deputies hostage. President Yeltsin then ordered Alpha and Vympel to help retake the building. Alpha's troops initially refused to attack, pushing commander Gen. Zaitsev to what was described as the brink of suicide over their open insubordination. The unit moved only after Lt. Sergeyev, one of its own men positioned near the White House, was mortally wounded by sniper fire from the nearby Hotel Ukraina. Some rumors attributed that fire to a unit commanded by presidential security chief Alexander Korzhakov rather than to the opposition. On the 4th of October 1993 Yeltsin's paratroopers, tanks, and armored vehicles stormed and seized the White House. Many of the crews were members of the Union of Afghanistan Veterans rather than regular conscripts, and the assault killed dozens, possibly hundreds, of people. Rutskoy and other opposition leaders, including Ruslan Khasbulatov, Vladislav Achalov, and Viktor Barannikov, surrendered to Alpha troops and were taken to Lefortovo Prison. Within two years, the same unit would be back in action against a very different kind of siege, this time inside a hospital in southern Russia.

• 6. Chechnya's Shadow War

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  Chechnya declared independence from Soviet and then Russian rule between 1990 and 1991, and the First Chechen War broke out in 1994. That fall, Alpha provided personal security for Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Interior Minister Viktor Yerin as they traveled to the Mozdok airbase in North Ossetia, the main staging ground for the invasion. Alpha troops later served in what were called mobile anti-terror groups and guarded the pro-Moscow Chechen government complex and the regional FSB headquarters in Grozny. In August 1996, when Chechen separatists retook Grozny, 35 Alpha personnel, including 14 from the Krasnodar territorial unit, helped defend the FSB headquarters. It was one of the last federal strongholds standing by the war's ceasefire, held at the cost of 70 defenders' lives. After the Khasavyurt Accord of August 1996, allegations surfaced that the FSB's Anti-Terrorist Center ran clandestine operations meant to discredit the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and block its international recognition. Writer Jonathan Littell said the service "was most likely deeply involved" in high-profile kidnappings that damaged Chechnya's reputation. He noted, though, that it was impossible to say whether this reflected official FSB policy or a rogue operation. The Second Chechen War began in 1999, followed by the wider Insurgency in the North Caucasus. During the 2000 Battle of Komsomolskoye, Alpha snipers attached to Vladimir Shamanov's Western Group tried to suppress the snipers of Chechen commander Ruslan Gelayev. Alpha veterans credit their operations with the 2000 arrest of commander Salman Raduyev and the 2001 killing of commander Arbi Barayev. They also credit the unit with the 2005 killing of separatist President Aslan Maskhadov and the 2006 killing of foreign militant leader Abu Hafs in Dagestan. Chechen operations passed from the Defense Ministry to the FSB in January 2001, and a "Chechenization" policy followed in 2003. In between, Alpha personnel joined at least 10 combined special groups, known as SSGs, which human rights groups called death squads. Human Rights Watch declared in 2005 that Russia had reached "the inglorious distinction of being a world leader in enforced disappearances." It pointed to the SSGs' night raids on suspected rebels, their relatives, and other civilians. Chechnya's own FSB branch went on to form a local Alpha unit of its own, one believed to mirror the SSGs' methods.

• 7. When Rescue Turned Deadly

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  Four mass hostage crises defined Alpha's post-Soviet record: the Budyonnovsk hospital in June 1995, Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye in January 1996, a Moscow theatre in October 2002, and a Beslan school in September 2004. Each ended in hundreds of casualties. At Budyonnovsk, in Stavropol Krai, a pre-dawn raid freed only 86 of more than 1,500 hostages. More than 30 hostages died before Alpha and Vympel were forced to retreat after four hours of fighting. Commander Shamil Basayev then agreed to release pregnant and nursing women and to allow firefighting and body removal. A second assault at noon used tear gas until Basayev agreed to free the rest. More than 120 people died in total, including three Alpha members. Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin claimed both assaults had been launched without government authorization. At Pervomayskoye in Dagestan, Alpha was held mostly in reserve while Vityaz and the police SOBR unit led failed storming attempts. Those attempts were backed by tanks, Grad rocket launchers, and helicopter gunships. FSB commanders had been falsely told the hostages were already dead before the assault began. The siege dragged on for three days until the militants broke through the siege lines at night, taking many surviving hostages with them. Most of the roughly 2,000 original hostages had already been released, but 26 of the remaining 150 died. The incident killed more than 300 people in total, mostly Russian troops. A friendly-fire accident from a soldier's Grom gun killed two more Alpha members after the fighting had ended. One Alpha commander said the unit was "set up." They were sent in without winter clothing, facing temperatures 15 degrees below zero with no sleeping bags, water, or food. In October 2002, Alpha and SOBR used an unidentified chemical agent to knock out the gunmen and hostages holding a Moscow theatre. The gas killed at least 129 hostages, though officers called it their "first successful operation for years." In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay compensation to 64 survivors and to prosecute the officials responsible. Russia paid the damages but never opened an investigation. At Beslan's school, seized on the 3rd of September 2004 by Ingushetia-based militants, Gen. Alexander Tikhonov forbade firefighters from putting out the building's fire. Gen. Pronichev personally led the assault, backed by tanks, armored vehicles, and attack helicopters. Former SAS operator John McAleese had helped free hostages at the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980. He called the Beslan operation one of the worst hostage rescues he had ever seen. The siege killed more than 333 people, including 186 children aged 1-17, and 10 Alpha members. In 2007, some 447 survivors and relatives brought complaints against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights. Long before any of these sieges, Alpha's own regional detachments had already taken root far beyond Moscow, in republics that would soon answer to governments of their own.

• 8. Life After the Union

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  In Belarus, the old Minsk territorial unit still operates today inside the State Security Committee, still known simply as Alfa. In Kazakhstan, the Almaty unit became Arystan, meaning "Lions," under the National Security Committee. In 2006 five of its members were arrested for kidnapping opposition politician Altynbek Sarsenbayuly along with his driver and bodyguard; all three were later killed. In Ukraine, Special Group Alpha carries on as a branch of the Security Service of Ukraine and is still informally called Alpha. Georgia built its own Alpha unit in 1992 under the Ministry of State Security, alongside sister units named Delta and Omega. In 1995 Georgia's Alpha and Minister of State Security Igor Giorgadze were blamed for a failed bombing attempt on President Eduard Shevardnadze's life. Giorgadze fled to Moscow, and Georgia purged and reorganized its unit. Kyrgyzstan formed its own Alfa Special Operations Executive under the State Committee on National Security. In 2010, eight of its members, including five snipers and the unit's commander, were charged over the shooting of unarmed people during the Second Kyrgyz Revolution. Those charges were brought under Article 97 for murder and Article 305 part 2 for exceeding the limits of authority. It marked one of the only times a court anywhere tried to hold an Alpha-descended unit legally accountable for killing unarmed civilians.