Alpha Group

• 1. Soviet Origins And Creation

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  On the 28th of July 1974, Yuri Andropov issued a direct order to create Spetsgruppa A. This new unit emerged from the shadow of the Munich massacre that had occurred two years prior. The Soviet leadership sought to counter Western special forces like West Germany's Grenzschutzgruppe 9. They attached this special-purpose unit to the office of the First Chief Directorate in Moscow. Later, this became known as the Seventh Directorate. The goal was to significantly increase the defensive capacity against terrorist attacks on Soviet soil. At that time, other offensive groups existed within the KGB, including Zenit and Kaskad Omega. Alpha Group also took on the mission of providing security for the Soviet leadership during times of crisis or war.

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• 2. Afghanistan Invasion Operations

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  The operation began on the 27th of December 1979 when Leonid Brezhnev launched a surprise armed intervention in Afghanistan. Soviet forces infiltrated Kabul under the pretense of guarding the embassy. These forces included twenty-four men from the Thunder detachment of Alpha Group. Grigoriy Boyarinov commanded this specific detachment while they wore Afghan uniforms. During a thirty-four-minute storming of Tajbeg Palace, they assassinated President Hafizullah Amin along with his mistress and young son. Orders dictated that every person inside the building be killed. Boyarinov ordered all witnesses to be eliminated before he was accidentally shot by his own troops. Russian sources later claimed the group lost only two men during the raid. This success marked the beginning of a ten-year conflict involving extensive participation by Alpha Group throughout the war.

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• 3. Baltic Independence Interventions

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  On the 13th of January 1991, Soviet forces violently seized the Vilnius TV Tower in Lithuania. Thirteen unarmed Lithuanian protesters died during the operation alongside one Alpha operative named Lt. Viktor Shatskikh. Shatskikh appeared to have been struck in the back by friendly fire. The incident led to international legal proceedings decades later. In 2011, former commander Mikhail Golovatov was detained at Vienna International Airport on a European Arrest Warrant issued by Lithuania. Austrian authorities released him within twenty-four hours claiming the information provided was too vague. A joint statement from the Foreign Ministers of all three Baltic States condemned the release. They argued such suspects should be extradited when accused of crimes against humanity committed in Riga and Vilnius.

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• 4. Post-Soviet Reorganization

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  The dissolution of the Soviet Union severely downgraded Alpha Group's status and command structure. After the fall of the USSR, both Alpha and Vympel were transferred to the newly formed Main Guard Directorate established on the basis of the KGB Ninth Chief Directorate. In 1993, they moved under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs following a government shakeup. Yeltsin fired the first Director of the Federal Security Service Sergei Stepashin after the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis. Two months later, Alpha and Vityaz units transferred from the MVD to the FSB. Mikhail Barsukov became the new head of the organization and created the Anti-Terrorist Center. Gen. Viktor Zorkin headed this center while Gen. Vladimir Pronichev led the combined Tsentr Spetsnaz unit. Many veterans subsequently entered legitimate businesses or organized crime circles.

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• 5. Chechen War Campaigns

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  Alpha Group provided personal security details for Defense Minister Pavel Grachev during the invasion of Chechnya in the fall of 1994. They traveled to the Mozdok airbase which served as the main headquarters for Russian forces entering the region. By August 1996, thirty-five members including fourteen from the territorial unit in Krasnodar Krai defended the FSB headquarters in Grozny. The separatist forces systematically retaken buildings held by cut-off groups of federal defenders. The war's final ceasefire left the main office as one of the few key structures still held by federal forces at the cost of seventy lives. Allegations arose following the Khasavyurt Accord that the service carried out clandestine operations intended to discredit the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Human rights groups later described mixed special groups formed between 2003 and 2005 as death squads conducting name address cleansings targeting civilians.

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• 6. Hostage Crisis Controversies

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  The Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis occurred in June 1995 when two abortive storming attempts killed scores of hostages. Only eighty-six out of more than fifteen hundred hostages were freed before rescuers retreated after four hours of fighting. The overall death toll exceeded one hundred twenty people including three Alpha members. A second controversy involved the use of an unknown chemical agent during the October 2002 Moscow theater siege. This action resulted in the deaths of at least one hundred twenty-nine hostages while saving others through a knockout gas. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay compensation to sixty-four survivors in 2011 for physical and emotional suffering. Another bloody event took place on the 3rd of September 2004 at Beslan school where over three hundred thirty-three people died including one hundred eighty-six children. Tanks and attack helicopters supported the raid led by Gen. Pronichev who forbade extinguishing fires inside the building.

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• 7. International Regional Units

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  Territorial units established across the former Soviet Union evolved into distinct national forces following independence. The Minsk unit continues to exist within Belarus State Security Committee as Alfa. In Kazakhstan, the Almaty unit became Arystan meaning Lions within the National Security Committee. Five members of this Kazakh unit were arrested in 2006 charged with kidnapping opposition politician Altynbek Sarsenbayuly. Georgia established its own Alpha unit in 1992 alongside Delta and Omega special forces. Members of that Georgian unit were blamed for a failed bombing attempt on President Eduard Shevardnadze in 1995. Kyrgyzstan formed an Alfa Special Operations Executive which faced charges in 2010 for shooting unarmed people during the Second Revolution. These regional successors maintained similar operational structures while adapting to their new sovereign governments.

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