SPETSNAZ - THE SOVIET SPECIAL FORCES

The Inside Story Of The Soviet Special Forces

`When the war broke out the "pure" parachutists disappeared, Anna Shishmareva joined the OMSBON' [Sovetsky Voin, No. 20, 1985]. Anna Shishmareva is a famous Soviet woman athlete of the pre-war period, while OMSBON was a brigade of the NKVD's osnaz which I have already referred to. Another example: `Among the people in our osoby, as our unit was called, were many athletes, record holders and Soviet champions famous before the war' [Krasnaya Zvezda, 22 May, 1985]. Finally: Boris Galushkin, the outstanding Soviet boxer of the pre-war period, was a lieutenant and worked as an interrogator in the NKVD. During the war he went behind the enemy lines in one of the osnaz units.

I have quite a few examples in my collection. But the KGB and the Dinamo sports club are not my field of interest. I hope that one of the former officers of the KGB who has fled to the West will write in greater detail about the use of athletes in the Soviet secret police.

However, I must also make mention of the very mysterious Soviet sporting society known as Zenit. Officially it belongs to the ministry for the aircraft industry. But there are some quite weighty reasons for believing that there is somebody else behind the club. The Zenit cannot be compared with the ZSKA or Dinamo in its sporting results or its popularity. But it occasionally displays a quite unusual aggressiveness in its efforts to acquire the best athletes. The style and the general direction of the training in the Zenit are very militarised and very similar to what goes on in the ZSKA and Dinamo. Zenit deserves greater attention than it has been shown. It is just possible that the researcher who studied Zenit and its connections seriously will make some surprising discoveries.

SPADES AND MEN SPETSNAZ AND GRU A HISTORY OF SPETSNAZ THE FIGHTING UNITS OF SPETSNAZ THE "OTHER PEOPLE" ATHLETES SELECTION AND TRAINING

The Inside Story Of The Soviet Special Forces
By Viktor Suvorov

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