Russian special forces in Syria

[Peter1469]

This is a particular unit in Spetsnez- said to be modeled off the US Delta Force. Russia put out a propaganda film with the unit training in Russia and operating in Syria. One of their young LTs made the news when he called an air strike onto his position rather than be taken and likely spectacularly executed by ISIL.

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On Sunday, Russian state-run television ran a segment showing what appears to be one of Russia’s most elite military units fighting in Syria, putting an often secretive Special Operations detachment in the limelight, albeit briefly.

Footage of Russian troops in Syria is extremely uncommon. The nine-minute segment is composed of various clips, some of it focused on training, likely in Russia, while other parts take place in Syria. The unit is probably Russia’s Special Operations Command, or KSO, a group akin to the U.S. military’s elite Delta Force that has existed for only a few years.

While Russian Special Operations forces are commonly known as Spetsnaz, those troops often operate attached to large units, acting more as elite infantry detachments than anything else. The KSO is different, according to Michael Kofman, an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, because it is a dedicated military Special Operations unit, created after the Russians had watched the U.S. military’s success with its own Special Operations Command over the past two decades.