page_title: Special Operations Forces (Russia)
section_title: Mission and methods
hierarchical_section_title: Special Operations Forces (Russia) / Mission and methods
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Подразделение специального назначения Вооруженных Силах России
context_page_description: The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation or just Special Operations Forces are strategic-level special forces under the Special Operations Forces Command of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It is also a structural and an independent unit of the Armed Forces.
  The first units of what would become the Special Operations Forces were transferred from the GRU in 2009 as part of the continuing 2008 Russian military reform. The Special Operations Forces Command was set up in 2012 and announced in March 2013 by the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to Gerasimov, the SOF was designed as a strategic-level asset, elite special operations force units of the KSSO whose primary missions would be foreign interventions including sabotage, high-value target eliminations, foreign internal defense operations and undertaking the most complex, clandestine and classified special operations and missions for protecting interests of the Russian Federation.
context_section_description: The Special Operation Forces are a highly mobile, well-trained and equipped, constant combat readiness special operations force of the Russian Ministry of Defense, designed to perform specific tasks in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation (with application of military force, by necessity), both within the country and abroad, in peacetime and in wartime.
  The Russian Ministry of Defense defines the term "special operation" as "methods and ways of fighting not characteristic of conventional forces: reconnaissance and sabotage, subversion and sedition, counter-terrorism, counter-sabotage, counterintelligence, guerrilla, counter-guerrilla and other activities".
  The SOF have been primarily involved in Syria, conducting target acquisition for Russian Air Force combat planes conducting airstrikes and Russian Navy sea-launched cruise missile strikes, serving as military advisors training Syrian government troops, seek and destroying critical enemy objects,disruption behind enemy lines through ambushes, high value targeted assassinations and retaliation strikes against select groups of fighters.
caption: Russian SOF operators.
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