OMON

OMON (ОМОН—Отряд мобильный особого назначения, Otryad Mobilniy Osobogo Naznacheniya, Special Purpose Mobile Unit) is a system of special police units of Politsiya within the Russian and previously the Soviet MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs). It was created as the special forces of the Soviet Militsiya in 1988 and then played major and sometimes leading roles in several armed conflicts during and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The OMON units can also be known as ESU, ETF, SRU, SRT, CIRT, ERT, TRT, TRG, STAR, TAC, EST, SOT.

Today, OMON is much larger and better known than SOBR, another special police of Russian Interior Ministry, and is considered more of a riot police and gendarmerie-like paramilitary force. OMON continues to exist also in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and some other post-Soviet territories. However, some post-Soviet units have changed names and acronyms. OMON officers are commonly known as the omonovtsy.

History


OMON originated in 1979, when the first Soviet SWAT-like police unit was founded in preparation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to ensure that there were no terrorist incidents like the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics. Subsequently, the unit was to be utilized in emergencies such as high-risk arrests, hostage crises, as well as in response to acts of terrorism.

The current OMON system is the successor of that group and was founded on October 3, 1988 as the Militsiya Squad of Special Assignment, initially in Moscow. Special police detachments were often manned by former soldiers of the Soviet Army and veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. OMON units were used as riot police to control and stop demonstrations and hooliganism, as well as to respond to emergency situations involving violent crime. The units later took on a wider range of police duties, including cordon and street patrol actions, and even paramilitary and military-style operations.

Following Russia's 2011 police reform, part of which was its renaming from Militsiya to Politsiya (police), Russian OMON units were to be renamed Distinctive Purpose Teams (KON), while OMSN (SOBR) would become Special Purpose Teams (KSN). It was announced that such Special Purpose Centers for Rapid Deployment forces would be also created in Russian regions, to include regional OMON and OMSN units. In essence, all police spetsnaz (special designation) units are to be brought together under the joint command of the Interior Ministry — the Center for Operational Spetsnaz and Aviation Forces of MVD (Центр специального назначения сил оперативного реагирования и авиации МВД России). In January 2012, Russia's OMON was renamed from Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya (Отряд милиции особого назначения, Special Purpose Militia Unit) to Otryad Mobilniy Osobogo Naznacheniya (Special Purpose Mobile Unit), keeping the abbreviation.

Soviet OMON



 * On 20 January 1991, Soviet-loyalist Riga OMON attacked Latvia's Interior Ministry, killing six people during the January 1991 events in a failed pro-Moscow coup attempt following the Latvian SSR's declaration of independence. Seven OMON officers were subsequently found guilty by the Riga District Court and were given sentences in absentia.


 * A series of attacks on border outposts of the newly independent Republic of Lithuania during the January–July 1991, resulting in several summary execution-style deaths of unarmed customs officers and other people (including former members of Vilnius OMON), were attributed to Riga OMON. Some sources say that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had lost control of the unit during that time. For years, Lithuania has continued to demand that the persons suspected in these incidents should be tried in Lithuania; one suspect was arrested in Latvia in November 2008.


 * The April–May 1991 Operation Ring by the Azerbaijan SSR OMON and the Soviet Army against the Armenian irregular units in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, resulting in 40 deaths (most of the people killed were Armenian civilians) and the forced displacement of nearly 10,000 ethnic Armenians. In later attacks, they killed several more Armenian civilians, and abused a number of others (including instances of rape). In continued fighting in this area, 14 Azerbaijani OMON members and one Armenian paramilitary fighter were reported killed in September 1991.


 * Violent and often armed clashes between the Georgian SSR's OMON and the opponents of the first Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia prior to the Georgian Civil War of 1991–1993. Eleven combatants on both sides, including Georgian OMON members and regular militsiya officers, were reported killed in skirmishes during September–October 1991. There were also allegations of OMON firing at unarmed protesters.

Post-Soviet OMON



 * Prior to the creation of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the bulk of the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh on the Azeri side was conducted by the post-Soviet OMON units and irregular forces. This included the defence of the village of Khojaly by a group of Azeri OMON troops and armed volunteers against the Armenian and Russian Army forces prior and during the Khojaly massacre on 25 February 1992; most of the group involved died along with several hundred other Azeris, mostly civilians.


 * South Ossetian ad-hoc OMON, organized by a group of Tskhinvali internal affairs division militsiya officers, was reportedly the most most combat-ready force on the separatist side on the outset of the South Ossetia War in April 1992.


 * In Tajikistan, the civil war began after local OMON began defecting to anti-Nabiyev protesters in May 1992. The country's minority Pamiri people largely backed the United Tajik Opposition and for that reason were targeted for massacres by pro-government forces during the bloody first phase of the war in 1992–1993. A significant portion of the Tajikistan MVD's command structure and its OMON was also made out of the Pamiris who were then either killed or were forced to flee to Gorno-Badakhshan.


 * Participation in the short but vicious 1992 East Prigorodny Conflict in Russia. North Ossetia's OMON killed or 'disappeared' hundreds of local indigenous Ingush people. Reportedly, Ossetian OMON massacred Ingush villages that were first shelled by Russian federal army tanks that were officially sent in to the region for 'peacekeeping'.


 * Following the War of Transnistria in 1992, several high-ranking former OMON and KGB officers assumed senior posts in Moldova's pro-Russian separatist region of Transnistria. Former Riga OMON Major Vladimir Antyufeev (Antyufeyev), who has led the attacks against Latvian authorities in 1991 and was put on the Interpol wanted list, has renamed himself as "General Vadim Shevtsov" and became Transnistria minister of state security and intelligence, allegedly ovserseeing also the self-declared republic's organized crime smuggling rackets.  In 2012, the KGB of Transnistria announced it has "launched a criminal investigation into Vladimir Antyufeev who is suspected of misuse of state powers."


 * Moscow OMON and units brought from the other cities clashed with the anti-Yeltsin demonstrators order during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, including reportedly beating up some members of the Supreme Soviet of Russia (Russian parliament at the time).


 * Extensive and controversial involvement of Russian OMON in the brutal wars in Chechnya since 1994 (see below).


 * Cordon duties during the Russia's mass hostage crises, including the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis and the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis.


 * Russia's use of Dagestani OMON in a fight against Islamic separatism during the 1999 War of Dagestan and later against a continued Islamist militant insurgency. A similar situation has taken place also in several neighbouring Muslim majority republics since early 2000s.


 * Breaking up of several opposition rallies (including the Dissenters' Marches since 2006), sparking reports of police brutality, including excessive use of force and arbitrary detention of participants. In 2007, the brutal actions of OMON against peaceful protesters and arrests of opposition figures were harshly criticised by the European Union institutions and governments. Moscow OMON also made international news when it prevented gay rights activists (including the European Parliament members) from marching after the Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov did not allow a planned parade to take place in 2007.


 * On 24 March 2006, Belarusian OMON stormed the opposition's tent camp at Minsk's October Square without provocation, violently ending the peaceful Jeans Revolution against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. Thousands of people were beaten and hundreds detained as the result of the attack, including the opposition's presidential candidate Alaksandr Kazulin.


 * In February 2008, Tajik OMON commander Oleg Zakharchenko was killed in a shootout with an anti-organized crime police unit (made of former opposition fighters) in Gharm in disputed circumstances. In 2009, former Interior Minister of Tajikistan, Mahmadnazar Salihov, allegedly committed suicide to avoid being arrested in connection to the case; Salihov's family claimed he was murdered in a political purge.


 * In August 2008, South Ossetian separatist OMON took part in the fighting against the Georgian Armed Forces during the 2008 South Ossetia war and were accused of "special cruelty" against civilians in the overrun ethnic Georgian villages. Subsequently, South Ossetian OMON fighters were absorbed into Russian regular forces in area as a contract soldiers and continued to be deployed in the highly-disputed Akhalgori zone.

Conflict in Chechnya


The force was active in the First Chechen War of 1994-1996 in which OMON was often used in various security and light infantry roles, notably for the notorious "cleansing" (zachistka) operations. Prior to the war, there was also an OMON formation belonging the Interior Ministry (MVD) of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Chechnya's separatist government. The independent Chechnya had an OMON battalion prior to the war, but it was not battle trained, and did not play any significant role as an organized force before disintegrating. During the armed conflict, almost every Russian city would be regularly sending militsiya groups, often OMON members, for tours of usually three or four months. The pro-Moscow administration of the Chechen Republic also formed its own OMON detachments. In February 1996, a group of 37 Russian OMON officers from Novosibirsk surrendered to Chechen militants of Salman Raduyev and Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov during the Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis; 17 prisoners were later swapped for Chechen fighters captured by the Russian side in the same incident. In August 1996, group of about 30 ethnic Chechen members of Russian OMON answering to pro-Moscow commander Said-Magomed Kakiyev were reportedly captured and executed in Grozny by the separatist militias of Doku Umarov and Ruslan Gelayev during the battle for the city.

Similar as with the first campaign, OMON took part in the Second Chechen War as well. OMON forces sustained severe losses in the conflict, including from the March 2000 ambush which killed scores of servicemen from Berezniki and Perm (including nine captured and executed), the July 2000 suicide bombing which killed at least 25 Russians at Argun base of OMON from Chelyabinsk, and the April 2002 mine attack which left 21 Chechen OMON troops dead in central Grozny. Control and discipline continued to be questionable in Chechnya, where the OMON members were noted to engage in or fall victim of several deadly incidents of friendly fire and fratricide. In perhaps the bloodiest of such incidents, at least 24 were killed when OMON from Podolsk attacked a column of OMON from Sergiyev Posad in Grozny on 2 March 2000. Among other incidents, several Chechen OMON servicemen were abducted and executed in Grozny by Russian military servicemen in November 2000, members of Chechen OMON engaged in a shootout with the Ingush police on the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia resulting in eight fatalities in September 2006, and Ramzan Kadyrov-controlled local OMON clashed with a group of rival Chechens belonging to the Kakiyev's Spetsnaz GRU military unit in Grozny, resulting in at least five killed in 2007.

Accusations of human rights abuses
OMON was often accused of severe human rights abuses in the course of the conflict, including abducting, torturing, raping and killing civilians. By 2000, the bulk of such crimes as recorded by international organisations in Chechnya appeared to have been committed either by or in participation of OMON. Moscow region OMON took part in the April 1995 rampage in the village of Samashki, where which up to 300 civilians were reportedly killed during a large-scale brutal "cleansing" operation by federal MVD forces. In December 1999, a group of unidentified OMON members manning a roadblock checkpoint shot dead around 40 refugees fleeing the siege of Grozny. OMON from Saint Petersburg is believed to be behind the February 2000 Novye Aldi massacre in which at least 60 civilians were robbed and then killed by Russian forces entering Grozny after the fall of the city; one officer, Sergei Babin, was reported to be prosecuted in relation to the case in 2005 but he then vanished. In April 2006, the European Court of Human Rights found Russia guilty of the forced disappearance of Shakhid Baysayev, a Chechen man who had gone missing after being detained in a March 2000 security sweep by Russian OMON in Grozny. In 2007, Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug OMON officer Sergei Lapin was sentenced for kidnapping and torture of a Chechen man in Grozny in 2001, with the Grozny court criticising the conduct of the OMON serving in Chechnya in broader terms. In an event related to the conflict in Chechnya, several OMON officers were also accused of starting the May 2007 wave of the ethnic violence in Stavropol by assisting in the racially-motivated murder of a local Chechen man.

Russian OMON
In Russia, there is an OMON unit in every oblast, as well as in many major cities; for example, there is an OMON unit within the Moscow City police department, and two separate units within Moscow Oblast police department. Information from different sources suggested that there were between 10,500 and 15,000 OMON members stationed at population centers and transportation hubs around the country during the 1990s. This number officially rose to about 20,000 nationwide by 2007; the biggest OMON unit in Russia, Moscow OMON, numbers over 2,000 members. Most OMON officers retire at the age of approximately 45 years. They are also sometimes not paid for their service (in 2001, for example, some 50 OMON members from Moscow filed a lawsuit claiming they were not paid for one month of combat operations in Chechnya ). Due to the use of OMON members in high risk situations, especially in Chechnya and elsewhere in the North Caucasus, the group often loses members in combat.

Members of OMON are required to achieve a high level of fitness and experts in small arms and hand-to-hand combat. Males between the ages of 22 and 30 who have completed their two-year military service can apply to join OMON (the application includes medical and psychological tests, and tests of speed and fitness). The initial training lasts for four months. The applicants are extensively trained in the use of different weaponry and close combat, and are also trained to follow orders at any cost. Special emphasis is put on urban combat and the entering and clearing of buildings. The training also includes legal training. The application procedure closes with a final test, where the applicant has to fight three to five trained members of OMON by hand wearing boxing gloves. Fewer than one in five applicants pass and are selected to join. The OMON groups use a wide range of firearms, including but not limited to AK-74 assault rifle, AKS-74U carbine assault rifle, 9A-91 compact assault rifle, and PP-19 Bizon submachine gun while the Makarov pistol, Stechkin automatic pistol and the MP-443 Grach are assigned as sidearms. OMON units during special operations and in war zones may use other weaponry typical for Russian light infantry (they are in fact sometimes called "OMON soldiers" ), such as the PK machine gun, the GP-25 underbarrel grenade launcher for assault rifle or the GM-94 pump-action grenade launcher, RPG series rocket-proppelled grenade launchers, and the Dragunov and Vintorez sniper rifles.

OMON vehicles include specially-equipped vans, buses and trucks of various types (often armored and sometimes equipped with mounted machine guns), as well as limited number of armored personnel carriers (BTR-60, BTR-70 and BTR-80). OMON's headgear remains their signature black beret (they are thus sometimes called "Black Berets"), which they share with the naval infantry. The group's members usually tend to wear either all-black or blue or gray camouflage police uniforms, but not uncommon sight has been a variety of Russian Army and Russian Internal Troops uniforms, often with black balaclava masks and/or helmets.