Special Operations Forces (Russia)

The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Special Operations Forces (abbr. SOF; Russian: Силы специальных операций; ССО, romanized: Sily spetsial’nykh operatsiy; SSO), are strategic-level special forces under the Special Operations Forces Command (Russian: Командование сил специальных операций, KCCO, romanized: Komandovaniye sil spetsial'nykh operatsiy, abbr. KSSO or KSO) of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. They are also a structural branch and an independent unit of the Armed Forces.

The first units of what would become the Special Operations Forces were transferred from the General Staff Directorate (GRU) in 2009 as part of the continuing 2008 Russian military reform. The Special Operations Forces Command, established in 2012, was announced in March 2013 by the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to Gerasimov, Russian authorities designed the SOF as a strategic-level asset: élite special-operations-force units of the KSSO whose primary missions would be foreign interventions including counter-proliferation, foreign internal defense operations and undertaking the most complex special operations and clandestine missions for protecting the interests of the Russian Federation.

The SOF is distinct from the Spetsnaz GRU with their use of soldiers hired on contract; or, to put it simply, mercenaries. All soldiers of the SOF are personnel who serve on contract; many of them all are full-time servicemen consisting of commissioned officers and regular soldiers.

On 26 February 2015, President Vladimir Putin decreed 27 February as the Day of the SOF, according to multiple Russian official news agencies (albeit not acknowledged formally) to mark the establishment of Russian control over the building of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Simferopol, Crimea on 28 February 2014.