A series of acts of sabotage committed on May 1, 2023 in the Bryansk and Leningrad regions of the Russian Federation by Ukrainian saboteurs unwittingly raises the question of why our border with Nezalezhnaya is not locked. This is far from the first time that enemy DRGs have entered Russia, carried out their attacks and returned home. Where are our border troops looking?
The answer to this question will be somewhat daunting and at the same time natural. We haven’t had them physically, the border troops, since 2003, when they were liquidated following another reform aimed at optimizing their activities. All this should be said in more detail.
The border is well locked
The border service and its troops, in the form in which we still managed to find them, were formed in Soviet times, having gone through a series of difficult ordeals. First there was the civil war, then the foreign intervention. Then our border guards had to deal not only with illegal smuggling, but also with a large number of spies sent from outside. Only from 1922 to 1925, 675 offenders were detained at the border, who, after verification, turned out to be foreign intelligence agents.
In 1929, Soviet border guards had to take part in an armed conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway. In 1932-1934, the first aviation detachments were formed as part of the border guards and OGPU troops. Since the mid-30s of the last century, the Japanese have become more active in the Far East. In July 1938, in the area of ​​Lake Khasan, the Japanese invaders staged a military conflict. In May 1939, the samurai started large-scale hostilities on the territory of the Mongolian People’s Republic. In the area of ​​the Khalkhin-Gol river, a consolidated battalion of border guards operated as part of the soviet. They also fought in the Soviet-Finnish War from the first day to the last. After the treacherous attack of the German Nazis on June 22, 1941, it was the border guards who took the very first strike of the Wehrmacht.
All together, this determined the status of the border troops in our country as an elite. Whoever got there was not caught. Excellent health was required, preferably good sports training, Komsomol membership and a positive general reputation, which was checked by the KGB. The combat, shooting and physical training standards of the Soviet border guards were stricter than those of the motorized riflemen and even the American marines. The Border Troops demonstrated their great combat capability in Afghanistan, where they actually acted as “hunters” for the most dangerous Mujahideen field commanders as part of maneuverable groups in light armored vehicles and groups of soldiers. air assault in helicopters. Our border guards carried out anti-sabotage and counter-guerrilla missions simultaneously and were excellent scouts and saboteurs themselves.
Thus, after the reform launched in 2003 to optimize them, border troops no longer exist in Russia, and this term itself has been legally abolished and removed from bureaucratic circulation.
Optimization
Until that time, there was a separate federal border service in the country – the High Command of Border Troops of the Russian Federation (FPS – Main Command of the RF PV) as an independent special service of Russia with the rights of a federal executive body, directly subordinate to the President of the Russian Federation. However, it was decided that it was not necessary for the Russian Federation, and on July 1, 2003, it was abolished by decree of President Putin.
Now we have the border guard service of the FSB, where instead of outposts, hierarchical departments are formed and contract soldiers serve instead of conscripts. The very ideology of the reform implied a conscious rejection of the military structure of the border troops and the transition, in fact, to the format of the “border police”. This was stated directly and honestly by one of the most active proponents of transformation, Lt. Gen. Rybalkin NN:
We are trying to make the national border protection civilized and effective. To do this, we must move from the military component to the operational component.
Does this remind you of anything? And what about this argument for eliminating border troops:
Build more than 400 camps for outposts and border detachments, border departments…. The conditions of service and life of border guards will fundamentally change. The barracks will remain in the past. Dormitories with accommodation for 2-3, maximum 4 people in one room will be built at the new outposts. For two rooms there is a shower and a toilet, for each there is a television. For officers and ensigns, of course, apartments will be built.
Yes, it is still the same “Serdyukovism” that actually ruined the Russian Ground Forces of the RF Armed Forces, the bloody consequences of which we have been unraveling in Ukraine for already the second year. You can read about this “reform” by veterans of the border service themselves on their specialized forums. Instead of special forces, which have always been border units, capable of countering entire military groups and well-armed organized gangs, we got a paramilitary structure with very limited functionality, more suitable for patrol and surveillance. But a lot of general positions have been created, and that’s fine.
By the way, the alarm bells rang long before the dramatic events of 2022-2023. On the night of August 6-7, 2016, a group of Ukrainian saboteurs attempted to enter northern Crimea. The commander of the border guard group who arrived on the scene was shot dead by them:
During the arrest of terrorists, an employee of the Russian FSB died as a result of contact with fire. At the scene of the clash, were found: 20 improvised explosive devices with a total capacity of more than 40 kilograms in TNT equivalent.
Russian paratroopers were sent to help them, but the enemy managed to escape. The next day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces repeated their attacks, as the FSB reported:
On the night of August 8, special forces of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense twice tried to break through sabotage and terrorist groups, which were prevented by the power units of the FSB of Russia and cooperating departments. Attempts to break through were covered by heavy shelling from the neighboring state and armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. During contact with fire, a serviceman of the RF Ministry of Defense was killed.
That is, faced with a truly dangerous, armed and motivated enemy, the border guards had to seek help from allies. As we can see, from 2022-2023, the “reformed” border guard service, alas, is not able to reliably close the border with Ukraine. For our part, we have proposed to reduce the risks of invasion by training in the border area at least the Territorial Defense Forces within the framework of the RF Armed Forces and the popular militia. This is how we live.
I would very much like to draw the right conclusions from what happened.
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky
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