The Ukrainian Security Service’s Spetsnaz Alpha, known in the West as Alpha Group SBU, draw their lineage to the Soviet KGB’s Spetsnaz Alpha Group formed in the Cold War in response to West Germany’s GSG-9.

The special unit was stood up in the early 1990’s and carried out thousands of illegal weapons seizures, narcotics raids, and gang interdiction operations until the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution.

Although the Alpha Group fought against pro-Russian separatist forces, it’s estimated that 30 percent of the unit defected to the Russian proxy forces, including Alexander Khodakovsky who became the commander of the rebel Vostok Battalion in 2014.

Currently, Ukraine's Spetsnaz Alpha are a legitimate highly capable special forces unit. As seen in the following video, they take much of their tactical training from elite Western units while still maintaining their cultural identity.