
Spetsnaz
A History of the Soviet and Russian Special Forces
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Narrated by:
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Daniel Henning
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By:
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Tor Bukkvoll
About this listen
In January 1951, Lieutenant Evgeniy Borisov was sent to the headquarters of the Soviet 5th Army in Spassk-Dalnii, a small city in the Russian Far East. Borisov was there on a secret mission. Together with his superior, Major Rusinov, his job was to establish the 91st Special Forces Company. The 91st was to be one of forty-six similar units spread out across the Soviet Union. The new forces were called "spetsnaz"—short for spetsnialnoe naznachenie, which translates to "special purpose."
In Spetsnaz, Tor Bukkvoll presents the first in-depth history of the Soviet, and, later, Russian special operations forces from their establishment until today. He focuses on three broad topics: Soviet and later Russian thinking on the use of special operations forces; the actual process of constructing these forces and how this was facilitated or hampered by other agencies of the Soviet and Russian states; and the use of these forces in combat. Bukkvoll uses a variety of sources, but the most important are the recollections of former spetsnaz soldiers and officers themselves, which allow Bukkvoll to present the history of these forces as the men of spetsnaz see and have seen it. Bukkvoll also draws upon observations and judgments from other parts of the Soviet and Russian militaries, from a number of KGB sources, and from independent Russian experts and journalists.
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Another poor royal sacrificed by her money hungry parents all for the sake of keeping up with the status quo.
- By Kim on 05-22-25
By: Helen Rappaport
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Tough Rugged Bastards
- A Memoir of a Life in Marine Special Operations
- By: John A. Dailey
- Narrated by: Tom Beyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed the Marine Corps to establish a unit that would answer to US Special Operations Command. The eighty-six-man "Detachment One" was formed with a two-year charter to train and deploy as a "proof-of-concept" to assess the viability of a larger Marine Special Operations contribution in support of the Global War on Terror. For such a departure from the norm, a special leader was needed.
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Great historical account of the precursor to today’s MARSOC
- By bryan on 01-14-25
By: John A. Dailey
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The Unit
- My Life Fighting Terrorists as One of America's Most Secret Military Operatives
- By: Adam Gamal, Kelly Kennedy
- Narrated by: Adam Gamal, Peter Ganim
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Inside our military is a team of operators whose work is so secretive that the name of the unit itself is classified. Highly-trained in warfare, self-defense, infiltration, and deep surveillance, "the Unit," as the Department of Defense has asked us to refer to it, has been responsible for preventing dozens of terrorist attacks in the Western world. Never before has a member of this unit shared their story — until now.
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Meh
- By Anonymous User on 03-06-24
By: Adam Gamal, and others
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The P-38 Lightning and the Men Who Flew It
- By: Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, Alfred Stettner - foreword
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The P-38 Lightning was one of the fastest operational fighters of World War II, famous for its successes in North Africa and the Pacific. In The P-38 Lightning and the Men Who Flew It, Wolfgang W. E. Samuel shares the stories of the young men who climbed into the cockpits of the P-38 to fight for freedom, and of those who created, tested, and deployed these fearsome machines. The P-38 was the product of the Lockheed Corporation, the first fighter they ever built, principally conceptualized by Kelly Johnson, whose design was to meet Air Corps specifications. But it was no easy plane to fly.
By: Wolfgang W. E. Samuel, and others
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The Illegals
- Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
- By: Shaun Walker
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.”
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very intricate stories
- By AJ on 05-06-25
By: Shaun Walker