OMON is much larger and better known than
SOBR, another special-police branch of the National Guard of Russia. In modern contexts, OMON serves as a
riot police group, or as a
gendarmerie-like
paramilitary force. OMON units also exist in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and other
post-Soviet states. However, some post-Soviet units have changed names and acronyms. Russian-speakers commonly refer to OMON officers as omonovtsy (
Russian: омоновцы; singular: omonovyets –
Russian: омоновец).
On 5 April 2016 OMON became part of the newly-established National Guard of Russia, ending its years as part of the MVD.[1]: 20
The MVD continues to operate the
Police of Russia.[2]
History
Special purpose
militia units were formed on May 5, 1919 in the
Russian state in the structure of the “white” (Siberian) militia.[3]Alexander Kolchak emphasized that
OMON is a combat unit for the protection and restoration of state order and public peace, serves as a reserve for the formation of militia in areas liberated from Soviet power to train experienced police officers
These militia units operated where open war gave way to
partisan war. The detachment consisted of four foot and one horse platoons.[4] The staff included 285 people.[3] In those days, there was no such thing as a “omonovets” therefore these units were called "guards".[5]
Soviet OMON originated in 1979, when the first Soviet
police tactical 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 and acts of terror.
The current OMON system is the successor of that group and was founded on 3 October 1988 in Moscow and was called the Militsiya Squad of Special Assignment.[6] Special police detachments were often manned by former soldiers of the
Soviet Army and veterans of the
Soviet–Afghan War. 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, Russian OMON units were to be renamed Distinctive Purpose Teams (KON), while OMSN (
SOBR) would become Special Purpose Teams (KSN).[7] It was announced that Special Purpose Centers for Rapid Deployment forces would also be created in Russian regions, to include regional OMON and OMSN units. In essence, all police
spetsnaz (special designation) units were brought together under the joint command of the
Interior Ministry[8] — 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, (Special Purpose Militia Unit) to otryad mobilniy osobogo naznacheniya (Special Purpose Mobile Unit), keeping the acronym.
On 20 January 1991, Soviet-loyalist
Riga OMON attacked Latvia's
Interior Ministry, killing six people during the
January 1991 events which was not confirmed by an internal investigation, in a failed pro-Moscow coup attempt following the
Latvian SSR's declaration of independence.[9] Seven OMON officers were subsequently found guilty by the
Riga District Court and were sentenced in absentia. Part of the Riga OMON troops remained loyal to the USSR and their oath of allegiance. The unit was evacuated from Riga to Tyumen in Russia by air force together with all ammunition, vehicles and firearms, and incorporated with local Tyumen OMON.
A series of
attacks on border outposts of the newly independent Republic of Lithuania took place during the period of January to July 1991. These resulted in several
summary execution-style deaths of unarmed customs officers and other people (including former members of
Vilnius OMON), which were attributed to Riga OMON.[10] Some sources say that Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev had lost control of the unit during that period. 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.[11]
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, resulted in forty deaths of mostly Armenian civilians, and the forced displacement of nearly 10,000 ethnic Armenians. In later attacks, several more Armenian civilians were killed; others suffered abuse which included instances of rape. In continuing fighting in this area, fourteen Azerbaijani OMON members and one Armenian paramilitary fighter were reported killed in September 1991.[12]
Violent and often armed clashes occurred between the
Georgian SSR's OMON and 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 and October 1991. There were also allegations of OMON firing at unarmed protesters.[12]
Post-Soviet OMON activities
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 to, 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 combat-ready force on the separatist side at 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.[13] 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 consisted mainly of Pamiris who were then either killed or forced to flee to
Gorno-Badakhshan.[14]
North Ossetia's OMON participated in the short but vicious 1992
East Prigorodny Conflict in Russia. They killed or 'disappeared' hundreds of local indigenous
Ingush people. Ossetian OMON reportedly massacred residents of Ingush villages that had first been shelled by Russian federal army tanks that were officially in to the region for 'peacekeeping' purposes.[15]
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 Antyufeyev, who had led the attacks against Latvian authorities in 1991 and was put on the
Interpol wanted list, renamed himself "General Vadim Shevtsov" and became Transnistria's minister of state security and intelligence. He is also alleged to have overseen the self-declared republic's organized criminal smuggling rackets.[16][17][18] In 2012, the KGB of Transnistria announced it has "launched a criminal investigation into Vladimir Antyufeev who is suspected of misuse of state powers."
OMON have broken up several opposition rallies, including the
Dissenters' Marches since 2006, sparking reports of
police brutality, including excessive use of force and arbitrary
detention of participants.[20] 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.[21] 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.[22]
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, including the opposition's presidential candidate
Alaksandr Kazulin, as a result of the attack.[23]
In February 2008, Tajik OMON commander
Oleg Zakharchenko was killed in a shootout with an anti-organized crime police unit composed of former opposition fighters, under disputed circumstances, in
Gharm.[24] In 2009, the former
Interior Minister of Tajikistan,
Mahmadnazar Salihov, allegedly committed suicide to avoid being arrested in connection with the case; Salihov's family claimed he was murdered in a political purge.[25]
South Ossetian separatist OMON took part in the fighting against the
Georgian Armed Forces in August, during the
2008 South Ossetia war and were accused of "special cruelty" against civilians in the overrun ethnic Georgian villages.[26] Subsequently, South Ossetian OMON fighters were absorbed into Russian regular forces in the area as contract soldiers and continued to be deployed in the highly disputed
Akhalgori zone.[27]
Gulmurod Khalimov, the Russian-U.S. trained[28] OMON chief in Tajikistan since 2012, disappeared in 2015.[29] He had defected to the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, and threatened to attack American cities.[30] He was declared wanted for treason by Tajik government.[31]
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.[32] Prior to the war, there was also an OMON formation belonging to 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,[33] 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 thirty-seven Russian OMON officers from
Novosibirsk surrendered to Chechen militants of
Salman Raduyev and
Khunkar-Pasha Israpilov during the
Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis.[34]
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),[35] the
July 2000 suicide bombing which killed at least twenty-five Russians at
Argun base of OMON from
Chelyabinsk,[36] and
the April 2002 mine attack which left twenty-one Chechen OMON troops dead in central Grozny.[37] Control and discipline continued to be questionable in Chechnya, where OMON members were known to have engaged in, or fallen victim to, several deadly incidents of
friendly fire and
fratricide. In
perhaps the bloodiest of such incidents, at least twenty-four were killed when OMON from
Podolsk attacked a column of OMON from
Sergiyev Posad in Grozny on 2 March 2000.[38] Among other incidents, several Chechen OMON servicemen were abducted and executed in Grozny by Russian military servicemen in November 2000,[39] 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,[40] 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 being killed in 2007.[citation needed]
OMON was often accused of severe
human rights abuses during the course of the conflict,[41] 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 with the participation of OMON.[42] Moscow region OMON took part in the
April 1995 rampage in the village of
Samashki, where up to 300 civilians were reportedly killed during a large-scale brutal cleansing operation by federal MVD forces.[43] In December 1999, a group of unidentified OMON members manning a roadblock checkpoint
shot dead around forty refugees fleeing the siege of Grozny.[44] OMON from
Saint Petersburg[45] are believed to have been behind the February 2000
Novye Aldi massacre in which at least sixty civilians were robbed and then killed by Russian forces entering Grozny after the fall of the city;[46] one officer,
Sergei Babin, was to be prosecuted in relation to the case in 2005 but he vanished.[47][48] 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.[49] In 2007,
Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug OMON officer
Sergei Lapin was sentenced for the kidnapping and torture of a Chechen man in Grozny in 2001,[50] with the Grozny court criticising the conduct of OMON serving in Chechnya in broader terms.[51] In an event related to the conflict in Chechnya, several OMON officers were also accused of starting the May 2007 wave of ethnic violence in
Stavropol by assisting in the racially motivated murder of a local Chechen man.[52]
In 2021 OMON officers tortured Jehovah's Witnesses in
Irkutsk in an attempt to make them inform about other members.[53]
Russo-Ukrainian War
Some OMON units participated in the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine where they were intended to disperse riots and control
civil unrest after
Kyiv would be captured. The failure to capture Kyiv resulted in some SOBR missions becoming redundant, they also ended up engaging in military combat and some of its personnel being killed in action or captured by the
Ukrainian Armed Forces.[54]
In Russia, there is an OMON unit in every
oblast, as well as in many major cities. Since 2016, the OMON units report directly to the
National Guard Forces Command as part of its regional district commands, and they are expected to be deployed in support of the police forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 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.[citation needed] The 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 forty-five.[citation needed] They were also sometimes not paid for their service. In 2001, for example, some fifty OMON members from Moscow filed a lawsuit claiming they had not been paid for one month of combat operations in Chechnya.[59] The use of OMON members in high-risk situations, especially in Chechnya and elsewhere in the
North Caucasus, often causes the group to lose members in combat.[citation needed]
OMON groups use a wide range of firearms, including
AK-74 assault rifle,
AKS-74U carbine assault rifle,
9A-91 compact assault rifle, and
PP-19 Bizon submachine gun, and the
Makarov pistol,
Stechkin automatic pistol and the
MP-443 Grach or
GSh-18 are assigned as sidearms. OMON units may use other weaponry, typically used by Russian light infantry during special operations and in war zones, 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
Vintorezdesignated marksman rifles. The kind of issued protective gear is shared with regular National Guard units. The Bagariy body armor is a common sight replacing the older Kora-Kulon while the ZSH 1–2 is the main issued helmet with the older Kolpak being used only on riot duty. They are sometimes called "OMON soldiers".[60]
OMON vehicles include specially-equipped vans, buses and trucks of various types (often armored and sometimes equipped with mounted machine guns), as well as a limited number of armored personnel carriers such as
GAZ Tigr,
BTR-60,
BTR-70 and
BTR-80.
Moscow OMON with
BTR-80M assault a building with suspects during
Interpolitex [
ru] 2017 exhibition.
OMON's headgear remains their signature black
beret (they are thus sometimes called Black Berets), which they share with the
Naval Infantry.
OMON, as part of the RosGvard, is transitioning to the Russian version of the ATACS LE (blue/grey) but units are still seen wearing the traditional Noch-91 uniform in all-black, and blue or gray
Tigerstripe camouflage,[62] a not uncommon sight has been a variety of Russian Army and
Russian Internal Troops uniforms,[62] often with (black)
balaclava masks and/or helmets.
BPDS/OPON – Moldovan paramilitary successor to OMON, falling under the command of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is officially known as the Special Purpose Police Brigade "Fulger".[63]
^МВД России – "Сегодня от работы МВД зависят многие аспекты повседневной жизни граждан. Органы внутренних дел занимаются обеспечением порядка на улицах, предотвращением и раскрытием преступлений, защитой и охраной частной собственности, государственных и коммерческих объектов. Подразделения МВД борются за безопасность на дорогах страны, обеспечивают проведение массовых мероприятий, днем и ночью приходят на помощь гражданам в чрезвычайных ситуациях. От министра до участкового Министерство внутренних дел – на страже интересов гражданина, закона и общества."
^Министерство Внутренних ДелРоссийской Федерации.
"MVD website, history". Mvd.ru. Archived from
the original on 5 December 2013. Retrieved 23 February 2014.