October 26 will mark the 25th anniversary of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terrorism Unit. On this autumn day in 1992, more than 150 veterans and active members of the Alpha unit decided to establish a public organization - the Association of Veterans of Special Forces. "It was a forced decision - our killed and dead employees, their families were left without state support. Officers retired due to age or injury were also left without material assistance, because the state could not really help our comrades in those years. The task was to prevent the veterans and their families from sinking to the social bottom," the president of the Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terrorism Unit Sergey Goncharov said.
According to him, the unit fought both during the first and second Chechen wars with the full support of the Association: "We helped with the purchase of weapons and business trips, we provided full material support to officers performing military operations." Today, according to Sergei Goncharov, Alpha veterans have gained authority not only in Russia, but also abroad - there is no single serious media without their comments, they have been State Duma deputies, members of the Public Chamber, occupy responsible positions in state institutions, in power structures.
Alpa was formed as a special unit for carrying out special counter-terrorist operations. However, today its tactics are changing along with the changing tactics of terrorists.
Vice-President of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terrorism Unit, Aleksey Filatov, says that today terrorists are not aimed at carrying out actions that require serious preparation: "Huge efforts were involved in 1995 in Budenovsk, in 2002 in Nord-Ost, they used a large number of people and money. Sometimes, terror acts were planned for several years. And now when some basic terrorist act is committed, all the forces are directed to highlight it as seriously as possible. The more the information wave after the terrorist act, whether it's knife attacks, subway explosions or vehicle-ramming attacks, the most important is to cover it as much as possible, to spread as many panic and fear as possible".
"Telephone terrorism requires comparatively small amounts of money from clients, little preparation. We have to adapt to this, because practicing 20-40 signals every day throughout the country is illogical, because it seriously distracts the power structures from the tasks they deal with on a daily basis. In such a bustle, an enemy can take advantage of vanity and turmoil, and commit a real terrorist attack. As soon as such actions cease to be replicated in the media, it will stop being interesting, inefficient and important for an enemy," Alexei Filatov said.
According to him, in the coming years we will see many different new unexpected manifestations of terrorism: "We must be ready for everything and try to work proactively, at distant approaches - in the camps where these people are trained, where they are financed, where they collect money, instructs, they are away from the large congestion of people against which these acts of terrorism are applied. "
