Vasily Krutov
This literary portrait of the general is unlikely to be included in the collection "Outstanding Modern Commanders." After his brief and inglorious leadership of the ATO, Krutov's name is unlikely to be remembered. We will devote our attention to him solely to demonstrate how "combat generals" and doctors of science are made in our country. And also: how Ukraine entrusts the leadership of military operations to amateurs, leading to unnecessary losses. In fact, the new ATO commander, Vasyl Hrytsak, is far from the best replacement. And he deserves a detailed description no less than Krutov. For this reason, at the end of our narrative, we will pose one crucial question, the very reason for writing all this.
From physical education teacher to general
Vasily Vasilievich Krutov
Honorary President of the International Anti-Terrorist Unity, Doctor of Law, Professor, and retired Lieutenant General of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). He has served in the state security agencies since 1977. In 1990, he was appointed deputy head of the KGB special forces unit, the Alpha Group. In 1994, he became the first head of the SBU special forces unit, Directorate A, which was created from existing special forces units. In the early 90s, he served as an advisor to the head of the SBU on counterterrorism issues and subsequently as the Chief of Staff of the Chairman of the Service. He was directly involved in a number of operational combat operations and special events in Ukraine and abroad. He has authored over 70 works on national security and counterterrorism.
This is the dry language of official sources. Unofficially, General Krutov's military and professional career appears somewhat different.
He graduated from the physical education department of the Zaporizhzhia Pedagogical Institute in 1976. He served two years in the army as a signalman. Afterward, he joined the Zaporizhzhia KGB Directorate, where he served as a physical education instructor in the personnel department. His title of Master of Sports in Greco-Roman wrestling contributed to this. In the 80s, the future general transferred to Kyiv. In 1990, he was assigned to the newly created Alpha Unit, formed from the 10th Group of the 7th Department of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR. At that time, Alpha consisted of 10 fighters. Krutov was 33 years old and no longer eligible for the rank of senior officer. But the unit's commander, Zakrevsky, interceded on his behalf. Vasily Krutov was promoted to assistant, then deputy head of the Alpha Unit, a position he held until 1992, when Unit S was created and Yuriy Buivolov was appointed its commander. But by that time, Krutov’s connection with the unit had already been lost.
Krutov soon caught the eye of SBU Chairman Yevhen Marchuk. The reason is unknown, perhaps due to his remarkable height. Rumor has it that Krutov rendered an invaluable service to Yevhen Marchuk by conducting his first covert operation to rescue Marchuk's son, Vadim, from Italy, where he had fallen in with some bad guys and found himself in a sticky situation.
Be that as it may, Vasily Krutov, who had served in Alpha for only eight months, rose from lieutenant colonel to major general within a year under Marchuk. The chairman appointed Krutov chief of staff, a position equivalent to a colonel general. Marchuk soon discovered Krutov's modest abilities, but he quickly botched the job. But remaining a noble and grateful man, Yevgeny Kirilovich didn't throw the young general out. Marchuk was faced with a daunting personnel problem: where to place a general who had never caught a single criminal in his life and had never spent a day in operational work?
Not a general for service, but service for a general
It was decided to assign Krutov to the Alpha unit—no matter that he had only served there for eight months. The problem lay elsewhere: Unit "C," as the terminology of the time, consisted of 86 fighters. And for a general to lead it, the requirements of the time required at least 300 fighters under his command. And then, to save General Krutov's career, a brilliant plan was hatched within the SBU: to empower Alpha, in addition to its counterterrorism function, with the new responsibility of protecting law enforcement officers and their families, as well as participants in legal proceedings whose lives and health were at risk. This was an obvious and costly mistake, leading to a sharp decline in morale and combat readiness among Alpha units, as well as the commercialization and corruption of its fighters.
On December 23, 1993, they managed to push the relevant laws through parliament, after which Krutov finally received the position of general.
In addition, Alpha units were created in each regional branch of the SBU. The service was now organized into three departments, one of which was exclusively responsible for protecting law enforcement officers and trial participants, and in practice, VIPs.
To somehow justify maintaining such an inflated staff, the fighters began to be used for security, essentially "gifting" personal guards with firearms for the personal use of the powerful. Thus, from the very beginning and to this day, Alpha fighters have guarded Grigory Surkis. For 12 years straight, the Alpha fighters guarded a certain "businessman" named I. Merenkov, a member of Yulia Tymoshenko's inner circle. Each time, those receiving SBU protection found a suitable pretext. For example, Surkis filed a complaint with the SBU about threats from football fans... and was given a group of guards for 20 long years! Merenkov was placed under protection as a defendant in the Lazarenko case, whose life was allegedly threatened... Could it really have been the entire 12 years?!
Alpha also guarded the entire list of Kyiv mayors, with the exception of Oleksandr Omelchenko, who for some reason favored the MIA State Security Service. Even the formidable General Krutov, in his capacity as head of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), is still guarded by two of his former colleagues.
All this unnecessary deadweight still hangs over the counterterrorism unit. It's worth noting that it's not cheap: staff salaries, a fleet of vehicles, daily refueling, ammunition and expensive weapons. Tellingly, of all the SBU heads, only Khoroshkovsky gave his "Alfa" members his own cars, while Derkach's son, Andriy, generously provided gasoline. The rest received 100% state-funded security. Of course, every businessman paid the special forces out of his own pocket, thereby corrupting the fighters.
But what does this matter to the general who received the position? The main goal was achieved: in 1994, Vasily Krutov took charge of the newly created SBU Unit "A," with an inflated staff and unusual powers. For four years, the general "ran" the unit without achieving anything remarkable.
We won't count among Krutov's achievements the construction of the Alpha base in central Kyiv, financed by the leader of the Kyiv organized crime group, Pryshch, or the acquisition of land in the Police Garden adjacent to the base for the Kuvshin restaurant. Colleagues claim that the commercial aspect of military service to the sovereign has always played a significant role in Krutov's life.
A special operation to capture and document the naked Satsiuk
But all good things come to an end. Four years later, Krutov's deputy,
Vitaliy Romanchenko filed a complaint against his boss to then-President Kuchma. The incident stemmed from a conflict between Andriy Derkach, the son of the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and Volodymyr Satsyuk, a member of Oleksandr Volkov's pro-presidential group. Alpha Group officers burst into Satsyuk's home and "filmed" him in his underwear with a woman in bed. The footage was then shown on TV, claiming Satsyuk had been caught with a prostitute. In reality, the black-clad security officers had visited the politician's home, and his pregnant wife was in bed with him.
A debriefing followed. Krutov claimed that his deputy, Vitaliy Romanchenko, had given the order to invade. But the fact is, Romanchenko was outside Kyiv at the time. He laid out his own version in a letter to Kuchma. Thus, Krutov lost his position.
But then Vasily Vasilyevich was saved by a woman. It's worth noting that women always played a significant role in the life of the combat general. Moreover, he was drawn not to seamstresses and motor mechanics, but to vocalists. His wife, for example, still sings to this day. At one time, Krutov's favorite was the singer Irina Bilyk, and later, Nadezhda Shestak, after she broke up with another showbiz figure, Mozgov. Shestak had once studied singing with the ubiquitous Kobzon. Kobzon was close to Leonid Kuchma and his wife, the head of the presidential charitable foundation. The enterprising accordionist Yan Tabachnik hovered around the foundation, courting Lyudmila Kuchma (may the former guarantor forgive this tautology). Tabachnik served as a link between Kobzon and the president's wife. It was in this configuration that the operation to rescue General Krutov began. As a result, the disgraced general returned to the SBU, this time as deputy chairman and curator of the SBU Academy and surveillance.
But he didn't last long there, failing as badly as he had as Marchuk's chief of staff. Two years later, then-Security Service Chairman Leonid Derkach got rid of Krutov, finding him an honorary, non-committal position as the SBU representative to the CIS Anti-Terrorist Center (2000-2002). Vasily Vasilyevich would have been sitting in Moscow, awaiting a change in leadership, but he was drawn to big business. However, since he knew nothing other than Greco-Roman wrestling and martial arts, his business career was cut short before it even began, immediately after he decided to dig into the oil and gas trade. At the request of then-FSB Chairman Patrushev, General Krutov was returned home: quietly, without honors or the prospect of millions in oil and gas money for his retirement.
But then the Orange Revolution happened, and Krutov was brought back into the fold as deputy to the new head of the SBU, Turchynov. After Turchynov's departure, the counterterrorism specialist moved into the deputy chair of the permanent chairman of the Ukrainian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (USPP), Anatoliy Kinakh. Incidentally, to put things into perspective, Kinakh has a whopping 12 (!) deputies. That's how important he is, uttering the same obscure words under every government...
But in 2014, power changed again, and friends remembered Krutov – the “Alpha legend,” the first commander of the special forces unit, the author and leader of hundreds of successful special operations.
Legends of Vasily Krutov
Krutov is truly a legendary figure. Many legends circulate about him among the military. We've already described one of them: his not-so-successful "special operation" to capture the influential MP Satsyuk in his underwear with his pregnant wife in bed. Vasily Vasilyevich himself has recounted in numerous interviews hundreds of special operations carried out under his watchful eye and with his personal involvement. Well, every general is prone to fibbing a little about his heroic past. But not to this extent!
In reality, Krutov has only the vaguest understanding of organizing special operations and combating terrorism. How could a former athlete with no operational experience or specialized training have such experience? It's a shame to say it: the legendary Alpha trooper Vasily Krutov has never jumped with a parachute in his life. You see, he's quite a burly man, and parachuting is fraught with injury. So it's better to participate in operations in the quiet of his office...
But let's be fair to the general: he did show up in a few combat operations. Not a hundred, of course, but four.
1994. A gang of Chechens took hostages in an apartment on Tupolev Street in Kyiv. Those involved in the operation recall that Krutov was sitting in a car nearby, directing the operation via radio. It was winter, cold outside, and you could catch a cold. The Alpha troopers freed the hostage themselves, and Krutov followed the assault team up to the apartment.
In 1995, Alpha captured Mirimsky's gang, including its killers, at the Ai-Danil base in Crimea. Krutov oversaw the operation.
The whole country has heard how Krutov oversaw the operation to deliver the first Ukrainian hryvnias, printed in Canada, by sea. The intelligence officers laugh: there was essentially no operation. Back then, pirates weren't common at sea, and no one would have been hunting for exotic currency from an unknown country. They loaded tightly sealed blocks of banknotes into the holds, welded the containers shut, and then unloaded them in Mykolaiv... To keep from getting bored, the special forces had fun along the way: a ship would appear in the distance, heading for the vessel carrying the hryvnia, or someone would spot a submarine periscope in the waves... In reality, at that time, being sent abroad was a chance for special forces to earn some hard currency through travel expenses. That was the entire "operation."
There was also a legend about Krutov liberating the ship "Faina" from pirate capture. Unfortunately, the general had nothing to do with it. A year earlier, he had simply flown to London and participated in a protocol meeting with Lloyd's insurers regarding the release of the Ukrainian ore carrier "Panagia."
Another beautiful legend is about Krutov sharing his wealth of experience with the Russians during the liberation of Nord-Ost. In reality, he flew to Moscow with his friend Marchuk after the operation was completed. There, they went to the home of Zaitsev, a legend of the all-Union Alpha Group, chatted like veterans, drank 50 grams of alcohol, and then departed.
Krutov had never been in a real fight in his life...
Krutov the scientist
Vasily Vasilyevich is the author of over 70 works on national security and counterterrorism. He earned his doctorate in the field of counterterrorism. His doctoral dissertation, "Theoretical, Legal, and Tactical Foundations of Counterterrorism," was prepared by a team. However, the preliminary evaluation of the team's work, which was obviously not very generously compensated, was disappointing: it became clear that the work would not pass the admissions committee's rigorous examination. A novel solution was then found: the work was classified. Since there were only four specialists in Ukraine on the "secret" topic of the dissertation, Vasily Vasilyevich found common ground with them and became a Doctor of Law (1998) and later a professor (2001).
But the story of Krutov's PhD thesis is even more amusing. The topic: "Special Methodology for Countering Armed Criminals by Special Forces Personnel." Simply put, it outlined a method for a soldier to deflect a bullet and close in on an adversary. The author himself repeatedly stated among specialists that his scientific development had saved the lives of hundreds of special forces soldiers. The essence of this general's scientist's discovery: a soldier should carefully watch the enemy's gaze. Before pulling the trigger, the shooter's pupils constrict, and a change in physiognomy occurs, noticeable only to a specialist. It is in those split seconds between pulling the trigger and the bullet's flight that the soldier should evade and close in... All attempts by professionals to find soldiers who had mastered Krutov's method of evading bullets have failed. Interestingly, Krutov's PhD thesis supervisor was A.I. Laputin, a professor at the Institute of Physical Education. This coincided with his daughter's employment at the SBU, where she managed to change 26 jobs during the reporting period.
Recently, Vasily Krutov, speaking to SBU cadets, announced that he was completing the 11th volume of his landmark work, "The Path to Truth, the Path to Oneself." It seems Vasily Vasilyevich is not content to limit himself to his anti-terrorist discoveries and is striving to create a new religion that will provide definitive answers to all questions of the universe. You've probably guessed: Krutov has already found these answers.
Krutov and the ATO
On April 14 of this year, during the most critical days of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the country's new leadership decided to reverse the sluggish and unproductive operation to suppress the separatists. They couldn't think of a better way to do this than by appointing Vasyl Krutov as head of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). We already wrote back then that this was a very strange appointment, and the worst possible choice of leader. For all the praise for Krutov as a great strategist and fighter against terrorists is a myth, as every intelligence officer knows. For some reason, this remained a secret for the country's leadership... This personnel error was quickly corrected: on July 7, Krutov was stripped of all his positions—head of the ATO and first deputy head of the SBU. No explanation or statement was issued. We will fill this information gap.
As evidenced by senior security officials who automatically found themselves under Krutov's command as the ATO commander, he rushed into battle, to the front lines, from the very first days, and then suddenly became a desk-bound leader. The secret behind this abrupt change has been revealed to us.
So, having barely assumed office, Krutov convened a meeting, and within five minutes, he had dismissed the officers with little combat experience, of which he had little, and, in the quiet of his office, began developing plans to save the fatherland with a couple of close associates. The country froze in anticipation of the results of the ATO leadership change, but no victory reports arrived.
Krutov's first decision as head of the ATO was to order the Alpha and Omega special forces to "Get ready!" The formidable general ordered the plane to depart for the combat zone—Donetsk. When the plane landed on the runway of Donetsk Airport, Krutov looked quite confused. He likely didn't know or had forgotten that the airport was surrounded by separatists and shelling could begin at any moment. Meanwhile, personnel from the elite SBU units were waiting inside the plane. Krutov quickly corrected his mistake and ordered them to fly far away from this hell—to Kharkiv. Observers speculate that Krutov simply confused Donetsk with Kharkiv.
There, the fighters boarded buses and headed to Izyum. Approaching separatist-controlled territory, Krutov decided to speak with the personnel and assign them a combat mission. At the general's command, the column stopped at a gas station on the side of the highway. All the fighters formed a square, armed. It was a spectacular sight. Drivers of passing vehicles, many of whom were likely separatist sympathizers, observed this spectacle. A single well-aimed grenade launcher shot at the gas station was enough to deprive the SBU of its combat elite. Vasily Vasilyevich was gently advised that it wouldn't hurt to move away from the highway and the explosive gas station. Only then did the fighters line up in a field, 300 meters from the gas station, to listen to the general's wise instructions.
Krutov was brief. He set a clear objective: a daring 20-kilometer forced march to approach the enemy checkpoint and storm it! "And then what, Comrade General?" the unit commanders asked timidly. "What do you mean? Back at the same brisk pace!" It somehow didn't occur to the general that a 40-kilometer forced march in full combat gear through uncontrolled territory, without reconnaissance, without support, without armored escort, with the unclear goal of capturing one of the many checkpoints, could end disastrously for the special forces. The men grumbled. Krutov angrily called off the reckless operation, everyone boarded the plane, and returned to Kyiv. After that, Vasily Vasilyevich preferred to direct the war from his office.
Meanwhile, the separatists, with the support of Moscow's strategists, were rapidly gaining strength, fortifying their positions in captured settlements, and killing Ukrainians... Alas, we don't know the military secrets of the ATO, but we dare to suggest that the turning point in the war in the east coincided, not coincidentally, with the quiet resignation of General Krutov.
We can be sure that Vasily Vasilyevich will not be held accountable for his negligence and unprofessionalism, and will not be stripped of his ranks, awards, or general's pension. After all, he didn't appoint himself to the position of ATO commander (like all the previous ones).
And here we must ask one important question, the reason we wrote this text: how are appointments made in general? And not just in the military sphere. It's just that during wartime, such personnel errors are especially noticeable, and the people pay for them with their own blood. And which of the leaders will pay for this personnel blunder?
SUBJECT
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