Editing Spetsnaz (section)

====Russian invasion of Ukraine====
{{Main| Russian invasion of Ukraine}}

Russian Spetsnaz units have been used in the [[Russian invasion of Ukraine]] beginning in early 2022, they were initially tasked with going after high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including president [[Volodymyr Zelenskyy]] in order to decapitate the Ukrainian command and control structure, with the objective being to foster chaos. Like other Russian plans during the start of the invasion, the Russian Spetsnaz failed to take out Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership.<ref name="x160">{{cite web | last=Atlamazoglou | first=Stavros | title=Russia's Elite Spetsnaz Special Forces 'Devastated' in Ukraine War | website=The National Interest | date=31 October 2024 | url=https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia%E2%80%99s-elite-spetsnaz-special-forces-devastated-ukraine-war-213488 | access-date=31 October 2024}}</ref>

The Russian military was not dissuaded by the failure, and continued to use spetsnaz in the conflict, particularly deploying them when conventional Russian forces faced significant resistance. This caused the heavy attrition rate suffered by the Russian forces to also reach the Russian Spetsnaz, according to a Pentagon leak in April 2023, all but one of five Spetsnaz brigades that had participated in the war had suffered significant losses by late summer 2022. According to the estimate, one of the separate Spetsnaz brigades in question had only ″125 personnel active out of 900 deployed.″ The casualties were expected to have increased following the [[2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive|Ukrainian counteroffensive]] in September 2022 that liberated hundreds of square miles of territory in a few days, during this offensive, the GRU's Third Guards Spetsnaz Brigade, considered one of the most elite Russian units, was caught in the retreat and had to fight a defensive action in the town of [[Lyman, Ukraine|Lyman]]. A report by the BBC assessed that the Spetsnaz unit lost up to 75% of its men during this action.<ref name="x160"/><ref name="n569">{{cite web | last=Porter | first=Tom | title=Russia's prized Spetsnaz commando units have suffered a 95% casualty rate in Ukraine, leaked documents and photos show | website=Business Insider | date=14 April 2023 | url=https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-spetsnatz-units-suffer-95-casualty-rate-in-ukraine-leaks-2023-4 | access-date=31 October 2024}}</ref><ref name="r491">{{cite web | title=Pentagon leaks: Russian special forces decimated by Ukraine war | website=Al Jazeera | date=14 April 2023 | url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/14/pentagon-leaks-russian-special-forces-decimated-by-ukraine-war | access-date=31 October 2024}}</ref>

The high amount of losses suffered in Ukraine are expected to leave a strategic capability gap, since special forces unlike conventional units cannot be ″mass-produced″, the leaked Pentagon documents estimated that it would take Russia up to ten years to reconstitute its special operations capability, and this estimate referred to outdated 2022 figures. Although there are no figures concerning Spetsnaz losses after the summer of 2022, the extremely heavy losses suffered by the entire Russian forces suggest that Spetsnaz units have continued to take significant losses in the invasion.<ref name="x160"/><ref name="r491"/>