'Secret' US Military Base Near Russian Border Revealed in Documents Mishap

This is not the first time "secret" American bases have accidentally been revealed to the public and their possible opponents as a result of a mishap. Last year, a popular fitness smartphone app published global "hotspots", some of which could only be explained by soldiers stationed at such bases using the app in their training sessions.

While the presence of a NATO contingent in Estonia, a Baltic state on Russia's north-west border, was never a secret, the presence of American troops at an alleged covert base apparently was a well-guarded secret. The "secrecy" of the place was blown, however, by a local broadcaster, ERR, after one of its journalists simply studied the US Department of Defence (DoD) public records.

Although the papers did try to conceal the fact that Washington has a military base there by calling it an "unspecified training, operations facility", it never hid the country where it was located. The latter unwittingly gave away the "secrecy" of the site since the US never acknowledged having military facilities in Estonia, where officially only NATO troops from the UK at the Tapa base are deployed.

According to the DoD documents, the $15.7 million allocated to the development of the Estonian military base, will be used for the construction of a number of facilities, including barracks, arms vaults, and a weapons cleaning area.

 

© REUTERS / Ints Kalnins

U.S., Estonia's and NATO flags flutter next to the U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II fighter in Amari air base, Estonia, April 25, 2017

After a half-year investigation, journalists from ERR managed to get on the "secret" base's territory, which reportedly accommodates a regiment of US Special Forces on rotation. According to Kevin Stringer, a US Army colonel cited by the broadcaster, the base was established in 2014 after relations between neighbouring Russia and the West began their downward spiral.

This is not the first time secretive American military bases have been exposed by accident or lack of oversight. In November 2017, a popular fitness tracking application for smartphones, Strava, published the global heatmap of the app's most active users. To many users' and netizens' surprise, some of the hotspots were located not in cities or sport centres, but were in the middle of nowhere.

Since some of these spots coincided with military bases, specifically belonging to the US, several media outlets alleged the app was being used by some soldiers in their training sessions. Thus the remaining unattributed hotspots could also "belong" to "secret" US bases.

Source: https://sputniknews.com/military/201909051076726850-secret-us-military-base-near-russian-border-revealed-in-documents-mishap/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com

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British Army Soldier Reacts to Spetsnaz (Russian Special Forces)

 In this Video Kevin Drake reacts to Spetsnaz (Russian Special Forces)...

My craziest reaction so far! At the end I also explain my channel changes and reasons why.

 Spetsnaz is an umbrella term for special purpose in Russian and is used in numerous post-Soviet states.

Historically, the term referred to special operations units controlled by the main military intelligence service GRU (Spetsnaz GRU). It also describes task forces of other ministries (such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs ODON and Ministry of Emergency Situations' special rescue unit) in post-Soviet countries. Russian special forces wear different berets depending on the branch of the armed forces they belong to.

These include:
• Ground forces and Airborne Troops (VDV) - Blue Beret
• Russian Navy and Russian Marines - Black Beret
• National Guard - Maroon Beret

As Spetsnaz is a Russian term, it is typically associated with the special units of Russia, but other post-Soviet states often refer to their special forces units by the term as well, since these nations also inherited their special purpose units from the now-defunct Soviet security agencies. The 5th Spetsnaz Brigade of Belarus or the Alpha Group of the Security Service of Ukraine are both such examples of non-Russian Spetsnaz forces.

 Special Forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (Russian: Части и подразделения специального назначения (спецназ) Главного управления Генерального штаба Вооружённых сил Российской Федерации (СпН ГУ ГШ ВС РФ)), commonly known as the Spetsnaz G.U. or Spetsnaz GRU is the special forces (spetsnaz) of the G.U., the foreign military intelligence agency of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

 The Spetsnaz GRU was formed in 1949, the first spetsnaz force in the Soviet Union, as the military force of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), the foreign military intelligence agency of the Soviet Armed Forces. The force was designed in the context of the Cold War to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage against enemy targets in the form of special reconnaissance and direct action attacks. The Spetsnaz GRU inspired additional spetsnaz forces attached to other Soviet intelligence agencies, such as the Vympel and Alpha Group of the KGB.

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Spetsnaz GRU remained intact until 2010, when it was reassigned to the Ground Forces.[2] In 2013, the Special Operations Forces of the General Staff were established.

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