Cossack Detachment
Closer to January, on the initiative of Albastov, the Ataman of the Grozny department of the Tersk Cossack Division, the GRU leadershup agreed the formation of a parallel Cossack spetsnaz detachment. But in its first stages it acted independently from its Chechen counterpart.
Karl Andreevich Gerter, an atamann of Yakutsk Stanitsa was one of the first to join the division. An excellent hunter and mountaineer, he first served in the First Chechen War, as a Serjeant, when the reserve officers hadn't been called up. Keen to fight, he hid his officer's rank from the recruitment office. In the second campaign, this time in the Spetsnaz, he again became a senior lieutenant, deputy group commander.
Later, when he was 46 years old, he gained the rank of captain and special forces group commander. He also brought with him the Cossacks who were part of his group. These units were usually composed of the ataman of a stanitsa, and a group of between 9-12 men. They would come from all across Russia and even Belarus. Many Cossacks had no military special military training. They acted in ways deemed unusual, non-traditional, even by the GRU special forces.
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