They did it for the same reason the US misused the Afghan commandos in that war- because the conventional infantry forces couldn't do their jobs.


Russia's brash invasion plan for Ukraine wasted special-operations units on missions they were not meant to do

Special forces are highly-trained troops reserved for high-value missions. But using them as assault infantry? That's a wasteful way to use a scarce and precious resource.


Yet that is precisely the mistake Moscow made during its invasion of Ukraine, according to a recent report on Russia's planning for the war.


The problem wasn't just that Spetsnaz commandos and other special-operations forces were assigned missions that should have gone to conventional units. The Russian military's focus on creating those elite formations, which pre-dated the war, also stripped the regular infantry of its best soldiers.


"The lack of effective line infantry units caused Spetsnaz units to be deployed mostly as light infantry, which also led to a high level of casualties among these units. Far fewer Spetsnaz were therefore available for special forces missions," according to a study of Russian unconventional-warfare operations in Ukraine by Britain's Royal United Services Institute.


Spetsnaz date back to the early 1960s, when they were tasked with sabotage, assassination, and other missions meant to disrupt NATO defenses in advance of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.


Spetsnaz is distinct from Western special operators in that the Russian focus is on special tasks rather than the "special-ness" of the operators themselves, according to Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian military.