The Verkhovna Rada has passed a law allowing up to 10,000 more fighters to serve in the Alpha Center for Special Operations of the Security Service of Ukraine.
This was reported by Roman Kostenko, the initiator of the bill, colonel of the SBU, and secretary of the Rada’s Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda.
“We have officially set the personnel size of the Alpha special unit at 10,000 fighters. Right now, CSO ‘A’ is responsible for eliminating roughly 10% of enemy targets out of all the Defense Forces — both on the front line and behind enemy lines. For example, Alpha fighters carried out Operation “Spider Web” and regularly strike Russian oil refineries. Currently, CSO “A” consists of only a few thousand personnel, while the total number of Defense Forces is around one million. With this law, we aim to double or even triple Alpha’s effectiveness”
According to the SBU colonel, many volunteers want to join CSO “A,” but there aren’t enough positions available. In fact, to staff the unit, some positions had to be reallocated from other branches of the Security Service of Ukraine.
Kostenko believes the newly adopted law will help solve this problem.
He notes that the number of Alpha fighters is now officially set at 10,000 both during wartime and peacetime, as “after the war on the battlefield ends, the war between intelligence services will only begin.”
“The law also grants the Security Service of Ukraine the legal right to use all types of weaponry in accordance with their assigned missions”, Kostenko adds.
311 members of parliament voted in favor of the bill in its second reading during the July 16 session.
Tags: Apha special forces SBU
