Special Control Service (SSK)
There is a smaller autonomous organization within the main 12th GU MO structure – known as “military unit 46179”, “the Special Control Service of the Defense Ministry,” “atomic intelligence,” or “nuclear intelligence” of the former Soviet Union.
The Special Control Service is tasked with gathering intelligence on nuclear weapons and particularly on nuclear testing of various adversaries of the former USSR by all means – ranging from six technical control methods to analyzing radio-intercepts and periodicals. The Special Control Service was not a part of the 12th GU MO from very beginning, but was formerly a part of the GRU, its 6th Directorate’s department of special observation. However, it was later detached from the GRU and made an independent Special Observation Service of the Defense Ministry. Then it was renamed into a Special Control Service and re-subordinated first to the Directorate of the Commander of the Chemical Troops (the analogue of a standard ABC service in the Soviet Army), and then again re-subordinated to the 12th GU MO.
The Special Control Service has its own network of military units, named “detection laboratories”, each headed by a Colonel, which are situated in many spots inside and outside of the Soviet Union and are all linked to the Service headquarters and to its computation centres by its own secure communication network which is totally independent from the communication network of the 12th GU MO itself.
Read more about this topic: 12th Chief Directorate
Famous quotes containing the words special, control and/or service:
“We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet “welfare” laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.”
—National Woman’s Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“Physical nature lies at our feet shackled with a hundred chains. What of the control of human nature? Do not point to the triumphs of psychiatry, social services or the war against crime. Domination of human nature can only mean the domination of every man by himself.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)