The Interior Ministry special units like OMON are especially close to everyday life now, as they are acting as riot police and SWAT type forces, so they are even less likely to be called spetsnaz.

The majority of Russia's special police officers belong to OMON units, but these are mostly used as riot police and are not considered an elite force, unlike the SOBR ( OMSN ) rapid-response units that are consisting of experienced officers who are better trained and equipped than those of OMON.

* OMON, special units of Russian police

In addition to Alpha Group, General Karpukhin was also given authority of Vega Group ( Vympel ), elements of the Soviet Airborne, internal security units of the Dzerzhinsky Division ( OMSDON ), mobilized units of the Moscow OMON, three tank companies, and a squadron of helicopters.

Yazov was responsible for deployment of Russian OMON commando units to Latvia and Lithuania in early 1991.

Some units may have the distinctive names ( like OMON in Russia ) which are more specific than militsiya or militsioner.

OMON (; Otryad Mobilinii Osobovo Naznacheniya, Special Purpose Mobile Unit ) ( ОМОН ) is a generic name for the system of special units of Politsiya ( police ) within the Russian and earlier the Soviet MVD ( Ministry of Internal Affairs ).

As of 2008, there is an OMON unit in every oblast of Russia, as well as in many major cities ; for example, there is an OMON unit within the Moscow City police department, and two separate units within Moscow Oblast police department.

Following the Russia's 2011 Militsiya reform, part of which was its renaming to Politsiya ( police ), the Russian OMON units were to be renamed Distinctive Purpose Teams ( KON ), while OMSN would become Special Purpose Teams ( KSN ).

It was announced that such Special Purpose Centers for Rapid Deployment forces will be also created in Russian regions, to include regional OMON and OMSN units.

The OMON system itself is the successor of that group and was founded in 1987, with the commando duties largely taken over by the SOBR ( dangerous criminals ) and Vityaz ( counter-terrorism ) units of the MVD.

The OMON units were initially used as the riot police used to control and stop demonstrations and hooliganism, as well as other emergency situations, but later became accustomed to a wider range of police operations, including cordon and street patrol actions, and even paramilitary and military-style operations.

* The April – May 1991 Operation Ring by the Azerbaijan SSR OMON and the Soviet Army against the Armenian irregular units in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, resulting in several dozen people killed and the forced displacement of thousands of ethnic Armenians.

* Prior to the creation of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the bulk of the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh on the Azeri side was conducted by the post-Soviet OMON units and irregular forces.

* The Moscow OMON and units brought from the other cities clashed with the anti-Yeltsin demonstrators order during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, reportedly even beating up some members of the Supreme Soviet of Russia ( the Russian parliament at the time ).

Almost every Russian city sends, on a regular basis, small units of police ( often composed of OMON members ) for tours of duty in Chechnya lasting several months, while the Chechen Republic also formed its own OMON detachment.

In the bloodiest incident, at least 24 Russian OMON officers were killed and more than 30 wounded when two units ( from Podolsk and Sergiyev Posad ) fired on each other in Grozny on 2 March 2000.

Balaklava became a part of standard OMON ( special police task force ) uniform as early as during Perestroyka years of late 1980s.

OMON originated in 1979, when the first group was founded in preparation for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, to ensure that there were no terrorist attacks like the Munich massacre during the 1972 Summer Olympics.

* On 20 January 1991, the Soviet Riga OMON attacked Latvia's Interior Ministry, killing six people during the January 1991 events following the republic's declaration of independence.

* A series of attacks on border outposts of the newly-independent Republic of Lithuania during the January – July 1991, resulting in several summary execution-style deaths of the unarmed customs officers and other people ( including former members of Vilnius OMON ), were attributed to Riga OMON ; some sources say that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had lost control of the unit.

This included the defence of the village of Khojaly by the force of Azeri OMON and volunteers against the Armenian insurgents and the Russian Army forces prior and during the Khojaly massacre on 25 February 1992 ; most of the group involved died during the ensuing slaughter in which several hundred of Azeri civilians died.

* In August 2008, the South Ossetian separatist OMON took part in the fighting with the Georgian national forces during the 2008 South Ossetia war and were accused of " special cruelty " in the ethnic Georgian villages.

In February 1996, a group of 37 officers of the Novosibirsk OMON were captured by the Chechen militants during the Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye hostage crisis ; 17 of them were later swapped for the Chechen fighters captured in the same incident.

In August 1996, group of 30 Chechen OMON members answering to Said-Magomed Kakiyev were reportedly captured and executed in Grozny, the Chechen capital, during the battle for the city.

An OMON detachment from Moscow region took part in the April 1995 rampage in the village of Samashki, during which up to 300 civilians were reportedly killed in the result of a " cleansing operation " conducted there by the MVD forces.

Before and early during the First and Second Chechen Wars, there were also OMON formations belonging the Interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Chechnya's separatist government.

They are also sometimes not paid for their service ( in 2001, for example, some 50 OMON members from Moscow filed the lawsuit claiming they were not paid for one month of combat operations in Chechnya ).

Due to the use of OMON members in high risk situations, especially in Chechnya and elsewhere in North Caucasus, the group often loses members in combat.

Members of OMON are supposed to be extremely fit and experts in small arms and hand-to-hand combat.

SOBR units were composed of senior-ranking police officers, better trained than the members of OMON ( which is a cross between riot police and paramilitary police ), and tasked with SWAT type special operations under the jurisdiction of MVD.

OMON also continues to exist in Belarus and some other post-Soviet territories following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The OMON unit from Saint Petersburg is also believed to be behind the Novye Aldi massacre in which at least 60 civilians were robbed and then killed by the Russian forces entering Grozny in February 2000 ; one officer, Sergei Babin, was reported to be prosecuted in relation to the case in 2005 and then to disappear.

OMON of the Chechen Republic also frequently wear American-made military uniforms similar to these often used by the separatist fighters.

The OMON groups use a wide range of weapons, including but not limited to AK-74 assault rifle, AKS-74U carbine assault rifle, 9A-91 compact assault rifle, and PP-19 Bizon submachine gun.

Among other incidents, several Chechen OMON servicemen were abducted and executed in Grozny by the Russian military servicemen in November 2000, members of the Chechen OMON clashed with the Ingush police on the Chechen-Ingush border resulting in eight fatalities and about 20 injuries in September 2006, and the Ramzan Kadyrov-controlled Chechen OMON clashed with a group of rival Chechens belonging to the Kakiyev's GRU commando unit in Grozny, resulting in five dead and several wounded in 2007.

Two Russian OMON officers stopping a Belarusian LGBT activist Nikolay Alexeyev for an ID control, 2009

In 2007, the Khanty – Mansi OMON officer Sergei Lapin was sentenced for kidnapping and torture of a Chechen man in Grozny in 2001, with the Grozny court criticising the conduct of the OMON serving in Chechnya in broader terms.

* SWAT – The North American model for the initial OMON squads

The Chechen rebels offered to exchange nine recent OMON special police captives for Budanov.

Having arrived too late to break up the party, he, however, discerns Belov's face, and upon returning to his station recognizes him on the wanted poster and immediately calls the OMON ( armed police squad ) for an arrest.