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Special Group "Alpha" is a branch of the Security Service of Ukraine; and a successor of the Soviet Union's Alpha Group.
History
The Soviet Union's Alpha Group was created by the KGB in 1974. One of its units was established in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Kiev Oblast). The Kiev territorial unit of Group "A" was converted into Service "C" of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in 1992. Nevertheless, it has continued to be informally called "Alpha". In April 2014, in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, when Ukraine's Alpha snipers were alleged to shoot at the protesters, it was purged and reorganised, and soon used by the new government against the pro-Russian separatist forces in the War in Donbass. Late April 2014 three officers were captured by members of the Donbass People's Militia armed group led by Igor Strelkov in the town of Horlivka, after which they were beaten up and shown on Russian television; the SBU spokeswoman said the separatists acted on a tip from infiltrators inside the agency. The SBU Alfa defector Alexander Khodakovsky, a former Alfa commander for Donetsk Oblast who has deserted from Ukrainian service along with several of his men following the revolution, became the commander of the rebel Vostok Battalion and later was given the post of security minister of the separatist Donetsk People's Republic.