OMON

OMON (Russian: Отряд милиции особого назначения; Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya, Special Purpose Police Unit) (ОМОН) is a generic name for the system of special units of militsiya (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 a separate unit within Moscow Oblast police department. Their motto is "We know no mercy and do not ask for any." OMON also continues to exist in Belarus and some other post-Soviet territories following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

History
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. Subsequently, the unit was utilized in emergencies such as high-risk arrests, hostage crises, as well as in response to acts of terrorism. The OMON detachments were often manned by former soldiers of the Soviet Army and veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

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.

High-profile operations
On January 20, 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. Seven OMON members were subsequently found guilty by the Riga District Court and received suspended sentences.
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. Lithuanian government continues to demand that the persons suspected in these incidents should be tried in Lithuania; one suspect was arrested in Latvia in November 2008.
Violent and often armed clashes between the Georgian SSR's OMON and the opponents of the first Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia prior to the Georgian Civil War of 1991-1993.
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. 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 February 25, 1992; most of the group involved died during the ensuing slaughter in which several hundred of Azeri civilians died.
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).
Cordon duties during the Russia's mass hostage crises, including the 1995 Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis, the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis and the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis.
Breaking up of several opposition rallies (including Dissenters' Marches since 2006), sparking reports of police brutality, including excessive use of force and arbitrary detention of participants. In November 2007, the brutal actions of OMON against peaceful demonstrators and arrests of opposition figures were harshly criticised by the European Union institutions and governments.
On March 24, 2006, Belarusian OMON stormed the democratic opposition's tent camp at the Minsk October Square without provocation, violently ending the peaceful Jeans Revolution against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. Thousands of people were beaten and hundreds detained as the result of the attack, including the opposition's presidential candidate Alaksandr Kazulin.
In June 2007, the Moscow OMON prevented the gay rights activists (including the European Parliament members) from demonstrating the parade by detaining the activists. This is because they were instructed to do so, as the mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov did not allow the parade to take place.
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. Subsequently, South Ossetian OMON fighters were included into Russian regular forces in area as a contract soldiers and continued to be deployed in the highly-disputed Akhalgori zone.