The Solovetsky raid occurred on 15 March 1981 when the United States mounted an all-out assault on a secret Soviet base in the White Sea's Solovetsky Islands to prevent the Soviet spymaster "Perseus" from broadcasting detonation sequences for nuclear bombs hidden within Europe's capitals as part of America's top-secret "Operation Greenlight" contingency plan. A small fleet of US Navy ships was dispatched to the Arctic before launching helicopters bearing US Marines and CIA "Black Ops" operatives, who made use of Marrakesh assault vehicles provided by the Americans' KGB mole Dimitri Belikov to assault the Solovetsky Monastery following an EMP explosion. The Americans were able to knock out the base's anti-aircraft guns during the window provided by the EMP blast, enabling American bombers to destroy the radio towers and the rest of the Soviet base, thus preventing Perseus from destroying Europe.
Background[]
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet spymaster "Perseus", a hardline Stalinist bent on bringing about complete Soviet domination in Europe, assembled a powerful spy ring that included defectors from rival intelligence agencies, communist sleeper agents and politicians in Western Europe and America, and even American scientists who had worked on Operation Greenlight. Greenlight, a top-secret program initiated in 1958, involved the United States' secret deployment of nuclear bombs to capital cities across Europe so that, in the event of a Soviet surprise attack on NATO and the fall of European capitals, the United States could detonate the nuclear bombs as part of a "scorched earth" policy to repel the Soviet invaders. In 1974, the Greenlight bombs were upgraded to high-yield neutron combs capable of destroying life while simultaneously preserving infrastructure.
In January 1981, the East Berlin-based Russian Mafia boss (and Perseus' lieutenant) Anton Volkov discovered a Greenlight nuke hidden under Berlin, and he smuggled the nuke to an abandoned compound in Cuba, where Perseus dispatched scientists to reverse-engineer its launch codes to grant him access to America's entire Greenlight arsenal. The American CIA caught wind of Perseus' continued threat after interrogating Iranian terrorist Arash Kadivar at Turkey's Trabzon Airfield on 13 January 1981, and they raided Berlin on 24 February 1981 and discovered from Volkov that Perseus had smuggled a nuclear device through East Berlin. They also used coordinates from Volkov's dossier to discover a remote Soviet base in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine, which they raided on 27 February 1981 before printing out the Soviets' Greenlight data and discovering Perseus' plan to destroy Europe and frame America for the nuclear bombings. Over the next two weeks, the CIA engaged in a series of international operations to take down Perseus' sleeper cells in America and Europe, to assassinate his spy ring handler Vadim Rudnik, and to track down the missing nuke, following the trail of Greenlight scientist Theodore Hastings to Cuba on 13 March. There, Perseus was narrowly able to escape aboard a helicopter after shooting all of the scientists, having already obtained the launch codes. Through an interrogation of one of Perseus' former lieutenants, whom they had brainwashed into becoming a CIA operative and codenamed "Bell", the CIA learned that Perseus planned to broadcast the launch codes from the safety of the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea.
Operation[]
With Europe on the brink of annihilation, President Ronald Reagan authorized a final operation to prevent Perseus from detonating the nuclear bombs. A US Navy aircraft carrier and two destroyers were dispatched to the White Sea, carrying UH-1 Iroquois helicopters that would transport teams of US Marines and CIA "Black Ops" operatives to the Solovetsky Monastery, which the Soviets had transformed into a secret base. Once inserted on the island, the Americans boarded Marrakesh assault vehicles provided by their KGB contact Dimitri Belikov. The American assault began after a Starfish missile exploded directly over the monastery, disabling its radio towers for ten minutes. The CIA team, led by Russell Adler, went in to knock out the anti-aircraft guns and give the American planes a clean shot at the radio towers. The Americans fought their way through Spetsnaz special forces before destroying the AA guns with C4 explosives. The Americans proceeded to flee the monastery as bomber planes leveled the entire area, destroying the radio towers and the rest of Perseus' base.
Aftermath[]
The raid put an end to Perseus' scheme and forced the spymaster into hiding; in 1984, the existence of Operation Greenlight was publicly disclosed, and, by 1988 the last 300 "special atomic demolition munitions" ("tactical nukes", or SADMs) owned by the United States were withdrawn from the NATO arsenal and the last SADM weapon was officially retired in 1989. CIA strategist Emerson Black reported to President Reagan that the CIA had seen signs of confusion from the Russian leadership, as it was likely that Perseus may have been a rogue agent who was not following orders from Moscow, hence the secrecy of his actions and his previous inability to access the sleeper cell files in the basement of KGB headquarters, which the CIA obtained during a daring raid. Perseus died of cancer in 1983, and his protege Vikhor Kuzmin took his place as head of the spy ring and embarked on one final attempt to carry out his mentor's plans, partly through kidnapping Russell Adler, only for the CIA to kill him in Donetsk in 1984.