| Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska Air-Landing Forces |
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VDV medium emblem. |
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| Active | 1930s – present |
| Country | Soviet Union (until 1991) Russian Federation |
| Allegiance | Supreme Commander-in-Chief |
| Type | Airborne Forces |
| Role | Light infantry, airborne infantry, airmobile infantry, peacekeepers |
| Size | 35000[1] |
| Nickname | Blue Berets, Winged Infantry |
| Motto | Russian: Никто, кроме нас.
English: Nobody, but us |
| Colors | Sky Blue |
| Anniversaries | August 2 – Day of Desantniks |
| Engagements | World War II Afghan War First Chechen War Second Chechen War 2008 South Ossetia war |
| Commanders | |
| Current commander |
General-Lieutenant Vladimir Shamanov |
| Notable commanders |
V. F. Margelov |
The Russian Airborne Troops or VDV (from "Vozdushno-Desantnye Voiska", Russian: Воздушно-десантные войска = ВДВ; Air-landing Forces) is a military branch of service of the Russian Military, on par with the Strategic Rocket Forces and the Russian Space Forces. First formed before World War II, the force undertook two significant airborne operations and a number of smaller jumps during the war and for many years after 1945 was the largest airborne force in the world.[2] Their motto is "Nobody, but us".
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The word desánt, as used in the Vozdushno-Desantnye Vojska, is a borrowing of the French descente (‘debarkation’ or ‘landing’). It is also used by the Russian Ground Forces for the desantno-shturmoviye batal′ony (Russian: десантно-штурмовые батальоны), the airmobile assault battalions, and by the Russian Naval Infantry in voyenno-morskoy desant (Russian: военно-морской десант), an amphibious landing. The airborne, air-assault, and amphibious troops of all services are referred to as desantniki, which literally means ‘those who land’. The term desant is defined by Radzievskii as:
Troops intended for landing, or which have already landed on enemy-occupied territory for the purpose of conducting combat operations. According to the transportation method used, a landing force may be amphibious, airborne, or combined; and according to its scale and purpose, such a force may be strategic, operational, or tactical.[3]
The concept of desant is linked with the Russian doctrinal emphasis on flanking maneuvers.
The first airborne forces parachute jump is dated to 2 August 1930, taking place in the Moscow Military District. After this the airborne forces were created as a force during the mid 1930s, but only expanded on a significant scale during World War II. They then formed up to ten Airborne Corps with numerous Independent Airborne Brigades, with most or all achieving "Guards" status. The Soviet airborne forces were mostly used as 'leg' infantry during the war. Only a few small airborne drops were carried out in the first desperate days of Operation Barbarossa, in the vicinity of Kiev, Odessa, and the Kerch peninsula.[4] The two significant airborne operations of the war were the Vyazma operation of February–March 1942, involving 4th Airborne Corps, and the Dnepr/Kiev operation of September 1943, involving a temporary corps formation consisting of 1st, 3rd, and 5th Airborne Brigades.[5]
9th Guards Army was eventually formed with three Guards Rifle Corps (37th, 38th, and 39th) being composed of airborne divisions. At the end of the war the airborne divisions were reconstituted as Guards Rifle Divisions.
Source soldat.ru forums.[6]
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During October 1944 the three Guards Airborne Corps were formed into the Independent Guards Airborne Army. In December this Army was renamed into the 9th Guards Army.[7]
HQ 9th Guards Army was redesignated Headquarters Airborne Forces soon after the war ended. The units of the Army were removed from the order of battle of the Air Forces of USSR and assigned directly to the Ministry of Armed Forces of USSR.
The creation of the post-war Soviet Airborne Forces owe much to the efforts of one man, Army General Vasily Filipovich Margelov, so much so that the abbreviation of VDV in the Airborne Forces is sometimes waggishly interpreted as "Войска дяди Васи", "Uncle Vasya's Troops".
The 37th, 38th, and 39th Corps survived for a while, and in 1946 the force consisted of five corps (the 8th and 15th had been added) and ten divisions:[9]
In the summer of 1948, five more Airborne Divisions were created. The 7th (Lithuania, 8th Airborne Corps), the 11th (presumably in the Moscow Military District, 38th Airborne Corps), the 13th (in the Transbaikal, with the 37th Airborne Corps), the 21st (Estonia, Valga, with the 15th Airborne Corps), and the 31st (Carpathians, 39th Airborne Corps). At the end of 1955 and the beginning of 1956 the 11th, 21st, 100th and 114th Airborne Division were disbanded as well as all the airborne corps headquarters.[11] The number of divisions, thus, decreased to 11. In April 1955 the transport aircraft were separated from the VDV and the Air Force Military Transport Aviation was created. In 1959 the 31st and 107th Airborne Divisions were disbanded, but in October 1960 the 44th Training Airborne Division was formed. In 1964 the Airborne Forces were directly subordinated to the Ministry of Defence.
Airborne units of two divisions (7th and 31st Guards) were used during Soviet operations in Hungary during 1956, and the 7th Guards division was used again during 1968 operations in Czechoslovakia. The first experimental air assault brigade – the 1st Airborne [Airmobile/Air Assault] Brigade – was apparently activated in 1967/1968 from parts of the 51st Guards Parachute Landing Regiment (PDP) (Tula), after the Russian had been impressed by the American experiences in Vietnam.[12] In 1973 the 13th and 99th Airborne Divisions were reorganised as air assault brigades, and thus the number of divisions dropped to eight.[11] There were also several independent brigades, regiments and battalions. However, even by the 1980s only two divisions were capable of being deployed for combat operations in the first wave against NATO using Air Force Military Transport Aviation and Aeroflot aircraft.[13]
In accordance with a directive of the General Staff, from August 3, 1979, to December 1, 1979, the 105th Guards Vienna Airborne Division was disbanded. From the division remained in the city of Fergana the 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment (much stronger than the usual regimental size) with the separate 115th military-transport aviation squadron. The rest of the personnel of the division were reassigned to fill out other incomplete airborne units and formations and to the newly formed air assault brigades. Based on the 351st Guards Parachute Regiment, 105th Guards Vienna Airborne Division, the 56th Guards Separate Air Assault Brigade was formed in para Azadbash (district Chirchik) Tashkent Oblast, Uzbek SSR.
However there was also a mistaken Western belief, either intentional Soviet deception or stemming from confusion in the West, that an Airborne Division, reported as the 6th, was being maintained in the Far East in the 1980s.[14] This maskirovka division was then 'disbanded' later in the 1980s, causing comment within Western professional journals that another division was likely to be reformed so that the Far East had an airborne presence.[15] The division was not listed in V.I. Feskov et al.'s The Soviet Army during the period of the Cold War, (2004) and the nearest division ever active, the 99th Guards Airborne Svirsk Red Banner Division based at Ussuriysk, was broken up to form separate air assault brigades (parts of the 11th, 13th, and 83rd Brigades) in 1973.[16]
In 1989, the Airborne Forces consisted of:
With the demise of the Soviet Union, the number of VDV divisions has shrunk from seven to four, as well as one brigade and the brigade-sized training centre:[19]
The 11th Air Assault Brigade in the Central Military District (former Siberian Military District) and the 56th Air Assault Regiment in the Southern Military District (former North Caucasus Military District) are partially infantry formations reporting directly to the military districts they are stationed in.[20] The VDV's training institute is the Ryazan Institute for the Airborne Troops named for General of the Army V.F. Margelov.[21] In addition, in the mid-late 1990s, the former 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment was stationed in Gudauta, Abkhazia AR, Georgia. It later became the 10th Independent Peacekeeping Airborne Regiment. The unit was further designated the 50th Military Base.
In the early 1990s, General Pavel Grachev, the first Russian Defence Minister, planned for the VDV to form the core of the planned Mobile Forces. This was announced in Krasnaya Zvezda ('Red Star,') the Ministry of Defence's daily newspaper, in July 1992. However, the Mobile Forces plan never eventuated. The number of formations available for the force was far less than anticipated, since much of the Airborne Forces had been 'nationalised' by the republics their units had been previously based in, and other arms of service, such as the GRU and Military Transport Aviation, who were to provide the airlift component, were adamantly opposed to ceding control of their forces.[22]
After an experimental period, the 104th Parachute Regiment of 76th Airborne Division became the first Russian ground forces regiment that was fully composed of professional soldiers (and not of "srochniki" – the conscripted soldiers aged eighteen). It was announced that the 98th Airborne Division is also earmarked for contract manning, and by September 2006, it was confirmed that 95% of the units of the 98th Division had shifted to contract manning.[23]
The VDV divisions are equipped with armoured fighting vehicles, artillery and anti-aircraft guns, trucks and jeeps. Thus VDV units possess superior mobility and firepower with these vehicles. Each division has both regiments equipped with them and their derivatives. (Each division used to have three regiments, but the 106th was the last, and lost its third regiment in 2006.) With the reduction in forces after 1991, the 61st Air Army, Russia's military air transport force, has enough operational heavy transport aircraft to move one airborne division, manned at peacetime standards, in two-and-a-half lifts.[24] The single independent brigade, the 31st at Ulyanovsk, however, is not equipped with its own armor or artillery and may be equivalent to Western airborne troops, in that it functions as light infantry and must walk when reaching their destination. The 31st was the former 104th Guards Airborne Division.
VDV troops participated in the rapid deployment of Russian forces stationed in Bosnian city Ugljevik, in and around Pristina airport during the Kosovo War. They also were deployed in Chechnya as an active bridgehead for other forces to follow.
Russian airborne troops had their own holiday during the Soviet era, which continues to be celebrated on the 2nd of August.
One of their most prized distinguishing marks is their Telnyashka shirt (another, maybe even more emblematic, is a blue beret. VDV soldiers are often called "blue berets").
Notable former Airborne Forces officers include Aleksandr Lebed, who was involved in responses to disorder in the Caucasus republics in the last years of the Soviet Union, and Pavel Grachev who went on to become the first Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation. PRIDE heavyweight mixed martial arts fighter Sergei Kharitonov, went to the Airborne Troops academy in Ryazan', and remains on active duty with the Russian Airborne Troops.
Since 2008, women have been allowed to serve in the VDV, in combat positions, including as officers, after finishing the academy.
On 26 May 2009 Lieutenant-General Vladimir Anatolevich Shamanov became the new commander of the VDV, replacing Lieutenant-General Valeriy Yevtukhovich who was being discharged to the reserve. Shamanov is twice decorated as a "Hero of Russia" for his combat role in the campaigns in Chechnya. His previous posts are the chief of the combat training directorate and commander of the 58th Army. His most recent post was chief of the main combat training directorate.[25] General Shamanov and the acting commander of the 106th Airborne Division were severely injured in a car crash on 30 October 2010. The general's driver was killed.[26]
On 28 January 2010, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the VDV's air components had been placed under the VVS.[27]
Under the 2008 reform programme, the four existing two-regiment divisions should have been transformed into 7-8 air-assault brigades. However once general Shamanov became CinC of the VDV, it was decided to keep the original structure. The divisions have been beefed up and there are now four independent airborne/air-assault brigades, one for each military district.[28] The 332nd School for Praporshchiks of the VDV (Russian: 332 Школа прапорщиков ВДВ) in Moscow was disbanded in December 2009 (also under the 2008 reform programme, all praporshchik (WO) posts in the Russian Armed Forces have been eliminated).
Personal firearms and crew served weapons
Armoured Vehicles
Unlike the rest of the mechanized units, which use variety of APCs and IFVs such as the BMP series, BTR series and MT-LB, the VDV uses exclusively BMD family vehicles. There are over 1,800 armored fighting vehicles, mostly BMD-1 (since 1969) and BMD-2 (since 1985). There were also over 100 BMD-3 (1990) that were partially upgraded to BMD-4 level. All of them are amphibious, moving at around 10 km/h in water. BMD-4 is also capable of full, continuous fire while in the deep water, unlike any other vehicle with such heavy weaponry (100mm gun and 30mm auto cannon).
There is also a turret-less variant of the BMD-1, the BTR-D, which is used as troop carrier and severs as the basis for specialised versions such as anti-tank, command and signals. The BTR-D will partially be replaced by the new multi-purpose APC BTR-MD "Rakushka" that will also come in several different versions. As part of the 2011 state defence order (GOZ), 10 BMD-4M and 10 "Rakushka's" have been ordered, but according to the VDV's CinC General Colonel Shamanov, Kurganmashzavod did not give a guarantee it would produce them.[29]
Artillery
The airborne self-propelled artillery guns ASU-57 and ASU-85 have been withdrawn. They had light armour and limited anti-tank capability, but provided invaluable fire support for paratroopers behind enemy lines (the caliber of the gun is the number next to ASU designation in mm).
Also withdrawn were the multiple rocket launch systems RPU-14 (8U38) of 140mm and the BM-21V "Grad-V" (9P125) of 122mm on GAZ-66, as well as the 85mm gun SD-44.
Today the VDV operates the following systems:
Other Vehicles
The VDV is equipped with numerous types of airborne capable trucks and jeeps, for example the Ural-4320, the GAZ-66V and the UAZ-3151 for transporting cargo, specialist crews and equipment (e.g. mortars, ammunitions), but not infantry (all fighting paratroopers are transported in armoured vehicles). Currently the GAZ-66 is being replaced by the KAMAZ-43501-VDV 4x4.[30][31]
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