The Russian Airborne Forces () is the airborne forces branch of the Russian Armed Forces. It was formed in 1992 from units of the Soviet Airborne Forces that came under Russian control following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Troops of the Russian Airborne Forces have traditionally worn a blue beret and blue-striped telnyashka undershirt and are called desant (Russian: Десант), from the French Descente.
The Russian Airborne Forces utilizes a range of specialist airborne warfare vehicles and are fully mechanized. Traditionally they have had a larger complement of heavy weaponry than most contemporary airborne forces.
History
With the end of the Soviet Union, the number of VDV divisions shrank from seven to four, plus four brigades and a brigade-sized training center. In October 2013, Commander-in-Chief of the VDV Vladimir Shamanov announced that a new air assault brigade would be formed in Voronezh in 2016 with the number of the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment. The establishment of the brigade was postponed to 2017–18, according to a June 2015 announcement. It was announced in July 2015 that plans called for the 31st Airborne Brigade to be expanded into the 104th Guards Airborne Division by 2023, and for an additional airborne regiment to be attached to each division.
The 11th Air Assault Brigade in the Central Military District (formerly the Siberian Military District) and the 56th Air Assault Brigade in the Southern Military District (formerly the North Caucasus Military District) were partially infantry formations reporting directly to the military districts they are stationed in. The VDV's training institute is the Ryazan Institute for the Airborne Forces named for General of the Army V.F. Margelov. In addition, in the mid-late 1990s, the former 345th 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, the Ministry of Defence's daily newspaper, in July 1992. However, the Mobile Forces plan was never enacted. 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.
From 1996 the VDV dispatched the 1st Airborne Brigade to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of IFOR's Multi-National Division North. The brigade, unusually, used Russian Ground Forces equipment such as BTR-80s.
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 – conscripted soldiers aged eighteen). It was announced that the 98th Airborne Division was 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.
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. 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, on foot 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 took part in the invasion of Chechnya as an active bridgehead for other forces to follow.
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.