Ukraine recently captured ten
soldiers belonging to Russia’s airborne forces – the VDV (Vozdushno-desantnye voyska). The Russian
government claims that the ten soldiers, who belong to a unit normally
stationed in Kostroma, hundreds of kilometers northeast of Moscow, got lost
while patrolling the Russian-Ukrainian border. This is extremely improbable –
it’s the equivalent of the U.S. government claiming that a squad of Army
Rangers stationed in Chicago got lost in Mexico while performing their regular
duties as border patrol.
Russia has a large, well-armed, militarized Border Guard,
which is a branch of the FSB (formerly the KGB). The VDV, in contrast, are a
branch of the Russian military. Russia’s different government agencies are not
known for working together – which led to disaster in the First Chechen War,
when the Russian military failed to effectively support soldiers belonging to
the Internal Troops (VV), who are a branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
So, if not border guards, what exactly are the VDV for?
The Spearhead of the Russian Military
Along with the Naval Infantry, a branch of the Russian Navy,
the VDV are one of Russia’s most elite organizations. Both, along with military
special forces units, took part in the invasion of Crimea. The VDV also fought
in Georgia in 2008, in Chechnya from 1994-’95 and 1999-2009, and in Afghanistan
from 1979-’89. In all cases they outperformed units belonging to the Russian
Ground Forces (Russia’s army proper) while fighting in similar roles as
mechanized infantry. It is as mechanized infantry – soldiers carried in infantry
fighting vehicle (IFVs; armed and armored troop carriers) – that the VDV are
currently fighting in Ukraine.
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| VDV BMD-2s during a June 2014 exercise. Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense |
The modern VDV has a high ratio of volunteers to conscripts;
Russian military personnel are a mix of one-year conscripts and volunteer “contract
soldiers” (kontraktniki). The VDV
also have preferential treatment regarding new equipment, as certain units are
to make up most of Russia’s developing “Rapid Reaction Forces”, and as the
current head of the Russian military is himself a member of the VDV. These same
factors probably lead to the recent doubling of the size of the organization.
Despite their disproportionate use of new equipment (as
witnessed in Crimea), the VDV’s rearmament has been incomplete. The Russian
military as a whole tends to use small numbers of modern equipment supplemented
by larger numbers of older equipment – an extension of the Soviet practice of
arming specific units with advanced equipment, while producing vast amounts of
less-advanced equipment for the majority of units. This seems to be the case
even within the VDV, which has been acquiring modern vehicles slowly – a
problem worsened by the recent expansion of the organization. While the VDV plans
to acquire 1,500 new BMD-4M IFVs, most units still use the same BMD-2 as was
first produced in 1985.
Denial of the Dead
The VDV has taken losses. Unknown soldiers were recently
buried in Pskov, home of the VDV’s 76th Guards Air Assault Division.
Ukraine claims to have captured BMD-2s belonging to that division, which Putin
recently awarded the Order of Suvorov for unspecified actions.
The idea that Russian troops are not fighting in Ukraine is
increasingly absurd. It’s not like Russia hasn’t denied its own military
actions before – Putin denied any action in Crimea for a month before saying
that “of course” Russian troops were involved. In 1994, the Yeltsin government
denied using troops in Chechnya until Chechen separatists showed captured
Russian soldiers on television. It was that war that led to the creation of the
Committee of Russian Soldiers’ Mothers, an anti-war group that protested
against the denial of Russian casualties. The Russian government forced the St.
Petersburg branch of the group to register as foreign agents on Friday.
The verified death toll in eastern Ukraine is rapidly approaching 3,000.
The verified death toll in eastern Ukraine is rapidly approaching 3,000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/world/europe/ukraine-conflict.html
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/30/world/moscow-categorizes-soldiers-mothers-group-as-a-foreign-agent/#.VAHn5vmSwrk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/29/what-does-russia-tell-the-mothers-of-soldiers-killed-in-ukraine-not-much/
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/08/30/world/moscow-categorizes-soldiers-mothers-group-as-a-foreign-agent/#.VAHn5vmSwrk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/29/what-does-russia-tell-the-mothers-of-soldiers-killed-in-ukraine-not-much/
Note: I have used U.S. Army sources that are themselves
based primarily on Russian military sources not otherwise available in English.
Their purpose is the study of foreign military strategy and tactics, not
propaganda; I consider them reliable until proven otherwise.
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