Russian Airborne Troops
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:
7th Guards Air Assault (Mountain) Division in Novorossiysk
76th Guards Air Assault Division in Pskov
98th Guards Airborne Division in Ivanovo
106th Guards Airborne Division in Tula
31st Guards Airborne Brigade in Ulyanovsk
242nd Training Centre of the VDV in Omsk
45th Detached Reconnaissance Regiment in Kubinka
1182nd Guards Artillery Regiment
38th Signal Regiment
Russian Airborne Troops on exercise in Kazakhstan.
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. The VDV's training institute is the Ryazan Institute for the Airborne Troops named for General of the Army V.F. Margelov. 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.
From 1996 the VDV dispatched the 1st Separate Airborne Brigade to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of IFOR's Multi-National Division North. The brigade, unusually, used 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 -- 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.