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Russian Army Order of Battle - 1996

As of 1996 the ground forces included sixty-nine divisions: seventeen armored, forty-seven motorized infantry, and five airborne. Many of these divisions were "cadre" units, equipped with all the heavy armament of a full-strength motor-rifle or tank division, while having only skeleton personnel strength. The officers and men of a cadre division focused primarily on maintaining the equipment in working condition. During wartime mobilization, such a division should be beefed up to full manpower strength; however, in peacetime a cadre division is unfit for any combat. In late 1996 Defense Minister Igor Rodionov order the disbanding of two of Russia's remaining five airborne divisions.

As of 1996 the Ground Forces of the Russian Federation were estimated to number approximately 670,000 officers and enlisted personnel. Of that number, about 170,000 were contract volunteer enlistees and warrant officers, and about 210,000 were conscripts. Presumably, the remaining 290,000 were commissioned officers, suggesting that some 43 percent of ground forces personnel were officers. These figures strongly suggest that most of the notional "divisions" of the Russian Army consisted of a base, equipment, and officers, but no more than a handful of soldiers to actually operate equipment.

A very large number of the sixty-nine divisions that were nominally part of the Russian Army as of 1996 were deployed in the Siberian, Transbaikal and Far Eastern Military Districts. With the growing entente between China and Russia, and the agreements between these and other Central Asia countries on conventional force reductions in the region, it may be assumed that most of these units were at cadre status by the mid-1990s.

By 1997 the total strength of the ground forces was at an all time low of 400,000 men and officers. Presumably much of the reduction was the result of officers retiring from military service. Under the new defense policy document signed by President Yeltsin on 1 August 1998, the number of divisions in the regular armed forces was to be reduced to ten. These were to be full-strength, high-readiness Ground Forces divisions, one of which will be specifically trained in peacekeeping operations. The divisions, deployed in various parts of the country, would engage exclusively in combat training. This initiative presumably was intended to bring the notional order of battle of the ground forces into closer alignment with the actually existing state of affairs.

The actual order of battle of the Russian Army as of 2000 remains quite uncertain. It might be reasonable to assume that the units named in the following table remain active, with some degree of combat potential, while almost all of those units that were unidentified [ie, "UI"] as of 1996 have either been stood down, or remain only nominally in existence.

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