The Western Military District is a military-administrative unit of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the north-west of the country. It is designed to protect the western borders of Russia. The headquarters of the Western Military District is located in the "cultural capital" of our Motherland - St. Petersburg.
Military-administrative division of the Russian Federation
The main administrative unit of the Armed Forces is the district. Since December 1, 2010, according to the Decree of the President, four such units have been formed in Russia: the Central, Eastern, Western and Southern districts. The first two are the largest in terms of area, and the last one is the smallest. The military-administrative reform consisted of several stages. Thus, according to the first of them, dated September 1, 2010, five main units were created: the North Caucasian, Volga-Ural, Siberian, Far Eastern and Western military districts. However, this division did not last long. On December 1 of the same year, the second Annex to the Presidential Decree entered into force, according to which only four administrative divisions remained.
Central Military District
This administrative unit included within its borders the Republic of Altai, the Republic of Mari El, the Republic of Bashkortostan, the Republic of Mordovia, the Republic of Tuva, the Republic of Tatarstan, the Udmurt Republic, the Chuvash Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Altai, Perm, Krasnoyarsk Territories, Irkutsk, Kirov, Kurgan, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Penza, Samara, Orenburg, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Tomsk regions, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Eastern Military District
This administrative unit included within its borders the Republic of Sakha, the Republic of Buryatia, Zabaikalsky, Kamchatsky, Khabarovsk, Primorsky Territories, Amur, Sakhalin, Magadan Regions, as well as the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.
Southern Military District
Volgograd and Astrakhan regions.
Western military district
This administrative unit included in its borders the Republic of Komi, the Republic of Karelia, Arkhangelsk, Belgorod, Vladimir, Vologda, Bryansk,Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kaluga, Kostroma, Kaliningrad, Kursk, Leningrad, Moscow, Murmansk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod, Pskov, Ryazan, Orel, Smolensk, Tambov, Tula, Yaroslavl, Tver regions, the cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Composition of the Western Military District
This administrative military unit, formed during the reform of 2008-2010, united two military districts - Leningrad and Moscow. In addition, the B altic and Northern Fleets, as well as the First Command of the Air Defense and the Air Force, became part of the ZVO.
ZVO was the first administrative unit formed under this new system of division. The troops of the Western Military District consist of two and a half thousand military units and formations. Their total number exceeds four hundred thousand military personnel - about forty percent of the total number of the Russian Armed Forces. The commander of the Western Military District is responsible for all military units stationed in this territory of all branches and types of troops. The exception is the Strategic Space and Missile Forces. In addition, its operational subordination includes the following formations: the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Border Guard Service of the Federal Security Service, parts of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, as well as other ministries and departments of the Russian Federation that perform tasks on the territory of this district.
Organization and number of troops: Airborne Forces, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Air Defense
The Western Military District includes four parts of the Airborne Forces. These are: a separate guards regiment special. appointment, located in Moscow, two guards airborne assault divisions (in Tula and Pskov) and one guards airborne division (in Ivanovo). It also includes parts of the coast guard and marines: a separate motorized rifle regiment (located in Kaliningrad), a separate motorized rifle brigade (in Gusev), a guards brigade of marines (in B altiysk and the village of Mechnikovo), two coastal missile brigades (in Donskoy, in Kaliningrad and Chernyakhovsk), an artillery brigade (in Kaliningrad), a separate regiment of marines (in the village of Sputnik, Murmansk region). In addition, it included two special forces brigades. The commander of the Western Military District is responsible for the B altic and Northern Fleets, the aviation of these fleets, the first air defense and air force command, as well as the USC aerospace defense.
Ground Forces
ZVO includes the 6th Combined Arms Red Banner Army (motorized rifle, artillery, anti-aircraft and engineering brigades), the 20th Guards Combined Arms Red Banner Army (motorized rifle, tank, missile, artillery and missile and artillery brigades). The administration of the Western Military District also extends to units of district subordination, which include a task force of Russian troops located in the Transnistrian region (Republic of Moldova) and a separate guards motorized rifle Sevastopol brigade.
District commanders
The headquarters of this military-administrative unit is located onPalace Square in the city. The head of the Western Military District, Lieutenant General A. Sidorov (in this position - from December 24, 2012), from October 2010 to November 2012, Colonel General A. Bakhin was in the post of chief. The chief of staff - the first deputy commander is Admiral N. Maksimov. Head of the Organizational and Mobilization Department - Deputy Chief of Staff - Major General E. Burdingsky. Deputy Commander of the Troops - Major General I. Buv altsev.
Teachings in ZVO
The military reform has affected not only the administrative division of the army, but also implies the modernization of the technical base and weapons, and combat training has also changed for the better - not only officers and contract employees, but also conscripts. Now much attention is paid to field training and exercises.
Modern soldiers get acquainted with military equipment in real field conditions, and not according to methodological recommendations. So, in the period from May 27 to June 5, planned exercises were held in the Western Military District with firing from modern Iskander-M missile systems. The exercises were held as part of a test of the combat capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces, equipped with high-precision weapons. During this event, the military worked out the issues of organizing the combined destruction of especially important objects of the alleged enemy by air and ground-based weapons. The exercises involved one missile formation of the Western District, which is armed with long-range aircraftaviation and missile systems "Iskander-M".
During this event, the missile unit made a march in a combined way, its length was more than two thousand kilometers. The soldiers worked out reconnaissance issues along the route of the complex, covert deployment, and taking up firing positions. At the final stage, together with the long-range aviation units, the missilemen conducted live training firing to hit a conditional target with air and ground-based cruise missiles at the maximum possible distance. To evaluate the effectiveness of the results, the latest domestic-made unmanned aerial vehicles were used.
Conclusion
No sooner had the soldiers returned to their units, and the district leadership had to conduct a “debriefing” based on the results of the exercises, as new, even larger-scale ones began, which involved the following federal administrative districts: part of the Volga, Central and North-Western. The military district raised seven air defense regiments and five aviation regiments to the "gun". In the course of these events, the radio engineering and anti-aircraft missile forces repelled a massive air raid of the alleged enemy, protecting strategically important facilities from air strikes.
As you can see, today the defenders of the fatherland are not allowed to be bored. The country's leadership is concerned about the combat effectiveness of the army and is doing everything to raise it to a qualitatively new level.
