Leningrad Military District - Post-Cold War

Post-Cold War

The fall of the Soviet Union caused much reassessment of the Russian Federation’s military situation. Economic constraints have greatly hampered military effectiveness. Several formations, such as the 25th Motor Rifle Brigade, formed on 1 January 1993 from the disbanding 24th Tank Training Division at Riga, arrived in the LMD having been withdrawn from the former Baltic Military District. However since 1992 many formations and units of the District have participated in local conflicts and peace-keeping missions, especially in the North Caucasus.

The 26th Army Corps at Arkhangelsk, formed in 1967, disbanded in 1991. It had previously incorporated the 69th (Vologda) and 77th Guards (Arkhangelsk) Motor Rifle Divisions. It also incorporated the 258th Independent Helicopter Squadron at Luostari/Pechenga airfield near Luostari.

In early December 1997, President Boris Yeltsin said in Sweden that Russia would make unilateral reductions to forces in the northwest, which included the Leningrad Military District. He promised that land and naval units would be reduced by 40 per cent by January 1999. In May 1999, when Russian defense minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev confirmed that the cuts had taken place, Sergeyev said that the personnel of the Leningrad Military District had been drawn down by 52 per cent. In terms of formations, the series of disbandments left the district almost unrecognisable. The 6th Army’s staff at Petrozavodsk, the staff of the 30th Guards Army Corps (the former 30th Guards Rifle Corps, with its headquarters at Vyborg, including the 64th Guards Motor Rifle Division), and all five motor rifle divisions previously in the district disbanded. Left in their place were a number of weapons and equipment storage sites, and two motor rifle brigades.

In terms of air forces, after the collapse of the Soviet Union the 76th Army of the Soviet Air Forces and the 6th Air Army of the Voyska PVO, the Soviet Air Defence Forces, were left operating in the district. The two forces were merged as the 6th Army of VVS and PVO in 1998.

The 138th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade at Kamenka was deployed for operations during the Second Chechen War, in which, along with other Russian Ground Forces units, its personnel was reported to have behaved badly at times. A 22-year old woman in Ingushetia was shot by drunken soldiers from the brigade scavenging for alcohol. The deployment of a tank battalion of the brigade was apparently halted when it was discovered that soldiers had been selling the explosive from their tanks' reactive armour. The second fully operational brigade in the district, the 200th Motor Rifle Brigade descends from the World War II-era 45th Rifle Division, which later became the 131st Motor Rifle Division.

According to Soldat.ru online forum conversation in August 2007, as from 1 December 2006 the 35th Base for Storage of Weapons & Equipment, a former motor rifle division, at Alakurtti, was disbanded.

The Russian Airborne Troops' 76th Air Assault Division was also based within the district's boundaries, at Pskov.

Presidential Decree 900 dated July 27, 1998 gave the District's composition as the Republic of Karelia, the Komi Republic, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Leningrad, Murmansk, Novgorod, and Pskov oblasts, Saint Petersburg, and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The district headquarters is now in the General Staff Building on Palace Square in Saint Petersburg.

The last commander of the district, General Lieutenant Nikolai Bogdanovsky, commanded between March 2009 and September 2010. On the abolition of the district General Bogdansky became Deputy Commander of the Russian Ground Forces.