Krasnaya zvezda covered the opening phases of Vostok-2010 for those willing to plod through or skim the article. Motorized rifle brigades are taking turns practicing defeating bandit groups, the VVS are providing air support to MVD Internal Troops units, and PVO battalions are conducting night firing exercises with new C2 systems.
RIA Novosti and ITAR-TASS reported that nearly 600 Volga-Ural Military District (PUrVO) troops were flown to the Far East on Tuesday (29 June) to participate in summer’s marquee training event. Four Military-Transport Aviation (VTA or ВТА) Il-76MD transports delivered a battalion tactical group (BTG) with only light weapons to join in the operational-strategic exercise (OSU or ОСУ).
According to ITAR-TASS, General Staff Chief, Army General Nikolay Makarov said that in the course of Vostok-2010:
“. . . issues are being broadly worked out about the expedience of redeploying at a great distance trained personnel which have to take military equipment held at mobilization bases and immediately go into combat.”
This certainly sounds like a military establishment not fully embracing an idea, at least right away.
According to Krasnaya zvezda, a BTG from the 28th Independent Motorized Rifle Brigade flew 6,000 kilometers from Koltsovo, outside Yekaterinburg, to Vozdvizhenka, north of Ussuriysk, on a 10-hour flight with a refueling stop at Belaya near Irkutsk. The 28th was built on the base of a regiment of the old 34th MRD.
Krasnaya zvezda said the battalion moved via truck to an armaments and equipment storage base [БХРВТ] at Sibirtsevo for outfitting with heavy equipment. The 247th BKhRVT was established last year with the remnants of the former 121st MRD. After removing equipment from storage and some training, they were slated to join tactical combat firing at Sergeyevka.
Acting PUrVO Commander General-Lieutenant Sergey Surovikin saw off the battalion; he commanded the brigade’s forerunner—the 34th MRD in 2004. The brigade’s commander, Colonel Anatoliy Sinelnikov, was Surovikin’s deputy division commander in 2004 when it first sent a BTG to the Far East.
Krasnaya zvezda asked Surovikin to compare the current redeployment with the earlier one six years ago in Mobilnost-2004:
“Then a sub-unit with all of its TO&E equipment was sent into action. And it fulfilled its assigned mission. The current exercise is being conducted according to the General Staff’s decision which specifies checking the expedience of means of redeploying troops on various strategic axes. In this instance, the exercise is being conducted only with personnel – without transporting combat equipment and heavy weapons to the Far East. But it allows us to check the possibility of redeploying troops in other strategic directions. And to conduct such a redeployment in a very short period. And using for these purposes Military-Transport Aviation aircraft as well as civilian airlines.”
“In this exercise, means of regrouping troops in short time periods are being tried. By comparison: if in OSU Mobilnost-2004 we could send a battalion of the 276th Motorized Rifle Regiment of our division by air to the Far East together with its combat equipment and vehicles in 8 days, then this time such a battalion will get there in significantly less time. And the quantity of aircraft take-offs to transport the very same sub-unit to another theater of military operations was reduced more than ten times. High strategic mobility is achieved with much lower expenditure of forces and budget resources.”
While not exactly a Russian Reforger, this redeployment exercise looks like working smarter, not harder. So it represents some payoff from the effort to turn understrength, excess units into mobilization bases. Of course, one has to believe there’s still some element of the set piece in all this. The battalion being moved was probably one of the best, and the BKhRVT was probably well-prepared to hand out the necessary weapons and combat vehicles.
Russian Defense Policy 