Leningrad Military District
| Leningrad Military District Ленинградский военный округ |
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 Leningrad Military District Coat of Arms |
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| Founded | August 6, 1864 |
| Country |  Russian Empire (1864 - 1918) Soviet Union (1924 - 1991) Russian Federation (1991 - present) |
| Branch | Soviet Armed Forces Russian Armed Forces |
| Type | Military district |
| Part of | Ministry of Defence |
| Headquarters | Saint Petersburg |
| Decorations | 40px Order of Lenin |
The Leningrad Military District was a military district of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In 2010 it was merged with the Moscow Military District, the Northern Fleet and the Baltic Fleet to form the new Western Military District.
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[edit] History
The Leningrad Military District was originally formed as the Petrograd Military District after the October Revolution of 1917 up to the beginning of the formation of the Red Army. The Petrograd District was established as a part of the RKKA by order в„– 71 of the Highest Military Council of 6 September, 1918. On 1 February, 1924, by the order в„– 126 the Revolutionary Military Councils of the USSR the Petrograd military district was renamed the Leningrad Military District. Markian Popov was appointed District Commander in 1939. Its main purpose was the defence of the Kola Peninsula and the northern shores of the Gulf of Finland. On the right flank it bordered with the Arkhangelsk MD, on the left — with the Baltic MD. Among the defensive works started in the 1930s to protect the frontiers was the Karelian Fortified Region.
The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-40 prompted a close examination of the combat maturity of the District’s troops, and for the better control of the 7th and 13th Armies the North-Western Front was formed from the staff of the District on 7 January 1940. Three and a half months later the Front was dissolved back into the District headquarters.
On 22 June 1941 the District comprised the 7th Army, the 14th Army, the 23rd Army, the 1st Mechanised Corps (-), 177th Rifle Division, 191st Rifle Division, 8th Rifle Division, the 21st, 22nd, 25th, 29th Fortified Regions, Air Forces (six aviation divisions, including the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 39th, 41st, and 55th), and other formations and units.[1]
Two days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, on 24 June 1941, the District was reorganised as the Northern Front, and two months later, on 23 August 1941, it was split into the Leningrad and Karelian Fronts. The Front’s forces heroic efforts played a major part in resisting the German attacks during the Siege of Leningrad.
By the joint efforts of troops of the Leningrad Front, Volkhov Front, and the 2nd Baltic Front during January 1944 the enemy was routed from the environs of Leningrad and Novgorod. Pressing home the attack, the forces of the Leningrad Front in summer and in the fall of 1944 helped seize Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Front was reorganized under the Leningrad District into a peacetime status on 9 July 1945. Marshall Leonid Govorov took command shortly afterwards.
General, later Marshal, Sergei Sokolov assumed command in 1965. On 22 February 1968, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Army and for its successes in combat and in political training, the District was awarded the Order of Lenin. Marshal Sokolov later became the Minister of Defence in 1984.
In 1949 the 76th Air Army (76-й Краснознамённой Воздушной армии) became the district's Soviet Air Forces component, after the 13th Air Army was redesignated. General-Colonel of Aviation Fedor Polynin was the first commander of the 76th Air Army.[2] Apart from a brief period when the air army was redesignationed the Air Forces of the Leningrad Military District from 1980 to 1988, the 76th Air Army would be active in the region until 1998.
On 3 June 1968 the District was placed on alert. The Norwegian Army raised its alert levels in response. Within a couple of days the mobilized forces in the Leningrad region reached 11,000 soldiers, 4,000 marines, 210 tanks, 500 troop transports, 265 self propelled cannons, 1,300 logistics transports, 50 helicopters and 20 transport aircraft (Antonov AN-12), all of which were staged in the Petchenga-Murmansk area near Norway.[3]
On the evening of 7 June, the Norwegian Garnisonen i Sør-Varanger garrison heard the noise of powerful engines coming from the manoeuvres along the entire Soviet front of the Norwegian-Soviet border. Actual observations were not possible over the border in the dark. On that same night the GSV commanding officer ordered all GSV reserve forces to report to their emergency muster locations. The Soviet demonstration of strength lasted until 10 June, when the Soviet forces stood down.[3]
In 1979, Scott and Scott reported the headquarters address as Leningrad, L-13, Pod'ezdnoy Per., Dom 4.
[edit] Commanders 1945-91
- Marshal of the Soviet Union, Leonid Govorov (July 1945 - April 1946)
- Lieutenant General, Dmitry Gusev (April 1946 - 1949),
- Lieutenant General, Alexander Luchinski (1949 - May 1953)
- General of the Army, Matvei Zakharov (May 1953 - October 1957)
- General of the Army, Nikolay Krylov (January 1958 - October 1960)
- General of the Army, Mikhail Kazakov (October 1960 - October 1965)
- Lieutenant General, Sergei Sokolov (October 1965 - April 1967)
- Lieutenant General, Ivan Shavrov (May 1967 - January 1973)
- Lieutenant General, Anatoly Gribkov (February 1973 - September 1976)
- M. Sorokin (October 1976 - October 1981)
- General of the Army - E. Snetkov (November 1981 - December 1987)
- V. Ermakov (December 1987 - December 1991)
[edit] 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[4] 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.[5] It also incorporated the 258th Independent Helicopter Squadron at Luostari/Pechenga airfield near Luostari.[6]
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.[7] 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.[8] In terms of formations, the series of disbandments left the district almost unrecognisable.[9] 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),[10] 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.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13]
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.
[edit] Subordinate Units
Order of Lenin Leningrad Military District 2010:
- Combat formations:
- 25th Guards Independent Motor-Rifle Brigade "Sevastopol - Latvian Rifles", in Vladimirsky Lager equipped with MT-LBV[14]
- 138th Guards Independent Motor-Rifle Brigade "Krasnoselskaya", in Kamenka equipped with MT-LBV] (former 45th Guards MRD)
- 200th Guards Independent Motor-Rifle Brigade "Pechenga", in Pechenga equipped with MT-LBV
- 216th Reserve Base (4th Independent Motor-Rifle Brigade), in Petrozavodsk
- 2nd Independent Spetsnaz Brigade, in Cherekhi
- 56th Guards District Training Center "Krasnoselskyy"
- Missile and Artillery formations:
- 26th Missile Brigade "Nemanskaya", in Luga
- 9th Guards Artillery Brigade "Kelecko-Berlin", in Luga
- 7014th Artillery Reserve Base, in Luga
- Air-defence formations:
- 5th Air-defence Brigade equipped with the Buk missile system
- 1013th Air-defence Center
- Engineering formations:
- 140th Guards Engineer Regiment "Kingisepskyy", in Kerro Vsevolozhskyy
- 7022nd Engineer Reserve Base
- NBC-defence formations:
- 10th Independent NBC-defence Battalion, in Sertolovo
- Signal formations:
- 95th (Communications Hub) Signal Brigade "50th years of USSR"
- 132nd (Territorial) Signal Brigade "Konstancskaya"
- 60th Signal Center
- 1269th Independent Electronic Warfare Center
- 140th Independent (Rear) Signal Battalion
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/012_ussr/41_oob/leningrad/_leningrad.html - Order of Battle 22 June 1941
- ^ http://www.generals.dk/general/Polynin/Fedor_Petrovich/Soviet_Union.html
- ^ a b "Cold War" (in Norwegian). Pasvikelva.no. http://www.pasvikelva.no/index.php?page_id=2&article_id=104&lang_id=2. Retrieved 16 February 2009.
- ^ Valdis V Pavlovskis, Russian Withdrawals from Latvia - An Update, JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW, Volume 5, Issue 4, April 1993, p 166. Warfare.ru reported that the brigade, based at Vladimirsky Lager, was a redesignation of the 42nd Base for Storage of Weapons and Equipment. In 2000 it had 443 personnel, 31 T-80; 24 Uragan, 236 MT-LBT. In 2009: BM-21 Grad – 18, 152 мм 2S3M Akatsia – 36, 2B14 Podnos– 18, 100 mm MT-12 Rapira – 6, 9P149 Shturm-S – 18, 9A33BM2(3) Osa – 12, 9A34(35) Strela-10 – 6, 2S6M Tunguska – 6. 41(82) T-80, 120 MT-LB. 4393?(2200?) pers. The brigade has been involved in several mobilisation exercises over the years. See also ru:13-й_гвардейский_стрелковый_полк.
- ^ http://en.valka.cz/viewtopic.php/t/78892; see also Duncan 1996
- ^ http://www.ww2.dk/new/air%20force/squadrons/ove/258ove.htm
- ^ James Meek and David Fairhall, ‘Yeltsin Slashes Baltic Force’, The Guardian, Dec. 4, 1997
- ^ Interfax, ‘Defense Minister Segeyev gives details of cuts to northwest forces’, May 6, 1999
- ^ Andrew Duncan, Jane's Intelligence Review article, 1996
- ^ See also http://www.vbgcity.ru/node/1222; see also ru:30-й гвардейский армейский корпус
- ^ Piotr Butowski, 'Russia's new air force enters a tight manoeuvre,' Jane's Intelligence Review, May 1999, p.18
- ^ Some Provisional Notes On Current Russian Operations In Dagestan & Chechnya
- ^ Форум
- ^ http://www.redstar.ru/2009/10/07_10/2_02.html
[edit] References
- Russian official site at www.mil.ru
- Scott and Scott, The Armed Forces of the USSR, Eastview, 1979
- See Also - Leningrad MD at Warfare.ru
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