FPRI: Future of the Russian Military - Russian Airborne Forces (VDV)
Date: September 8th, 2022 at 17:00 CET / 11:00 EDT Platform: Cisco Webex Events
Link to Video Recording
Abstract
Although the war in Ukraine shows no sign of ending, the Russian military has demonstrated a number of weaknesses that it will likely attempt to address once the war is over. One of its greatest weaknesses is the Russian Ground Force’s motorized rifle troops, who have often not been able to perform their role. As a result, elite units, including the Airborne Forces (VDV), have been forced to serve in an infantry role to compensate, particularly in urban settings.
VDV forces played a key role in Russia’s failed attempt at seizing Kyiv, which included a helicopter-borne air assault operation in Hostomel. However, the VDV did not conduct an airborne operation, and it was unable to land transport aircraft with paratroopers at Hostomel after the air assault operation. Russian military leaders will undoubtedly review the relevance of airborne and air assault operations in modern warfare as a result of the war in Ukraine, and whether the VDV’s role should change.
The war demonstrates that the Margelov reforms in the 1970s that made the VDV into a mechanized force no longer make sense. Given the issues demonstrated by motorized rifle troops, including manpower problems, the Russian military may decide to turn much of the VDV into light infantry.
Details
Chris Miller and Rob Lee from the Foreign Policy Research Institute will provide insights into potential reforms in the Russian Airborne Forces (VDV) after the war in Ukraine.
Biographies
Chris Miller
Title: Director, FPRI Eurasia Program Affiliation: Professor of International History, Tufts University
Chris Miller is the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program and Assistant Professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. His research examines Russian politics, foreign policy, and economics.
His most recent book is Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia, which has been reviewed in publications such as The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, and the Times Literary Supplement. He is also the author of The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR (2016).
Chris received his PhD from Yale University and his BA from Harvard University.
Rob Lee
Title: Senior Fellow Affiliation: FPRI Eurasia Program
Rob Lee is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program. He is a PhD student researching Russian defense policy at King’s College London’s War Studies Department.
Rob is a former Marine infantry officer, Alfa Fellow, and visiting fellow at the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), a Russian think tank focused on defense policy.