1.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
2.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
3.
Russian Ground Forces
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The Ground Forces of the Russian Federation are the land forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formed from parts of the collapsing Soviet Army in 1992. The formation of these forces posed economic challenges after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the primary responsibilities of the Ground Forces are the protection of the state borders, combat on land, the security of occupied territories, and the defeat of enemy troops. The Ground Forces must be able to achieve goals both in nuclear war and non-nuclear war, especially without the use of weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, they must be capable of protecting the interests of Russia within the framework of its international obligations. The Main Command of the Ground Forces is officially tasked with the objectives, The training of troops for combat. The improvement of troops structure and composition, and the optimization of their numbers, the development of military theory and practice. The development and introduction of training manuals, tactics. The improvement of operational and combat training of the Ground Forces, the newly re-emergent Russia retained most of the ranks of the Soviet Army, with some minor changes. The principal difference from the usual Western style is some variation in generals rank titles—in at least one case, Colonel General, the gallery below shows a selection of insignia, common to the Ground Forces – LF. As the Soviet Union dissolved, efforts were made to keep the Soviet Armed Forces as a military structure for the new Commonwealth of Independent States. The last Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union, Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, was appointed commander of the CIS Armed Forces in December 1991. Among the numerous treaties signed by the republics, in order to direct the transition period, was a temporary agreement on general purpose forces. Thirty-seven divisions had to be withdrawn from the four groups of forces and the Baltic States, some idea of the scale of the withdrawal can be gained from the division list. For the dissolving Soviet Ground Forces, the withdrawal from the former Warsaw Pact states and the Baltic states was a demanding, expensive. However, the facilities in those districts were inadequate to house the flood of personnel and equipment returning from abroad, the need for destruction and transfer of large amounts of weaponry under the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe also necessitated great adjustments. The Ministry of Defence newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda published a plan on 21 July 1992. Later one commentator said it was put together by the General Staff to satisfy the public demand for radical changes. The General Staff, from that point, became a bastion of conservatism, the reform plan advocated a change from an Army-Division-Regiment structure to a Corps-Brigade arrangement
4.
Mechanized infantry
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Mechanized infantry is infantry equipped with armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles for transport and combat. Mechanized infantry is distinguished from motorized infantry in that its vehicles provide a degree of protection from hostile fire, most APCs and IFVs are fully tracked or are all-wheel drive vehicles, for mobility across rough ground. Some nations distinguish between mechanized and armored infantry, designating troops carried by APCs as mechanized and those in IFVs as armored. The support weapons for mechanized infantry are also provided with motorized transport, compared with light truck-mobile infantry, mechanized infantry can maintain rapid tactical movement and, if mounted in IFVs, has more integral firepower. It requires more combat supplies and ordnance supplies, and a larger proportion of manpower is required to crew. For example, most APCs mount a section of seven or eight infantrymen but have a crew of two, most IFVs carry only six or seven infantry but require a crew of three. To be effective in the field, mechanized units also require many mechanics, with specialized maintenance and recovery vehicles, arguably, the first mechanized infantry were assault teams mounted on A7V tanks. The vehicles were extra-large to let them carry sizeable assault teams, all-machine gun armed A7V tanks carried two small flame throwers for their dismounts to use. A7V tank would often carry a second officer to lead the assault team, during the Battle of St. Quentin, A7Vs were accompanied by 20 stormtroopers from Rohr Assault Battalion, but it is unspecified if they were acting as dismounts or were accompanying the tanks on foot. During the battle, tank crews were reported to dismount and attack enemy positions with grenades, towards the end of World War I, all the armies involved were faced with the problem of maintaining the momentum of an attack. Tanks, artillery, or infiltration tactics could all be used to break through an enemy defense and it was widely acknowledged that cavalry was too vulnerable to be used on most European battlefields, but many armies continued to deploy them. Motorized infantry could maintain rapid movement, but their trucks required either a road network or firm open terrain. They were unable to traverse a battlefield obstructed by craters, barbed wire, tracked or all-wheel drive vehicles were to be the solution. Following the war, development of mechanized forces was largely theoretical for some time, although some proponents of mobile warfare, such as J. F. C. Fuller, advocated building tank fleets, other, such as Heinz Guderian in Germany, as the Germans rearmed in the 1930s, they equipped some infantry units in their new Panzer divisions with the half-track Sd. Kfz. 251, which could keep up with tanks on most terrain, the French Army also created Light Mechanized divisions in which some of the infantry units possessed small tracked carriers. Together with the motorization of the infantry and support units. The German doctrine was to use them to exploit breakthroughs in Blitzkrieg offensives, as World War II progressed, most major armies integrated tanks or assault guns with mechanized infantry, as well as other supporting arms, such as artillery and engineers, as combined arms units
5.
Brigade
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A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment, two or more brigades may constitute a division. Brigades formed into divisions are usually infantry or armored, in addition to combat units, they may include combat support units or sub-units, such as artillery and engineers, and logistic units or sub-units. Historically, such brigades have sometimes been called brigade-groups, on operations, a brigade may comprise both organic elements and attached elements, including some temporarily attached for a specific task. Brigades may also be specialized and comprise battalions of a branch, for example cavalry, mechanized, armored, artillery, air defence, aviation, engineers. Some brigades are classified as independent or separate and operate independently from the division structure. The typical NATO standard brigade consists of approximately 3,200 to 5,500 troops, however, in Switzerland and Austria, the numbers could go as high as 11,000 troops. The Soviet Union, its forerunners and successors, mostly use regiment instead of brigade, a brigades commander is commonly a major general, brigadier general, brigadier or colonel. In some armies, the commander is rated as a General Officer, the brigade commander has a self-contained headquarters and staff. Some brigades may also have a deputy commander, the headquarters has a nucleus of staff officers and support that can vary in size depending on the type of brigade. On operations, additional specialist elements may be attached, the headquarters will usually have its own communications unit. In some gendarmerie forces, brigades are the organizational unit. The brigade as a military unit came about starting in the 15th century when the British army, as such a field army became larger, the number of subordinate commanders became unmanageable for the officer in general command of said army, usually a major general, to effectively command. In order to streamline command relationships, as well as effect some modicum of control, especially in regard to combined arms operations. The terms origin is found in two French roots, which together, meant roughly those who fight, the so-called brigada was a well-mixed unit, comprising infantry, cavalry and normally also artillery, designated for a special task. The size of such brigada ranged from a company of up to two regiments. The brigada was the forerunner of the battalion task force, battle group. The brigade was improved as a unit by the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus
6.
58th Army (Russia)
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The 58th Army is a field army, first of the Soviet Unions Red Army and subsequently of the Russian Ground Forces. It was reformed in the Transcaucasian Front from the 24th Army on 28 August 1942, much of its senior cadre also came from the NKVD, and among its missions was to keep order in the Caucasus, particularly in the Groznyi and Makhachkala regions. This was because of a Chechen uprising that had gone on since 1941, 58th Army later joined the North Caucasus Front. On 1 November 1942 it consisted of the 271st and 416th Rifle Division, prior to the North Caucasus Front putting its main effort into the Kerch-Eltigen Operation the Army HQ was reorganised as Headquarters Volga Military District in October 1943. The headquarters was reformed in 1995 in the North Caucasus Military District from the 42nd Army Corps at Vladikavkaz, during the Second Chechen War, the Army was commanded by General Vladimir Shamanov. On 3 August 2008, five battalions of the Russian 58th Army were moved to the vicinity of Roki Tunnel that links Georgias breakaway South Ossetia with Russias North Ossetia. On 8 August 2008 the 58th Army crossed the border into Georgia and engaged in combat against Georgian forces and its then-commander, General Anatoly Khrulyov was wounded in action. In June 2014 Ukrainian troops captured a damaged BM-21 Grad launcher, major general Sergey Kuzovlev became commander of the army on 18 August 2016. The Wolves of Islam, Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror, Brasseys,2004
7.
Chechnya
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The Chechen Republic, commonly referred to as Chechnya, is a federal subject of Russia. It is located in the North Caucasus, situated in the southernmost part of Eastern Europe, the capital of the republic is the city of Grozny. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was split into two parts, the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic, the latter proclaimed the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which sought independence. Following the First Chechen War with Russia, Chechnya gained de facto independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Russian federal control was restored during the Second Chechen War. Since then there has been a reconstruction and rebuilding process, though sporadic fighting continues in the mountains. According to Leonti Mroveli, the 11th-century Georgian chronicler, the word Caucasian is derived from the Vainakh ancestor Kavkas, dr. Henry Harpending, University of Utah, supports her claims. People living in prehistoric mountain cave settlements used tools, mastered fire, traces of human settlement that date back to 40,000 BC were found near Lake Kezanoi. Cave paintings, artifacts, and other evidence indicates continuous habitation for some 8,000 years. 10, 000–8000 BCE Migration of Nakh peoples to the slopes of the Caucasus from the Fertile Crescent, Invention of agriculture, irrigation, and the domestication of animals. Pottery is known to the region, settlements made out of clay bricks discovered in the plains. In the mountains there were discovered settlements made out of stone and surrounded by walls, 4000–3000 BCE Invention of the wheel, horseback riding, metal works, dishes, armor, daggers, knives, arrow tips. The artifacts were found near Nasare-Cort, Muzhichi, Ja-E-Bortz, Abbey-Gove 900–1200 AD The kingdom in the center of the Caucasus splits into Alania, german scientist Peter Simon Pallas believed that Ingush people were the direct descendants from Alania. The Alan tribes build fortresses, castles, and defense walls locking the mountains from the invaders, part of the lowland tribes occupied by Mongols. 1500 AD First Russian involvement in the Caucasus,1558 Temryuk of Kabarda sends his emissaries to Moscow requesting help against Vainakh tribes from Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible marries Temryuks daughter Maria Temryukovna, alliance formed to gain the ground in the central Caucasus for the expanding Tsardom of Russia against stubborn Vainakh defenders. Chechnya was a nation in the Northern Caucasus that fought against foreign rule continually since the 15th century, the Chechens converted over the next few centuries to Sunni Islam, as Islam was associated with resistance to Russian encroachment. Notable in Chechen history, this particular Russo-Persian War marked the first military encounter between Imperial Russia and the Vainakh, as the Russians took control of the Caspian corridor and moved into Persian-ruled Dagestan, Peters forces ran into mountain tribes. Peter sent a force to subdue them, but the Chechens routed them
8.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
9.
First Chechen War
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The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996. The official figure for Russian military deaths is 5,732, although there are no accurate figures for the number of Chechen forces killed, various estimates put the number at about 3,000 to 17,391 deaths and missing. The conflict led to a significant decrease of population due to violence. Following long local resistance during the 1817−1864 Caucasian War, Imperial Russian forces defeated the Chechens, in 1936, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin established the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The official pretext was punishment for collaboration with the invading German forces during the 1940–1944 insurgency in Chechnya, eventually, Soviet first secretary Nikita Khrushchev granted the Vainakh peoples permission to return to their homeland and restored their republic in 1957. Russia became an independent nation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, while Russia was widely accepted as the successor state to the USSR, it lost a significant amount of its military and economic power. In the Soviet period, some of Russias approximately 100 nationalities were granted ethnic enclaves that had various formal federal rights attached, relations of these entities with the federal government and demands for autonomy erupted into a major political issue in the early 1990s. Boris Yeltsin incorporated these demands into his 1990 election campaign by claiming that their resolution was a high priority, there was an urgent need for a law to clearly define the powers of each federal subject. In almost all cases, demands for autonomy or independence were satisfied by concessions of regional autonomy. The treaty outlined three basic types of subjects and the powers that were reserved for local and federal government. The only federal subjects that did not sign the treaty were Chechnya, neither Yeltsin nor the Chechen government attempted any serious negotiations and the situation deteriorated into a full-scale conflict. The storming caused the death of the head of Groznys branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vitaly Kutsenko and this effectively dissolved the government of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic of the Soviet Union. In the following month, Dudayev won overwhelming support to oust the interim administration that was supported by the central government. He was made president and declared independence from the Soviet Union, in November 1991, Yeltsin dispatched Internal Troops to Grozny, but they were forced to withdraw when Dudayevs forces surrounded them at the airport. The newly created republic of Ingushetia then joined the Russian Federation, from 1991 to 1994, tens of thousands of people of non-Chechen ethnicity left the republic amidst reports of violence and discrimination against the non-Chechen population. During the undeclared Chechen civil war, factions both sympathetic and opposed to Dudayev fought for power, sometimes in pitched battles with the use of heavy weapons, in March 1992, the opposition attempted a coup détat, but their attempt was crushed by force. A month later, Dudayev introduced direct rule, and in June 1993. To prevent the invasion of Chechnya, he did not provoke the Russian troops, in August 1994, the coalition of the opposition factions based in north Chechnya launched a large-scale armed campaign to remove Dudayevs government
Russia
Russian Ground Forces
Motorized Infantry
Order of the Red Banner
Active divisions of the Russian Federation