"This year we are marking the 74th anniversary of the Airborne Troops," the Airborne Troops' press service told RIA Novosti.
According to the source, August 2, 1930 is considered the birthday of the Airborne Troops.
On this day, ten paratroopers with weapons first landed during demonstration exercises in the Moscow military district. After landing, the paratroopers gathered containers with submachine guns, rifles and ammunition, and fulfilled their duty. The experiment was a success and made it possible to form airborne units. The first experimental detachment consisting of 164 people was formed in the Leningrad military district, and by 1934, 8,000 paratroopers were serving in the airborne force.
During maneuvers in the Kievsky military district in September 1935 that foreign delegations observed, an unprecedented number of paratroopers - 1,200 - landed and seized an air base. This allowed two regiments of the 59th rifle division with light tanks, artillery and other weapons to land. As many as 1,800 paratroopers landed during the exercises in Belarus. Five hundred paratroopers secured a runway so that an aircraft with 5,272 servicemen from the 84th rifle division could land in the Moscow military district.
When World War II (1941-1945) began, five airborne corps had already been formed. From the first days of the war, they were engaged in defensive actions in the Baltics, Ukraine and Belarus. Six thousand paratroopers landed somewhere near Oryol and for several days, the paratroopers and the 1st rifle corps contained the Nazi tanks heading for Mtsensk and Tula.
Airborne divisions fulfilled their military duty on the Karelian front, in the Yassko-Kishinev operation, and in the battles for Hungary and Vienna. For paratroopers, the war ended in August 1945, when over 4,000 of them landed at the air bases in Harbin, Girin, Mukden, Pyongyang, and Yuzhny Sakhalin. These paratroopers paralyzed the Japanese military commanders.
In the 1960s, considerable progress was made in landing military hardware on special platforms and with the help of jet-assisted parachutes.
The core of the Airborne Troops' modern equipment are BMD-1, BMD-2 and BMD-3 combat vehicles, 120-mm self-propelled artillery weapons, 122-mm howitzers, armored personnel carriers, and anti-aircraft artillery systems. The equipment allows combat vehicles and their crews to be dropped from the air.
Presently, there are 35,000 people in the Airborne Troops. Russian Airborne Troops have four airborne divisions, a detached airborne brigade, a training center, maintenance and service units, and also Ryazan Military Institute of the Airborne Force, the press service of the airborne force reported.
