“They are going to Ukraine.” Relatives and friends of the military - about the transfer of troops

Voinskayachast.net - a network resource about military units of the Russian Federation

Despite the fact that information about military units of the Russian Federation and their codification is partially closed, the resource voinskayachast.net allows you to find the desired military unit by its number.

This resource is dedicated to military units of the Russian Federation; it contains a huge amount of information about military units of various branches of the military, their addresses and telephone numbers.

This information may be useful for conscripts, contract soldiers, parents of conscripts and members of their families, as well as for people who are interested in the history and combat path of military units.

For convenience, on the website military units are divided by city. By selecting the desired city, you can see the list of military units of the Russian Federation available in it, including their name, unit number, their address and telephone number.

To search for a military unit of the Russian Federation by number, go to the main page of this resource, enter the unit number in the search bar, and press enter.

The found result will be displayed below, click on “Read in full” and read the information about the part with the found number.

“They are going to Ukraine.” Relatives and friends of the military - about the transfer of troops

Russian troops, which have been moving by rail from the regions of Siberia and the Far East to the west for almost six months, are already 40 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border. Radio Liberty and the Conflict Intelligence Team, in a joint investigation, tell where Russian units are arriving from the east of the country and what the relatives of soldiers and officers going on a “business trip,” as well as the military themselves, say.

On Monday, January 17, Alexander Lukashenko announced the joint Russian-Belarusian exercises “Allied Resolve - 2022”, which are scheduled to take place in February on the territory of Belarus. Russian military equipment, which independent researchers have noticed in videos on social networks, is indeed gradually arriving in Belarus - but only some of it is heading to the training grounds declared for the exercises. The other part stopped halfway, near Gomel, in an area that is only 40 kilometers from the Chernigov region of Ukraine and 90 from the Kyiv region.

In previous publications on the transfer of troops, Conflict Intelligence Team experts noted that at that time it was not accompanied by a massive transport of personnel - the number of passenger cars in military trains approximately corresponded to the number of military personnel needed to service the transported equipment and guard the training grounds. Over the past week, several new videos have appeared on TikTok, including those filmed while trains were passing through Khabarovsk and the Jewish Autonomous Region. The recordings are distinguished from others by the fact that they became very popular on this social network and collected hundreds of comments. In almost every second of them, relatives and friends of contract soldiers write about their being sent “on a business trip” and “for exercises.” The majority report that their destination is “Belarus,” others write that their friends and relatives were sent “to Ukraine” or “to the Ukrainian border.”

Links to videos, comments for which we studied

Almost all of the comments we cited were found under three videos of military equipment. Each of these three posts contains several hundred comments, which we have carefully reviewed and verified. For the safety of comment authors, we do not provide links to original videos, comments, or author profiles. We are ready to provide original data without censorship to other media or journalists to verify the information we have discovered.

We also entered into correspondence with some of the authors of these comments to find out which units are being sent to where from the Far East. We did not impersonate other people, and when asked why we were interested in such information, we answered that we were journalists. Even after this, some of our interlocutors willingly continued the dialogue.

It is clear from the comments that many mothers and wives of military personnel are concerned about the fate of their relatives: dozens of people who write about sending their loved ones to the West do not hide the fact that they fear the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine. This concern is understandable: in 2014, many military personnel who came to Donbass learned that they were not on “training” at the very last moment.

Comments can only serve as indirect evidence in favor of the version of sending the military “to Ukraine” or for a “war with Ukraine” - residents of Khabarovsk, Birobidzhan, Vladivostok and other Russian cities who have military members in their families watch TV and discuss the news in the same way , like any other people. Many commentators, including those who refer to information from unit commanders, write about sending not to Ukraine as such, but to the “Ukrainian border” - which does not contradict the version of “Belarusian exercises.”

Radio Liberty and the Conflict Intelligence Team compared data from the comments and information obtained from correspondence with their authors with other evidence of the dispatch of Russian military units previously found in open sources.

From Transbaikalia to Brest - 11 days

On January 18, the wife of one of the servicemen wrote to a Radio Liberty correspondent that the train with which her husband left the city of Borzya in the Trans-Baikal Territory on January 7 was already in the Belarusian Brest. The journey from Transbaikalia to Brest thus took the train only 11 days. The profile of this military man on the social network VKontakte, which was found by Radio Liberty, indicates that since 2014 he has been serving in military unit 06705, which belongs to the 36th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade.

A TikTok user from the city of Zavitinsk, Amur Region, who wrote in a comment that her only son was leaving “on a business trip to the Russian border,” clarified in correspondence with Radio Liberty that military trains were sent for three days in a row - from January 9 to 11. Their arrival “near Bryansk,” according to her, is expected by the end of the month:

Return of the “fighting Buryats”

The contract soldiers themselves, who are traveling in the trains caught in the video to the west, are actively leaving comments on TikTok. Some of them, as follows from their profiles and posts, serve in units of the 5th Separate Tank Brigade mentioned in connection with Russia’s gathering of troops to the Ukrainian border - these are the same “Putin’s fighting Buryats” who “became famous” in 2014–2015 for their participation in the war in Donbass. In particular, servicemen of the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade in Mlechnik, Khabarovsk Territory, are heading west. In 2015, they were also already transferred thousands of kilometers from their place of deployment - to the Rostov region.

As another commentator on the Tiktok post told Radio Liberty, her husband serves as a tanker in the 69th separate Cossack cover brigade, stationed in the village of Babstovo, Jewish Autonomous Region.

Radio Liberty was also able to establish that the forces being transported to the west included military personnel from the 14th Separate Guards Engineering Brigade, stationed in the Khabarovsk Territory.

Another interesting comment with the words “we’ll be loading tomorrow” was left by a user who posted on his account a video of T-72B tanks of the 1985 model standing in a unit. From another tiktok of the same user it follows that we are talking about the 114th Guards Motorized Rifle regiment stationed in Ussuriysk.

Special forces “for show”

One of the necessary elements of large-scale exercises (or war, especially if there is a need to keep populated areas under control) is the military police. As follows from the comments on TikTok, its employees are also sent with trains in a western direction.

Special forces are also being transferred to “trainings in Belarus.” Our message was responded to by a woman who had previously written in the comments under a video of a military train about her husband’s departure on a “business trip.” She said that this was not his first “foray” “out of Russia” - however, she claims that he did not actually leave the country, but went “for show” to the border with Ukraine:

We found this woman’s profile on VKontakte, and through it, the profile of her husband, who posted on his page a photo of the parade formation of the “blue berets” on Red Square. The woman’s place of residence is Khabarovsk. It can be assumed that her husband serves in the 14th separate special forces brigade (previously such brigades were called “GRU special forces brigades”): special forces brigades wear airborne uniforms.

Post by a special forces soldier whose wife wrote in the comments on TikTok about his being sent on a “soray from Russia”

CIT analysts were also able to find online videos of loading and transporting equipment typical of special forces units (for example, Tiger armored vehicles). Some of the video footage was filmed during loading in Khabarovsk, and some was filmed along the train’s route in Siberia:

“First to Moscow, then to Ukraine”

A girl from Vladivostok, in the comments under one of the TikTok videos, expressed confidence that her boyfriend was “not going to training.” To a clarifying question from Radio Liberty, she replied that the young man was being sent “to Ukraine,” without saying where she got this information from. She later clarified that he serves in the “airborne assault battalion,” and in one of the following messages she confirmed our assumption that we are talking about the 155th Separate Marine Brigade.

As CIT analysts remind, the marines also participated in the war with Ukraine in 2014–2015 - for example, the 61st separate marine brigade of the Northern Fleet. The fact that the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy, whose headquarters is located in Vladivostok, involved the 155th separate marine brigade in the transfer from east to west, is also evidenced by other comments found by CIT on TikTok.

“Business trip technique” – “stand for show off.”

In correspondence with a Radio Liberty journalist, the young man clarified that he serves in the 38th separate motorized rifle brigade in the village of Ekaterinoslavka, Amur Region, from where, as recorded by CIT, several trains captured in the video were sent over the past month. They include the BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket systems, which were also used in the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014–2015.

According to our interlocutor, there are two “advantages” of the business trip: they and his comrades were given new uniforms and Kalashnikov AK-12 assault rifles (2012 model) instead of AK-74 (1974 model).

Information received by Radio Liberty and the Conflict Intelligence Team indicates that in recent months, units have been transferred from the Far East to the west (to Russia or Belarus), without which it is difficult to imagine a full-scale military operation: military police, landing troops, special forces. These troops also participated in the active phase of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2014–2015.

In the comments under the video, there are also often phrases indicating the number of military personnel being sent: “700 people,” “almost all contract soldiers,” “hundreds of soldiers.” In addition, joint Russian-Belarusian exercises are announced for the period from February 10 to 20, while in most comments, relatives and friends of the military write that the trip will last 6-9 months.

As CIT analysts write in their part of this investigation, this suggests that from at least some formations of the Eastern Military District, a significant part of the personnel, and not just equipment, is being transferred to the borders with Ukraine - and that the transferred units may linger in Belarus and/ or in western Russia for a relatively long period.

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Soldat.ru - find a USSR military unit by number

If you want to find information about a military unit of the USSR during the Second World War by its number, the functionality of the soldat.ru service will be a good help in this regard. Here you can find an extensive directory of military units - field posts of the Red Army, which will help us in our search.

The procedure for working with a resource is as follows:

1. Go to soldat.ru/pps.html;
2. In the “Number” field, enter the number of the military unit you are looking for;
3. Below, click on the “Search!” button and view the result found.

If you have clarifying or supplementary data on the information received, you can click on the “Make changes” sign and supplement the data available in the system with yours. Also enter your name, email, and click on the “Submit” button below. The project administrators will contact you later.

Complete the data available in the system

You can also use an alternative search form on the same resource https://www.soldat.ru/pp_v_ch.html.

Memory of the People - search for military units of the Red Army by number

An alternative to the resource soldat.ru can be the no less popular website Memory of the People, located at pamyat-naroda.ru. This is the largest Internet portal in Russia, containing a huge database of participants in the Second World War under the USSR. The portal was created with the assistance of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, and contains hundreds of thousands of archival documents. The project combines the databases of the Memorial and Feat of the People projects.

We can use the functionality of this portal to search for the part we need by its number.

To do this, go to this resource, and in the “Military unit” field, enter the unit number and click on “Find.” View the results found.

How to find a colleague by military unit number

If you set out to find your former colleagues by the number of your military unit, then various network tools can help with this. Among them we note the following.

The website infinitbook.com will find a military unit in the Russian Federation

The “Big Book of the Internet” website, located at infinitbook.com, is very effective in finding colleagues by unit number. Its functionality allows you to find colleagues whose data is available on this resource and contact them.

The procedures for working with the site are structured as follows:

1. Go to infinitbook.com and register on the resource by clicking on “Registration”. Without registration, the results found will not be available to you;
2. Click on the search bar above;
3. A search form will open;
4. Enter the number of your unit in the “Military unit” field, and then click on “Find” below;
5. View the results found. If the right people are found, contact them using the site functionality.

Search on social networks

Similarly, you can search for colleagues by military unit number on popular social networks - VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook and others. To do this, in the search bar of these resources, enter the name of your military unit (for example, military unit 42984) and press enter.

View the results found. It is quite possible that among them you will find your colleagues and even an entire group dedicated to the military unit you are looking for by number. Thanks to the functionality of social networks, you can communicate with people subscribed to them and find your colleagues.

A good alternative for searching for colleagues by military unit number is the web resource Odnopolchane.net

This site odnopolchane.net was created for searching, communicating and organizing meetings of army colleagues, fellow soldiers, and participants in various military conflicts. Using the functionality of the site, relatives and friends will be able to find fellow employees, or place an advertisement looking for the right people.

1. To perform a search on the site, you must register with confirmation via email.
2. After registering, click on the “Search for colleagues” section.
3. And in the search form that opens, enter the number of the military unit, and then click on the “Start Search” button below.

View the results found.

By clicking on the name of the required person, you can view his profile and, if necessary, write him a personal message.

This will also be useful: Search by last name in the Book of Memory of those killed and missing in 1941-1945.

Distinctive features of military units in cities

Units of the armed forces are located on the territory of large and small settlements of the Russian Federation. Today, military units are located in 83 cities of the country. Each of the army units belongs to one of the types of troops: ground, special, aerospace forces or navy.

The unit is headed by a commander or chief. He, as a leader, gives orders, organizes combat and mobilization training of the unit entrusted to him, and is responsible for discipline, moral and psychological state and morale of the personnel.

In addition to military personnel, there are also civilian personnel on the territory of the units. Workers are engaged in household, medical and logistical support, participate in the construction and repair of buildings and structures, organize cultural leisure and other events.

The autonomy of the existence of military units in the form of squads, battalions, companies or platoons is ensured by the presence of:

• postal and telegraph addresses;
• official seal;
• general military numbers - open and closed;
• bank account;
• own economy and office work.

Information about combat units of this type, their real names, personnel, locations, etc., is secret. Disclosure of data is subject to administrative and criminal liability.