[4] After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under the command of the Commonwealth of Independent States until it was formally abolished on 14 February 1992.

Its functions were transferred to the General Staff, while the chiefs of the combat arms and specialised forces came under the direct command of the Minister of Defence.

[17] By the 1970s, the change to a two-year system seems to have created the hazing practice known as dedovshchina, "rule of the grandfathers", which destroyed the status of most NCOs.

[24][25] In September 1984, three more were established to control multi-Front operations in Europe (the Western and South-Western Strategic Directions) and at Baku to supervise three southern military districts.

[26] Western analysts expected these new headquarters to control multiple Fronts in time of war, and usually a Soviet Navy Fleet.

The Ground Forces created and directed the Eastern European armies in its image for the remainder of the Cold War, shaping them for a potential confrontation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

[30][31] The Red Army advanced into northern Korea in 1945 after the end of World War II, with the intention of aiding in the process of rebuilding the country.

[32] Marshals Kirill Meretskov and Terentii Shtykov explained to Joseph Stalin the necessity of Soviet help in building infrastructure and industry in northern Korea.

Using airspeed and direction, COSVN analysts would calculate the bombing target and tell any assets to move "perpendicularly to the attack trajectory."

[37]: 364–371  From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces.

[39] In 1975, the SIGINT services had broken information from Western US-allies in Saigon, determining that the US would not intervene to save South Vietnam from collapse.

[39] In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to prop up its puppet government, provoking a 10-year Afghan mujahideen guerrilla resistance.

Prior to the arrival of Soviet troops, the pro-Soviet Nur Mohammad Taraki government took power in a 1978 coup and initiated a series of radical modernization reforms throughout the country.

By April 1979 large parts of the country were in open rebellion and by December the government had lost control of territory outside of the cities.

[45] Arriving in the capital Kabul on December 27, they staged a coup,[46] killing the president Hafizullah Amin, and installing a rival socialist Babrak Karmal, who was viewed as more moderate and fit to lead the nation.

Soviet presence would reach near 115,000 troops by the mid-1980s, and the complications of the war increased, causing a high amount of military, economic, and political cost.

[48] In January 1988 Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze announced that it was hoped that "1988 would be the last year of the Soviet troops stay"; the forces pulled out in the bitter winter cold of January–February 1989.

Many injured and disabled veterans of the war returned to the Soviet Union facing public scrutiny and difficulty re-entering civilian society, creating a new social group known as "Afgantsy".

[50] The extent military districts in 1990 were:[51] From 1985 to 1991, General Secretary Gorbachev attempted to reduce the strain the Soviet Armed Forces placed on the USSR's economy.

Then the developing withdrawals from Czechoslovakia and Hungary and the changes implicit in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty began to create more disruption.

The withdrawals became extremely chaotic; there was significant hardship for officers and their families, and "large numbers of weapons and vast stocks of equipment simply disappeared through theft, misappropriation and the black market.

"[53] In February 1989, Defence Minister Dmitri Yazov outlined five major planned changes in Izvestiya, the Soviet official newspaper of record.

The Armed Forces were extensively involved in the 19–21 August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Gorbachev.

On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine formally dissolved the USSR, and then constituted the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

[57] In the next few years, the former Soviet Ground Forces withdrew from central and Eastern Europe (including the Baltic states), as well as from the newly independent post-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The 1991 estimates are drawn from the IISS Military Balance and follow the Conventional Forces in Europe data exchange which revealed figures of November 1990.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported in 1992 that the USSR had previously had over 20,000 tanks, 30,000 armoured combat vehicles, at least 13,000 artillery pieces, and just under 1,500 helicopters.