Troops of the Soviet Airborne Forces traditionally wore a sky blue beret and blue-striped telnyashka and they were named desant (Russian: Десант) from the French Descente.

[3] The first airborne forces parachute jump is dated to 2 August 1930, taking place in the Moscow Military District.

Airborne landing detachments were established after the initial 1930 experimental jump, but creation of larger units had to wait until 1932–33.

Only a few small airborne drops were carried out in the first desperate days of Operation Barbarossa, in the vicinity of Kyiv, Odessa, and the Kerch peninsula.

Responding to events in southern Russia, where German troops had opened a major offensive that would culminate in the Stalingrad battles, the ten airborne corps, as part of the Stavka strategic reserves, deployed southward.

Furthermore, the Stavka converted all ten airborne corps into guards rifle divisions to bolster Soviet forces in the south.

[citation needed] The HQ 9th Guards Army was redesignated Headquarters Airborne Forces in June 1946 after the war ended.

However, even by the 1980s only two divisions were capable of being deployed for combat operations in the first wave against NATO using Air Force Military Transport Aviation and Aeroflot aircraft.

[23] In accordance with a directive of the General Staff, from August 3, 1979, to December 1, 1979, the 105th Guards Vienna Airborne Division was disbanded.

The rest of the personnel of the division were reassigned to fill out other incomplete airborne units and formations and to the newly formed air assault brigades.

However, there was also a mistaken Western belief, either intentional Soviet deception or stemming from confusion in the West, that an Airborne Division, reported as the 6th, was being maintained at Belogorsk in the Far East in the 1980s.

The Airborne Forces (Воздушно-десантные войска (ВДВ), literal translation: Air-Landing Troops) of the Soviet Union and their present-day Russian Federation successor are a separate combat service directly subordinated to the General Staff.

V. I. Shaykin's historic study of the Airborne Forces lists the following force structure in 1989 (Military Detachment number (в/ч) given in brackets):[28] Directorate of the Commander of the Airborne Troops (Управление командующего ВДВ)(25953), Moscow, RSFSR As a high readiness and long range main operational reserve of the General Staff the Airborne Troops could rely on the support of the whole Military Transport Aviation and Aeroflot aircraft mobilized for military service.

The Airborne Troops also had their own organic aviation assets, but these had very limited airlift capabilities (Antonov An-2s and Mil Mi-8s) and were used for parachute training and liaison flights between the various units.

Around the time of the strategic Exercise Dnepr-67 (ru:Днепр (учения)) came the organization of the first Soviet air assault formation.

пдп) was transformed into the 1st Separate Air Assault Brigade (1-я отдельная Воздушно-штурмовая бригада (1-я овшбр)) and this experimental formation was put under the command of Major General Kobzar', Chief of the Combat Training Department of the Airborne Forces HQ.

In addition several separate landing assault battalions were formed as assets of combined arms and tank armies.

This was the 105th Guards Venskaya, awarded the Order of the Red Banner Airborne Landing Division (105-я гвардейская воздушно-десантная Венская Краснознаменная дивизия) with HQ in Fergana in the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan SSR and command of the 111th, 345th, 351st and the 383rd Parachute Landing Regiments and additional support units.

The division was specialized in warfare in mountain and arid regions and the decision to disband it proved to be a seriously misguided one in the coming Soviet–Afghan War.

[40] It was made by poet Bulat Okudzhava, written for the feature film Belorussian Station by Andrei Smirnov (1970).

Every year, the band's personnel take part in the Victory Parade on Red Square, as well as the opening ceremony of the International Army Games.

It began its creative activity in 1937, as the Red Army Song and Dance Ensemble of the Kyiv Military District, numbering only 18 people.

On 3 May 1945, three days after the signing of the German armistice, the ensemble gave a concert on the steps of the destroyed Reichstag.

During the Cold War, the unit was known as the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.