Paratroopers from Ivanovo 217th Guards Airborne Regiment will land during military exercises in the Arctic Region. The airborne battalion has already boarded on military transport airplanes Ilyushin Il-76 at airfield Ivanovo-Severny for airlifting to airfield Tiksi. Meanwhile, paratroopers have loaded required material and equipment. The load weighs more than 30 tonnes. Outfits of paratroopers permit them to fulfill tasks not only in winter conditions of the Polar Region, but also in Arctic latitudes.
In Ivanovo, Kostroma and Yaroslavl regions, a bilateral company tactical exercise with paratrooper units of the Ivanovo airborne forces is being completed. One of its stages was the landing on the Budikhino landing site near Kostroma. At the second stage of the exercise, the paratroopers will have to transfer forces to the Pesochnoe training ground and, having captured a conditional object, capture an important line.
The 217th Guards Airborne Regiment is an airborne regiment of the Russian Airborne Troops. It was formed in 1948 from elements of the 296th Guards Airlanding Regiment. Currently based in Ivanovo, it is part of the 98th Guards Airborne Division. The regiment was formed on 1 October 1948 in Galyonki from elements of the 296th Guards Airlanding Regiment. As a result of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, elements of the regiment became the Ukrainian 25th Airborne Brigade. Beginning on 23 April 1993, the regiment moved to Ivanovo, where it is still based today.
The Russian Airborne Forces or VDV (from Vozdushno-desantnye voyska Rossii) is a separate troops branch of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. First formed before World War II, the force undertook two significant airborne operations and a number of smaller jumps during the war and for many years after 1945 was the largest airborne force in the world. The force was split after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, losing divisions to Belarus and Ukraine, and has been reduced in size. The VDV uses exclusively BMD family airborne infantry fighting vehicles.
