Up to 1,500 Russian airborne troopers, in addition to over 300 military vehicles, including combat helicopters, military transport aircraft, and Black Sea Fleet landing craft, have been deployed to the occupied Crimean peninsula to drill major offensive operations, according to information published on March 25 by Russia’s Defense Ministry.
The drills, involving paratrooper and artillery regiments of 7th Guard Mountain Air Assault Division, envisage practicing rapid, long-distance troops deployments via transport aircraft to multiple drop-off areas.
In a drill described by the Russian military as “one of the most fascinating episodes,” Russian paratroopers will perform a beach landing from amphibious vessels “with the goal of capturing and destroying simulated enemy command points and training camps of illegal armed formations.”
“Airborne forces would have to act in unfamiliar terrain,” the message reads.
“The paratroopers will practice the seizure of advantageous positions and their holding, with the aim of protecting the landing and advance of the main battle force, with support from artillery fire, tactical aviation, drone units, as well as accompanying armored units.
The 7th Division based in the city of Novorossiysk in Russia’s Krasnodardarskiy Krai, is generally considered to be one of Russia’s elite airborne units, with an operational record stretching back to World War II .
In the following decades as part of the Soviet, and later the Russian armed forces, the division has been engaged in several bloody conflicts, such as the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the Prague Spring of 1968, of popular unrest in Baku in 1990, as well as campaigns in Chechnya and Dagestan in the 1990s.
According to a research by the Royal United Services Institute, the world’s oldest defense and security think tank based in Britain, the 7th Division’s formations, notably its 247th Air Assault Regiment, participated in the gory battle of Ilovaisk in August 2014, a dramatic episode in Russia’s war in the Donbas, marked by a large-scale incursion of Russian regular army units into Ukraine to surround and slaughter an outnumbered Ukrainian force.
After fighting in the Donbas, the division in October 2016 was deployed to Syria as part of Russia’s military intervention in the Middle Eastern country to support its dictator, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in the civil war there.
The March 25 offensive drills in Crimea, which has been under illegal occupation by Russia since 2014, is the latest example of the Kremlin deploying a large military force in the Ukrainian peninsula.
According to Ukraine’s intelligence data, in the years since the invasion, Russian has increased its military power in the area to over 32,000 troops, over 100 warplanes, nearly 40 tanks, over 170 artillery pieces, and 680 armored troop carriers.
Besides, the Russian military contingent, including Black Sea Fleet battleships and submarines, operates a number of Kalibr cruise missiles, Bastion and Bal anti-ship missiles, S-400 air defense units, and Inskander ballistic missile systems.
