107th Rocket Brigade (Russia)

107th Rocket Brigade (1997–present) 23rd Rocket Brigade (1960–1997) 77th Engineering Brigade (1958–1960) 77th Engineering Brigade RVGK (1953–1958)
35th Army
Garrison/HQ	Birobidzhan
Decorations	Order of Lenin  Order of the Red Banner
Mozyr

The 107th Rocket Brigade (

.

The brigade was originally formed in 1953 as an engineering brigade operating

tactical ballistic missiles.

History

Cold War

The brigade traces its heritage back to the 77th Engineering Brigade of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command (RVGK), activated in May 1953 at Kapustin Yar. It included the 229th, 232nd, and 234th Separate Engineering Battalions, and a technical battery, and in October 1953 it was transferred to Bilokorovychi, in northern Ukraine, armed with R-11 Scud missiles. Two years later, the brigade was rearmed with R-17 Elbrus missiles. The 232nd Battalion was deployed to the Baikonur Test Center in July 1955 and was replaced there by the 229th Battalion a year later, with the 229th Battalion returning to Ukraine in July 1956. In July 1958 the 77th Brigade became part of the army, dropping the RVGK designation, and simultaneously relocated to Weißenfels, becoming part of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.^[1]

On 28 July 1960, the 77th was converted into the 23rd Rocket Brigade, and in May 1961 it relocated to

Russian service

On 1 September 1997, the brigade inherited the lineage of the disbanded 4th Rocket Brigade, and thus added the honorifics "Mozyr Red Banner Order of Lenin" to its title. That year, it was re-equipped with the OTR-21 Tochka tactical ballistic missile system.^[1] Between 2004 and 2011, the brigade was commanded by Vladimir Mazanenko, who was its first deputy commander from 1988.^[6] In 2005, it was announced that the brigade would begin rearming in 2007 with the updated 9K720 Iskander-M tactical ballistic missile system.^[7] In 2013, the brigade was rearmed with the Iskander, becoming the first Iskander brigade in the Eastern Military District. At the time it was commanded by Colonel Amir Devlikamov. In September 2014, the brigade conducted its first Iskander training launches, during exercise "Vostok-2014".^[8]

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Feskov, V.I.; Golikov, Valery; Kalashnikov, Konstantin; Slugin, Sergei (2013). Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской [The Armed Forces of the USSR after World War II: From the Red Army to the Soviet: Part 1 Land Forces] (in Russian). Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing.
  ISBN 9785895035306
  .
• Galeotti, Mark (2017). The Modern Russian Army 1992–2016. Elite 217. Oxford: Osprey.
  ISBN 978-1-47281-908-6
  .