Transcaucasian Military District

The Transcaucasian Military District, a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces, traces its history to May 1921 and the incorporation of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia into the USSR. It was disbanded by being redesignated as a Group of Forces in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union collapse.

It was originally formed from the Red Army's Separate Caucasian Army, which became the Red Banner Caucasian Army in August 1923. Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani national formations, plus units from the 11th Soviet Red Army, all joined the new district about this time.

In July 1936 the District's formations and units received designations according to the countrywide numbering scheme and became: the 9th (formerly 1st Caucasus) Mountain Rifle Division, named for the Central Executive Committee of the Georgian SSR; the 20th (formerly 3rd Caucasus) Mountain Rifle Division; the 47th (former 1st) Georgian Mountain Rifle Division, named for Comrade Stalin; the 63rd (former 2nd) Georgian Mountain Rifle Division, named for Comrade Frunze; the 76th Аrmenian Mountain Rifle Division, named after Comrade Voroshilov, and the 77th Аzerbaijani Mountain Rifle Division, named for Comrade Ordzhonikidze. [A.G. Lenskii (А. Г. Ленский), Сухопутные силы РККА в предвоенные годы. Справочник. — Санкт-Петербург Б&К, 2000, p.151-2]

On 22 June 1941 the District consisted of the 3rd (4th, 20th, and 47th Divisions), 23rd (136 and 138 Divisions) and 40th (9th and 31) Rifle Corps, the 28th Mechanised Corps, which included the 6th and 54th Tank Divisions and the 236th Motorised Division, five unattached divisions - the 63rd, 76th, and 77th Rifle, the 17th Mountain Cavalry and the 24th Cavalry, and three fortified regions. [Orbat.com/Niehorster, [http://orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/012_ussr/41_oob/transcaucasus/_transcausasus.html Administrative Order of Battle, Transcaucasus Military District, 22 June 1941] ]

During World War II it became the Transcaucasus Front.

After World War II the Transcaucasus Front reverted to being a part of the Headquarters Transcaucasus Military District (ZakVO), in Tbilisi. In 1979 Scott and Scott reported the District' HQ address as Tbilisi-4, Ulitsa Dzneladze, Dom 46. The District became part of the Southern Direction, headquartered in Baku and including the North Caucasus and Turkestan Military Districts, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. [William E Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military, Yale University Press, 1998, p.29]

Commanders 1945-91

*Maslennikov, Ivan (1946 - 1947), Army General;
*Tolbukhin, Fyodor Ivanovich (1947 - 1949), Marshal of the Soviet Union;
*Antonov, Alexei Innokentevich (1950 - 1954), Army General;
*Fedyuninsky, Ivan (1954 - 1957), Colonel General in August 8, 1955 - Army General;
*Rokossowski, Konstantin (1957), Marshal of the Soviet Union;
*Galitski, Kuzma N. (1958 - 1961), Army General;
*Stuchenko, Andrei Trofimovich (1961 - 1968), Colonel General, in April 13, 1964 - Army General;
*Kurkotkin, Semyon Konstantinovich (1968 - 1971), Colonel General;
*Melnikov, Paul V. (October 1971 - 1978), Colonel General;
*Koulishev O.F. (1978 - August 1983), Colonel General;
*Arkhipov, Vladimir Mikhailovich (August 1983 - July 1985), Colonel General;
*Kochetov, Konstantin Alekseevich (July 1985 - May 1988), Colonel General, in April 29, 1988 - Army General;
*Rodionov, Igor (May 1988 - August 1989), Colonel General;
*Patrikeev Valery Anisimovich (August 1989 - September 26, 1992), Colonel General;

Forces in the late 1980s

In the late 1980s dispositions within the District were as follows: [V.I. Feskov, K.A. Kalashnikov, V.I. Golikov, The Soviet Army in the Years of the Cold War 1945-91, Tomsk University Publishing House, Tomsk, 1994]

*104th Guards Airborne Division VDV, Ganja
*173rd Guards District Training Centre, Tbilisi
*Seventh Guards Army, HQ Yerevan, Armenian SSR
**15th Motor Rifle Division, Kirovakan
**127th Motor Rifle Division, Leninakan (now Russian 102nd Military Base)
**164th Motor Rifle Division, Yerevan

*Fourth Army, HQ Baku, Azerbaijan SSR
**23rd Motor Rifle Division, Ganja
**60th Motor Rifle Division, Lenkoran
**216th Motor Rifle Division
**295th Motor Rifle Division, Baku
**75th Motor Rifle Division, Nakhichevan

*Ninth Army, HQ Kutaisi, Georgian SSR
**10th Guards Motor Rifle Division, Akhaltsikhe
**145th Motor Rifle Division, Batumi, Adjara
**147th Motor Rifle Division, Akhalkalaki
**152nd Motor Rifle Division, Kutaisi

Russian Transcaucasus Group of Forces

Following the fall of the USSR, the District became the Group of Russian Forces in the Transcaucasus (Russian Группа российских войск в Закавказье - ГРВЗ; GRVZ). After many of the divisions listed above had dissolved or become part of the former republics' armed forces, in the mid 1990s the GRVZ's dispositions were:
*Headquarters, Tbilisi
*12th Military Base, Batumi, Adjara AR, Georgia
*50th Military Base, Gudauta, Abkhazia AR, Georgia (former 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment, which later became 10th Independent Peacekeeping Airborne Regiment)
*62nd Military Base, Akhalkalaki, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia
*102nd Military Base, Gyumri, Armenia
*137th Military Base, Vaziani, Georgia (former 173rd Guards District Training Centre)
*Other smaller formations and units, including the 142nd Tank Repair Factory, Tbilisi, and an independent helicopter squadron

General Major Aleksander Studenikin, former deputy commander of the Moscow Military District's 20th Army, commanded the Group in 2004 with General (Major?) Andrei Popov as his deputy. [Nino Kopaleishvili, ‘Bomb Injures Russian Military Official’, Tbilisi Messenger, April 8, 2004, p.5] The Russian base at Vaziani was withdrawn in the late 1990s and an agreement over the withdrawal of the 12th and 62nd Bases by 2008-09 was made in 2005.

Russia had maintained two Russian military bases in Georgia (the 62nd Base in Akhalkalaki and the 12th in Batumi), remnants of the Soviet era, but the bases are in the process of being withdrawn. The Akhalkalaki 62nd base was officially transferred ahead of schedule to Georgia on June 27, 2007. [ [http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=15342 Russia Transfers Akhalkalaki Military Base to Georgia.] "Civil Georgia". June 27, 2007. Accessed on June 29, 2007.] The 12th Military Base in Batumi was also transferred early; scheduled for 2008, it was actually transferred on November 13, 2007. The ‘Zvezda’ command post (probably the former District war headquarters) in the town of Mtskheta, just north of Tblisi, was handed over by early September 2005. [‘Zvezda has been transferred to Georgia’, Georgian MOD website, www.mod.gov.ge/?=E&id=10, accessed 29 October 2005.] Due to the espionage conflict between Russia and Georgia, the Transcaucasus Group of Forces headquarters in Tbilisi was closed down ahead of schedule: 287 Russian servicemen left Georgia by December 31, 2006. [ [http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061010/54693711.html "Russia to withdraw Tbilisi garrison early - minister"] , RIA Novosti, October 10 2006]

Even after the GRVZ is totally withdrawn, Russian troops will remain in peacekeeping roles in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, de-jure parts of Georgia. There is about 1,600 men on the Abkhazian-Georgian boundary (serving alongside UNOMIG) and a battalion in South Ossetia. According to the Russian authorities, the Gudauta military base is also now used by the peacekeeping forces, but no international monitoring has ever been allowed there.

References