The Chief of the General Staff (Russian: Начальник Генерального штаба) is the head of the General Staff and the highest ranking officer of the Russian Armed Forces or is also the senior-most uniformed military officer. He is appointed by the President of Russia, who is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The position dates to the period of the Russian Empire. The current Chief of the General Staff is Army General Valery Gerasimov.
___GRU_(G.U.)_q.jpg)
The Russian Airborne Forces (Russian: Воздушно-десантные войска России, ВДВ, romanized: Vozdushno-desantnye voyska Rossii, VDV) is the airborne separate combat arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It is a rapid response force and strategic reserve that is under the President of Russia, reporting directly to the Chief of the General Staff, and is organized into airborne and air assault units. It was formed in 1992 from divisions of the Soviet Airborne Forces that came under Russian control following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Troops of the Russian Airborne Forces have traditionally worn a blue beret and blue-striped telnyashka undershirt and are called desant (Russian: Десант), from the French Descente.
The Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the Special Operations Forces (abbr. SOF; Russian: Силы специальных операций; ССО, romanized: Sily spetsial’nykh operatsiy; SSO), are strategic-level special forces under the Special Operations Forces Command (Russian: Командование сил специальных операций, KCCO, romanized: Komandovaniye sil spetsial'nykh operatsiy, abbr. KSSO or KSO) of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. They are also a structural branch and an independent unit of the Armed Forces.
The first units of what would become the Special Operations Forces were transferred from the General Staff Directorate (GRU) in 2009 as part of the continuing 2008 Russian military reform. The Special Operations Forces Command, established in 2012, was announced in March 2013 by the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to Gerasimov, Russian authorities designed the SOF as a strategic-level asset: élite special-operations-force units of the KSSO whose primary missions would be foreign interventions including counter-proliferation, foreign internal defense operations and undertaking the most complex special operations and clandestine missions for protecting the interests of the Russian Federation.
Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Vasilevsky (30 September [O.S. 10 September] 1895 – 5 December 1977) was a Soviet general who served as a top commander during World War II and achieved the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. During World War II, he served as the chief of the General Staff and deputy Minister of Defense, and later served as Minister of Defense from 1949 to 1953.
Born in central Russia, Vasilevsky began his military career in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I and earned the rank of captain by 1917. After the October Revolution of 1917 and the start of the Russian Civil War, he was conscripted into the Red Army and took part in the Polish-Soviet War. Following the war, Vasilevsky quickly rose through the ranks, and in 1931 was appointed to the Directorate of Military Training. In 1939, after Joseph Stalin's Great Purge, he was appointed deputy chief of operations of the Red Army.
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate, and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU, is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation tasked with advancing military intelligence through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and conducting clandestine and covert operations. The GRU controls the military intelligence service and maintains its own special forces units.
Unlike Russia's other security and intelligence agencies – such as the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO) – whose heads report directly to the president of Russia (see Intelligence agencies of Russia), the director of the GRU is subordinate to the Russian military command, reporting to the Minister of Defence and the Chief of the General Staff.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (Russian: Генеральный штаб Вооружённых сил Российской Федерации, romanized: General'nyy shtab Vooruzhonnykh sil Rossiyskoy Federatsii) is the military staff of the Russian Armed Forces. It is the central organ of the military command of the Armed Forces Administration and oversees operational command of the armed forces under the Russian Ministry of Defence.
As of 2012, the Chief of the General Staff is General of the Army Valery Gerasimov and since 2014, the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff is Colonel General Nikolay Bogdanovsky.
Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov (born 8 September 1955) is a Russian army general serving as the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and First Deputy Minister of Defence.
He was appointed by president Vladimir Putin on 9 November 2012, replacing Nikolai Makarov, and currently serves as the commander of all Russian forces in Ukraine. He is considered one of the most powerful men in Russia, and one of three people to hold access to Russia's nuclear weapons, alongside Putin and Defense Minister Andrey Belousov. Gerasimov has been described as a loyal follower of Putin. He is reportedly the one who conceived the Gerasimov Doctrine.