- Service ensign · official · carried by Ground Forces
- State affiliation · Russia
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
Service ensign: Flag of the Russian Ground Forces — carried by Ground Forces, not issued to this record. The service flag of the Ground Forces, adopted 2004. The design itself is not an object of copyright: Article 1259(6) of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation excludes official symbols and signs. The file shipped is the Wikimedia Commons SVG "Flag of the Russian Ground Forces.svg", released under PD-RU-exempt on that basis, so no attribution or share-alike obligation attaches. Optimised for web display; geometry unaltered.
State affiliation: Russia.
The smaller square mark is a Vigil category device, drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role — not an official insignia.
In brief
Motor-rifle division of the 20th Army re-established in 2016 in Smolensk oblast as part of the return to divisions on the western frontier; committed on the northern axes in 2022 and tracked on the Svatove–Kreminna line since.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination reported
- Sources
- 5 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Peacetime: Smolensk oblast. Wartime: the northern axes in 2022 and the Svatove–Kreminna line in Luhansk oblast since, by ISW's tracking. No current disposition is authored.
- Notable history
- A Soviet division disbanded in the 1990s and re-established in 2016 at Yelnya as one of the two divisions the 20th Army received in the return to divisional structures on the Ukrainian border — a structural signal that predated the invasion by six years. It fought the 2022 northern operation and the retreat from Kharkiv oblast, and has since been among the formations tracked on the Svatove–Kreminna line, the sector the 20th Army has held longest.
- Strengths
- A divisional structure built for this frontier before the war, with the artillery and support that a division brings and separate brigades do not.
- Limitations
- Re-formed on paper faster than it was filled; its 2022 performance reflected that, and it has been reconstituted since. Nothing below the division is authored.
Lineage & institutional history
Key events
Operation Vivaldi retakes ground north of Lyman
Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps disclosed on 15 September 2026 an operation it named Vivaldi, after The Four Seasons, which it had run in secret in the Lyman sector since late May. It announced four phases between 15 September and 14 October and said on 19 October the operation was complete, its line on the Chornyi Zherebets river. The corps claims 277 km² and 16 settlements — nine retaken from occupation, seven cleared of infiltration. Independent mapping is lower and lags: the Institute for the Study of War found at least 147 km² around Lyman newly visible in its September mapping, and DeepState confirmed named villages phase by phase. The corps says it struck Russian logistics and drone units deep in the rear before its armour moved; ISW assessed that Ukraine likely neutralised Russian drone defences north of Lyman before the third phase. On 9 October ISW assessed that the operation had defeated the northern arm of a Russian attempt to envelop Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which it called an operational failure for Russia.
Quick actions
System access
Where this record connects into the rest of Vigil. Each row is here because this organisation actually reaches it.
Assessed as of — 2026-07 Last reviewed — 2026-09-28
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