79th Air Assault Brigade
military unit
The 79th Air Assault Brigade "Tavria" (Ukrainian: 79-та окрема десантно-штурмова Таврійська бригада; 79 ОДШБр) (MUN A0224) is a formation of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces. The paratrooper brigade is based in Mykolaiv.
Soldiers from the brigade have served as peacekeepers in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone.
Starting in 2014, the brigade took part in the war in Donbas. The brigade fought in the Second Battle of Donetsk Airport, where it and other Ukrainian military units became known as the "cyborgs" due to their stubborn defense of the Donetsk Airport.
History
The brigade's history began as 40th Air Assault Brigade in the fall of 1979, formed from elements of the 97th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 7th Guards Airborne Division. Later it was reorganized into the 40th Airborne Brigade between 6 December 1989 and 1 August 1990 (1 June 1990 according to Holm). That redesignation marked the transfer of the brigade from the Odessa Military District to the Soviet Airborne Troops.
In February 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the brigade went over to Ukrainian control, against the wishes of its commander V. N. Loginov and without Moscow's knowledge. The brigade's soldiers had become frustrated over lapses in food and pay due to Russo-Ukrainian disputes over Soviet military unit upkeep, and decided that shifting to Ukrainian command would end those issues.
The public source identifies “79th Air Assault Brigade” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 79th, Assault and Brigade.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4032417. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014, 1979, 1989 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “79th Air Assault Brigade” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.