Other elite units of Russian Army

Reconnaissance Large units and military Units

The Reconnaissance Formations and military Units are often put into the Special Forces of the Land Force and designed to perform a wide range of tasks in order to provide commanders, staffs and headquarters with information about the enemy, terrain and weather condition for making the most rational decisions on operation (battle) and preventing surprises of the enemy’s actions.

In the interests of the Land Force reconnaissance is carried out by organic reconnaissance subunits of combined-arms formations (motorised rifle and tank brigades), formations and units of special purpose, radio and electronic reconnaissance of army and military district sets, as well as reconnaissance units and subdivisions of the Arms and Special Forces of the Land Force.

In preparation and during conducting of combined-arms operations (combat actions) they perform the following tasks:

• disclosure of the enemy’s intention, its immediate preparations for aggression, and its surprise attack prevention;
• identifying the troops (forces) of the enemy and its control system’s combat structure, position, grouping, status and capabilities;
• disclosure of the objects (targets) for defeating and determination of their location (coordinates);
• disclosure of the elements of the war theatre’s operational equipment, the terrains’ engineering equipment and the system of barriers;
• determination of the degree of terrain’s passability, the state of communications, the nature of water barriers, the boundaries and the dimensions of areas of destruction, fires and floods, contamination areas, possible ways of overcoming them and turning movement around them;
• identifying the enemy’s new weapons and methods of warfare, as well as its activities to ensure full operation (battle);
• determination of the morale of the enemy’s troops and the local population, the economic status of the operation’s area, etc.

Reconnaissance Formations and Units extract the necessary information about the enemy by the following main ways:

• surveillance (tracking) and eavesdropping;
• photographing (ground or air);
• interception, technical analysis of radiation of electronic means and determination of objects’ coordinates;
• conducting searches, raids, ambushes, reconnaissance in force;
• survey of local residents, interrogation of prisoners and defectors;
• studying the enemy’s documents, equipment and weapons captured.

Further improvement of capabilities of the Reconnaissance Formations and Units is made by improving their organizational structure, equipping them with highly technical means of reconnaissance, including based on new physical principles, tactical systems of reconnaissance based on unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as with automation of data collection, processing of reconnaissance data and informing commanders and staffs about them in real time.