74th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade

The 74th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Zvenigorod-Berlin Orders of Kutuzov and Suvorov Brigade (; MUN 21005) is a military formation of the Russian Ground Forces's 41st Combined Arms Army, part of the Central Military District, stationed in Yurga, Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. The brigade was created by reforming the 94th Guards Motor Rifle Division withdrawn from the GDR in the early 1990s.

History

Early years and WWII

The 74th Motor Rifle Brigade was created from the disbanded 94th Guards Zvenigorod-Berlin Order of Suvorov Motor Rifle Division, formerly called the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. The 94th Guards Rifle Division was formed on 23 April 1943 in the eastern Ukraine as a consolidation of the 14th Guards and 96th Rifle Brigades. It took part in the liberation of southern Ukraine through the remainder of 1943 and into 1944 as part of the 5th Shock Army. It remained with the Army through the remainder of the war and ended in the streets of Berlin. Post-war, it remained with the 5th Shock Army for a period, then transferred to the 3rd Army.

In 1957, it was one of the few Rifle Divisions to be reorganized into a Motor Rifle Division and still retained its original number. In the mid-1980s, it was transferred to the 2nd Guards Tank Army, where it remained until withdrawn from East Germany in 1991.
After arriving in Yurga (near Tomsk) in the Siberian Military District, it was reorganized into the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade, where it remains today. Other units also became part of the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade including a guards engineering battalion and the 386th Tank Regiment.

After the Collapse of the Soviet Union (1993–2015)

Between 30 December 1994 and April 1995, the brigade's personnel carried out a combat missions in the First Chechen War. On the night of December 31, 1994 to January 1, 1995, a brigade of 1,274 soldiers, 45 tanks, 115 BMP-1s entered Grozny, and in addition, the brigade's fighters captured the villages of Ilyinovskaya and Petropavlovskaya. In total, 128 servicemen of the 74th Brigade were killed during the conflict, and more than 700 people from there were awarded government awards. The brigade then returned to Chechnya in 1999-2001 as part of the counter-terrorist operation during the Second Chechen War.

On February 3, 2005, Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov visited the brigade and promised that by the end of 2006, the brigade would be composed fully of professional soldiers, not conscripts. He also said the brigade was one of the most combat ready of the entire Russian military, adding a promise of new barracks construction.

By 2005, the commander was Major General Farid Balaliyev. Elements of the brigade have also participated in the Russian military intervention on the Syrian Civil War. In 2014, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented the brigade with the Order of Kutuzov for the successful completion of combat training missions. In 2015, the 74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade became the first unit of the Central Military District to be fully re-equipped with T-72B3 tanks.

Invasion of Ukraine (2022–present)

The brigade is also involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A platoon of the 74th Motor Rifle Brigade surrendered to Ukrainian forces near Chernihiv. On 24 February, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi announced that a reconnaissance platoon of the Russian 74th Motorized Rifle Brigade had surrendered near Chernihiv, with the unit's commander claiming "nobody thought that we were going to kill". A member of the brigade was accused by Ukrainian prosecutors of detaining a civilian in the village of on 6 March.

On 8 March, the brigade conducted a river crossing of the Desna River

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