The 60th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Assault Battalion named after M. S. Tolstykh (

MUN MUN may refer to: People * Mun, another spelling of Moon (Korean name), Korean family and personal name *Mun (surname) * Ajahn Mun (1870–1949), Thai ''bhikkhu'' (Buddhist monk) Places * Mun, Hautes-Pyrénées, a commune in the Hautes-Pyrén� ...

08828; , в/ч 08828), often known as Somalia Battalion (), is a military unit of

Russian Ground Forces The Russian Ground Forces (), also known as the Russian Army in English, are the Army, land forces of the Russian Armed Forces. The primary responsibilities of the Russian Ground Forces are the protection of the state borders, combat on land, ...

. Until January 1, 2023 it was part of the self-proclaimed

Donetsk People's Republic The Donetsk People's Republic (DPR; , ) is Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, occupied territory in Ukraine that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex and declared as a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia, comprising parts o ...

(DPR). It is attached to the 51st Guards Combined Arms Army. It was commanded by Timur Kurilkin until he was appointed commander of the 9th Motor Rifle Brigade.

History

The Somalia Battalion was formed in the summer of 2014 in

Ilovaisk Ilovaisk (, ; ) is a city in Donetsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine; residence of Ilovaisk urban hromada. The city is ''de facto'' annexed by Russia and administered by the Donetsk People's Republic. The city is known as a major regional ra ...

as the Separate Company "Somalia", and was commanded in its first few years by

Mikhail Tolstykh Mikhail Sergeyevich Tolstykh (; ; 19 July 1980 – 8 February 2017), better known by his ''nom de guerre'' Givi (Гиви), was a Ukrainian separatist officer wanted for war crimes. He was mainly known as the commander of the collaborationis ...

, a native of Ilovaisk who went by the

nom de guerre A ''nom de guerre'' (, 'war name') is a pseudonym chosen by someone to use when they are involved in a particular activity, especially fighting in a war. In Ancien régime, ''ancien régime'' Kingdom of France, France it would be adopted by each n ...

‘Givi’. The name of the unit supposedly derived from the "irregular" look of its first fighters, and got its name because when fighters lined up for the first time "…they were dressed in all manner of civilian clothes, such as shorts and trainers, did not look like a combat force, and, in their view, resembled Somali pirates". SSI of the Somalia Battalion

In the fall of 2014, the company was raised to battalion strength and deployed into the 1st Separate Battalion Tactical Group “Somalia”. In the fall of 2014 – winter 2015, the group took part in the

second battle of Donetsk airport The Second Battle of Donetsk Airport was an engagement between the Ukrainian military and Russian military and its proxy forces of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) during the War in Donbas. An earlier battle in May 2014 had left Donet ...

. In early 2015, it was reformed into the Separate Mechanized Battalion “Somalia”, which in spring 2015 was renamed the 1st Separate Tank Ilovaisk Battalion. In September 2015, during another reorganization, the unit was reformed into the Separate Motor Rifle (Assault) Battalion "Somalia". On 12 February, 2016, the unit was awarded the honorary designation "Guards". In February 2017, the unit's commander, Mikhail Tolstykh, was assassinated in his office with a

RPO-A Shmel The RPO-A Shmel () is a man-portable, single-use, rocket-assisted thermobaric weapon. While its name directly translates to flamethrower (and it is classified as such in Russian military documents), the RPO-A Shmel is more accurately described as ...

rocket launcher. It is alleged he was killed by his own side because he knew who shot down

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-backed forces with a Buk missile system, Bu ...

, or that he was killed by Ukrainian forces.Šmíd, Tomáš & Šmídová, Alexandra. (2021)
Anti-government Non-state Armed Actors in the Conflict in Eastern Ukraine
''Czech Journal of International Relations'', Volume 56, Issue 2. pp.45-46. After the death of the commander the battalion was named after him. The battalion took part in the

Siege of Mariupol The siege of Mariupol began on 24 February 2022 and lasted until 20 May, as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It saw fighting between the Russian Armed Forces (alongside the Donetsk People's Republic People's Militia) and the Ukrainian ...

alongside Russian forces during the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

. In 2022, while being decorated by the head of the DPR,

Denis Pushilin Denis Vladimirovich Pushilin (born 9 May 1981) is a Russian politician who has served as the Head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) since 2018. He has held the position in an acting capacity ever since the Russian annexation of the DPR in ...

, Senior Lieutenant of the Somalia Battalion Roman Vorobyov was shown wearing a ''

Totenkopf ''Totenkopf'' (, i.e. ''skull'', literally "dead person's head") is the German word for skull. The word is often used to denote a figurative, graphic or sculptural symbol, common in Western culture, consisting of the representation of a human s ...

'' and a ''

valknut The valknut is a symbol consisting of three interlocked triangles forming subliminal triskelion at its center. It appears on a variety of objects from the archaeological record of the ancient Germanic peoples. The term ''valknut'' is a moder ...

'' symbol on his arm patch; both symbols are associated with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. The battalion participated in the Battle of Avdiivka.

Equipment

The battalion has

T-64 The T-64 is a Soviet tank manufactured in Kharkiv, and designed by Alexander Morozov. The tank was introduced in the early 1960s. It was a more advanced counterpart to the T-62: the T-64 served in tank divisions, while the T-62 supported i ...

and

T-72 The T-72 is a family of Soviet Union, Soviet main battle tanks that entered production in 1973. The T-72 was a development based on the T-64 using thought and design of the previous Object 167M. About 25,000 T-72 tanks have been built, and refu ...

tanks,

BMP-1 The BMP-1 is a Soviet Union, Soviet Amphibious vehicle, amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle that has been in service from 1966 to the present. BMP stands for ''Boyevaya Mashina Pyekhoty 1'' (), meaning "infantry fighting vehicle, 1st ...

BTR-70 The BTR-70 is an eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier () originally developed by the Soviet Union during the late 1960s under the manufacturing code GAZ-4905. On August 21, 1972, it was accepted into Soviet service and would later be widely exp ...

MT-LB The MT-LB (, literally "multi-purpose towing vehicle light armored") is a Soviet Union, Soviet multi-purpose, fully amphibious vehicle, amphibious, tracked Armoured fighting vehicle, armored fighting vehicle in use since the 1970s. It was also ...

and

BRDM-2 The BRDM-2 (''Boyevaya Razvedyvatelnaya Dozornaya Mashina'', Боевая Разведывательная Дозорная Машина, literally "Combat Reconnaissance/Patrol Vehicle") is an amphibious armoured scout car designed and developed ...

armoured fighting vehicles as well as supporting artillery, mortars and transport vehicles.

References

{{War in Donbas Separatist forces of the war in Donbas Military of the Donetsk People's Republic Tank units and formations Pro-Russian militant groups Paramilitary organizations based in Ukraine

History

Equipment

See also

References