Russia to Deploy 2 More Artillery Divisions Armed with Soviet Weapon Systems near Ukrainian Border

The nature of Russian Army’s deployment on the border with Ukraine indicates possible ‘surprises’ from the ‘partners’ side’.

Tyulpan 240-mm self-propelled mortar (Photo: dev2.vpk-news.ru)

Two self-propelled artillery divisions of high power will be formed as a part of one of the artillery units of the Southern Military District by the end of this year. One division will be equipped with the Tyulpan 240-mm self-propelled mortars; the second division is planned to be armed with the Malka 203-mm self-propelled guns.

The peculiarity of this statement of the press service of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces lies in the fact that it talks about the old weapon systems, most of which was put in reserve in the 90s of the last century.

However, these heavy-duty weapon systems still do not have equivalent artillery analogues and represent a significant military value, especially in view of the modernization in order to increase the accuracy of hitting a target, located at a distance of several tens of kilometers.

The return of these artillery systems into operation may point to a specific adjustment of plans to deploy the Russian Armed Forces on the borders with Ukraine in the light of uncertainty of the military-political situation and possibility of any ‘surprises’ from the so-called Western partners. The Russian Command considers the risk of the unpredictable development of events as a very possible situation. For this reason, along with the planned rearmament of the Army with new types of military equipment, the combat power of Russian troops is built up with help of demothballing of old, but still formidable weapons. And this is done despite the fact that the most important benchmark of the state program of the rearmament is precisely the saturation of troops with new military equipment, and the planned indicators may be slightly spoiled. But, apparently, the real situation is that these indicators are no longer considered as a top priority today.