The 205th Separate Cossack Motor Rifle Brigade (205 omsbr) (; Military Unit Number 74814) is a mechanized infantry brigade of the Russian Ground Forces. Part of the 49th Combined Arms Army, the brigade is based in Budyonnovsk, Stavropol Krai.
Formed in 1995 during the First Chechen War, the brigade has since fought in most Russian post-Soviet conflicts, including the War of Dagestan, Second Chechen War, the Russo-Georgian War, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
History
First Chechen War
The 205th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade was formed by 1 May 1995 (although it marks its anniversary on 2 May) in accordance with a 17 March Minister of Defense directive during the First Chechen War. The brigade was formed in recently captured Grozny from battalions and companies drawn from the 167th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, deployed from Chebarkul, the 131st Separate Motor Rifle Brigade from Maykop, and the 723rd Guards Motor Rifle Regiment of the 16th Guards Tank Division from Chaykovsky. The brigade was planned to be based in Grozny and Shali as part of a permanent Russian military presence in Chechnya, but was continuously engaged in the war from the beginning of its existence. The brigade included the 1387th, 1393rd, 1394th, and 1396th Separate Motor Rifle Battalions, 29th Separate Tank Battalion, 327th Separate Rocket Artillery Battalion, 321st Separate Self-Propelled Howitzer Artillery Battalion, 346th Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Artillery Battalion, 1398th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion. The 147th Separate Electronic Warfare Company was formed as part of the brigade by 1 April 1996, and the 93rd Separate Engineer-Sapper Battalion and 584th Separate Spetsnaz Company followed by 25 May. The 204th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Regiment was also formed as part of the brigade by 25 May, and included the 395th, 396th, and 427th Separate Motor Rifle Battalions in addition to the 435th Separate Self-Propelled Artillery Battalion. The 204th was first stationed at Khankala with the objective of later deploying to Shali. A proposal was made to reorganize the brigade to consist of two motor rifle regiments, the reconnaissance battalion, and the Spetsnaz company in May 1996, but this was not implemented due to being considered too cumbersome for the counterinsurgency war.
During the war, the personnel of the brigade served at outposts and roadblocks, guarded important facilities, and often operated in conjunction with the Internal Troops in the suppression of Chechen resistance. Brigade political officer Vyacheslav Izmailov, interviewed twenty years later, described his unit and the army in general as an "ill-trained rabble" only capable of "filling Chechnya with corpses" in a conflict that was "not a war, but banditry on both sides." He recalled one incident in which more conscripts were sent to the unit than they had food supplies for, which resulted in them being sent back to Russia when the Khankala battalion commander found that his replacements were malnourished to the extent that they could not walk to the canteen on their own. Indicative of the brigade's reputation was its wartime nickname Two Hundred Drunk (Двести пьяная), a play on the similarity of the Russian word for drunk and the word for fifth from its designation. Elements of the 205th participated in the 7 January 1996 operation to free hostages and eliminate the fighters in the village of Pervomayskoye during the Kizlyar–Pervomayskoye hostage crisis. The brigade was further engaged in the elimination of militants in Grozny following a three-day siege of the Russian troops in March, and in the operations around the village of Shalazhi and Komsomolskoye in July.