Country Soviet Union
Ukraine HQ Lviv | Type Military district | |
Active 3 May 1946 - January 1998 Engagements Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Operation Danube Decorations Order of the Red Banner | ||
The Carpathian Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces established on May 3, 1946 on the base of the 1st Ukrainian Front, 4th Ukrainian Front, and Lviv Military District. It became part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 1991 and was disbanded by being redesignated the Western Operational Command in January 1998.
Contents
History
Two districts were formed in what was to become the district's territory in 1944-45. During May 1944 in the freed territory of the West Ukraine the Lvov Military District was activated, headed by the former deputy commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front. In July 1945 the Carpathian Military District (PriKVO) was created during from the staff of the 4th Ukrainian Front in Chernivtsi. The two districts were amalgamated on 3 May 1946 with the headquarters at Lviv. The District's territory included 10 regions of the Ukrainian SSR - Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zhytomyr, Transcarpathian, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivensku, Khmel'nytskiy, Ternopil, and Chernivetskyy.
The 3rd Mountain Rifle Corps was in the Lvov Military District in September 1945. It became part of the 38th Army in the Carpathian Military District, but disbanded by 1957.
Troops of the district, including 57th Air Army, took part in 'Operation Danube,' the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The District became subordinate to the Western Strategic Direction in the late 1970s/early 80s. The 8th Tank (formed from 8th Mechanised Army in 1957, which in its turn was formed from the 52nd Army in 1946), 13th, and 38th Armies were stationed in the District for most of its existence. The 14th Air Army and 2nd Army of the Soviet Air Defence Forces were also located there. Scott and Scott reported the HQ address in 1979 as Lviv-8, Vulytsa Vatutina, Bud 12.
In September 1990, the 66th Artillery Corps was formed in Novye Belokorovichi, Zhitomir Oblast, from parts of the disbanded HQ 50th Rocket Army. It took under control the pre-existing 26th and 81st Artillery Divisions.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk appointed Lieutenant General Peter Ivanovich Shulyak (ru:Шуляк, Пётр Иванович), former commander of the 13th Army, as commander of the district on April 7, 1994, in Presidential Ukaz N 143/94.
Former Soviet and Western sources agree on an end-1980s figure of three tank divisions and nine or ten motor rifle divisions in the District. In its last years under Ukrainian control the District saw a large reduction in the number of troops within it as Ukraine reduced the 780,000 troops it had inherited from the Soviet Union to a figure more appropriate to its new needs.
Order of battle c.1988
The District's forces at the end of the 1980s included:
Commanders since World War II
The District's commanders included: