12th Military Transport Aviation Division
Identification
Open sources consistently identify this location as the 12th Military Transport Aviation Division headquartered at Migalovo, Tver. Tver city administration states the division relocated to Tver in the 1980s and that the 196th Military Transport Aviation Regiment has been based there since 1992; in June 2024, the commander of Military Transport Aviation described Tver as the unofficial center of VTA and said the 12th division is based there. ([tver.ru](https://www.tver.ru/about/info/news/28315/))
Distributed basing
The placemarks fit a distributed western-Russia basing pattern rather than a single airfield. MoD/TASS material on VTA described regiments in Tver, Pskov, Ivanovo and Bryansk Oblast, matching the geography here; open-source airfield references place the 334th at Pskov-Kresty and the 566th at Seshcha. Public Russian defense reporting relayed by VPK/bmpd also reported the re-formation of the 81st Military Transport Aviation Regiment at Ivanovo-Severny on 1 December 2020 and said it was included in the 12th division, but I did not find a current primary-source order-of-battle page confirming its present status. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4300859?utm_source=openai))
Heavy-lift posture
The division is publicly associated with Russia’s heaviest transport fleet. TASS reported in June 2024 that the Tver-based 12th division operates An-124 heavy transports, while long-running unit-history data place the 566th regiment at Seshcha on An-124s under the 12th division. TASS also reported that VTA would cease An-22 operations in 2024, so any continued operational role for the 76th separate An-22 squadron should be treated as not publicly confirmed. ([tass.com](https://tass.com/defense/1797853))
Ivanovo special-mission node
Ivanovo-Severny is a special-mission node adjacent to the division’s transport structure. TASS reported in May 2023 that an attempted sabotage operation there targeted A-50 airborne early warning aircraft, and TASS reported in October 2023 that the crew of an Il-22 shot down near Voronezh had been based at Ivanovo-Severny. Older unit-history data place the 144th long-range radar-detection regiment at Ivanovo from 1998, but authoritative current sources do not clearly confirm that regiment as administratively subordinate to the 12th division today. ([tass.com](https://tass.com/emergencies/1614637))
Threat exposure
The division’s western airfields are under demonstrated rear-area strike pressure. TASS reported eight drones shot down over Tver on 25 May 2025, including five in Migalovo district, and TASS reported a drone attack on Pskov on 30 August 2023 that set military-transport Il-76 aircraft on fire. The most supportable inference is that the division’s dispersed basing improves coverage and redundancy, but also creates multiple fixed airfield targets across western Russia. ([tass.com](https://tass.com/emergencies/1963051))