14th Air and Air Defense Forces Army
Identification
This record matches the headquarters of Russia’s 14th Air and Air Defense Forces Army in Yekaterinburg, an operational air-and-air-defense formation within the Central Military District. A 2025 Russian civil-aviation search-and-rescue document identifies the commander of 14th Army as the commander of military unit 71592 in Yekaterinburg; however, older registry data show military unit 71592 was previously the legal entity of the predecessor 2nd Air and Air Defense Command in Novosibirsk and was liquidated in 2017, so the unit-number trail is historically messy in open sources. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/ural-news/9342821))
Command
Public reporting states Major General Vladimir Melnikov was introduced as commander in Yekaterinburg on September 1, 2020, replacing Alexander Tatarenko. The same announcement said the army had been formed in August 2015 from the earlier 2nd Air and Air Defense Command structure. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/ural-news/9342821))
Mission and reach
The formation’s stated responsibility covers airspace over 29 Russian regions and more than 3,000 km of state border. Open-source Russian reporting also says its aviation operates over Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan and that the headquarters in Yekaterinburg coordinates search-and-rescue support for crewed Soyuz landings in Kazakhstan. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/ural-news/9342821))
Force posture
As of September 2020, district press-service reporting listed MiG-31BM interceptors, Su-24M front-line bombers, Mi-8AMTSh, Mi-24, and Mi-26 helicopters, plus S-300PS surface-to-air missile systems under the army. This points to a mixed command combining interceptor, strike, rotary-wing, and ground-based air-defense functions rather than a single-base aviation headquarters. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/ural-news/9342821))
Subordinate nodes
Public reporting links the 17th Guards Army Aviation Brigade to the 14th Army; the brigade was formed on December 1, 2018 from the 48th Army Aviation Air Base, is based on airfields in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk oblasts, and is publicly noted as operating Mi-26 heavy helicopters. Separately, the 999th Guards Air Base at Kant, Kyrgyzstan, is publicly described as structurally part of the 14th Army and as an aviation component for CSTO rapid-deployment forces in Central Asia. ([rbc.ru](https://www.rbc.ru/politics/11/07/2022/62cc1d799a7947408fec3414?utm_source=openai))