29th Guards Missile Division
Identification
The location is the 29th Guards Missile Division headquarters of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, military unit 59968, in Irkutsk’s Zelenyy microdistrict. A Russian civil-aviation restricted-airspace registry lists multiple prohibited-zone contacts for v/ch 59968 at Zelenyy, and a UNIDIR New START model report identifies the Irkutsk missile base as the 29th Missile Division with headquarters in Zelenyy. ([favt.gov.ru](https://favt.gov.ru/public/materials/c/0/0/4/8/c0048992d3f839d20c4a350c8f1048e0.pdf))
Site layout
The submitted regiment placemarks closely match public coordinates for the division’s three active regiments: 92nd at 52.5085, 104.3933; 344th at 52.6694, 104.5199; and 586th at 52.5505, 104.1584. Open-source arms-control analysis describes Irkutsk as a road-mobile basing complex made up of separate regimental areas rather than a single compact launch site. ([thebulletin.org](https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/nuclearnotebook-March2022-russia-table2.pdf))
Missile posture
Irkutsk began withdrawing SS-25/Topol missiles for RS-24 replacement in June 2012, and the Russian Defense Ministry said in March 2016 that the first Yars regiment there would enter combat duty by the end of that year. By 2022, independent nuclear-force compilations listed the 92nd, 344th, and 586th regiments at Irkutsk as active RS-24 Yars road-mobile regiments. ([unidir.org](https://unidir.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/a-new-start-model-for-transparency-in-nuclear-disarmament-individual-country-reports-en-415.pdf))
Observed activity
Official Russian reporting on the division’s March-April 2024 command-post exercise described more than 3,000 personnel and about 300 vehicles, with Yars units practicing marches of up to 100 km, dispersal to alternate field positions, engineering of positions, camouflage, combat security, and counter-saboteur actions. Separate MoD reporting said concealment training used dense wooded terrain to mask Yars equipment from air and ground reconnaissance. ([interfax-russia.ru](https://www.interfax-russia.ru/military/news_eng/406459))
Analytic limits
Sensitive details remain unverified in public sources: open reporting does not confirm this division’s routine alert cycle, warhead loading, or exact current deployed-launcher total. Verification became weaker after Russia suspended New START implementation in February 2023, although open-source inventories still identify three active Yars regiments at Irkutsk. ([armscontrol.org](https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-05/features/restoring-russian-us-arms-control?utm_source=openai))