Unit intelligence profile

42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division

Subordinates: 0
Locations: 13

Profile summary

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 27777, Commander: Colonel Roman Demurchiev

Assessment

Identification

This record matches Russia’s 42nd Guards Yevpatoriya Red Banner Motor Rifle Division of the 58th Combined Arms Army, re-formed in Chechnya in late 2016. Public records tie military unit 27777 to Khankala, Grozny district, and a federal school also uses the 27777/Khankala address, confirming Khankala as a key division location. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/3849685))

Garrison footprint

Open-source reporting indicates this is a distributed formation rather than a single-site cantonment. The Southern Military District said in December 2016 that the division’s motor-rifle and artillery regiments plus engineer, reconnaissance, and other support units would be based in Khankala, Kalinovskaya, Shali, and Borzoy. Later public reporting still places division-linked elements in Shali and Kalinovskaya, but exact present-day regiment-to-town mapping is not fully consistent across open sources. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/3849685))

Permanent infrastructure

Khankala appears to be the division’s administrative anchor and a long-term garrison rather than a temporary field camp. The legal record for unit 27777 gives a fixed Khankala address, and the presence of a federal school at the same unit address is consistent with established family-support infrastructure for permanently stationed personnel. This supports assessing the division as one of Russia’s standing Chechnya-based ground formations. ([companies.rbc.ru](https://companies.rbc.ru/id/1031500350200-federalnoe-byudzhetnoe-uchrezhdenie-vojskovaya-chast-27777/))

Operational posture

The division has been heavily committed away from home station. Russian MoD reporting placed the 42nd division in the Dnepr grouping on the Zaporizhzhia axis in March 2024, while independent tracking in 2023-2024 identified its regiments, including the 291st, around Robotyne and Novoprokopivka. ISW reported in May 2025 that elements had been operating in Zaporizhzhia since at least summer 2023 and were likely split between the Zaporizhzhia and Toretsk directions. That pattern suggests the Chechen garrisons are functioning as home-station, sustainment, and replacement infrastructure for an actively deployed division. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/20327467))

Command status

Roman Demurchiev is publicly identifiable as a division commander in 2023, but his status as the current commander is not confirmed by the sources reviewed. RFE/RL reporting published in March 2026 says that since 2024 he has been a deputy commander of Russia’s 20th Combined Arms Army; accordingly, as of March 12, 2026 he should be treated as a past commander of the 42nd division unless newer official sourcing emerges. ([kp.ru](https://www.kp.ru/video/936629/))

Geospatial index

Known places

70th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 71718, (T-72B3, BMP-2, 2S19 Msta-S, 9K35 Strela-10)

71st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 16544, (T-72B3, BTR-80/82A, 2S19 Msta-S, 9K35 Strela-10)

291st Guards Motor Rifle Regiment

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 65384, (BTR-82A, BTR-80, 2S1 Gvozdika, 2B14 Podnos)

Separate Tank Battalion

Intelligence briefRF forces

T-72B3

50th Guards Self-Propelled Artillery Regiment

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 53185, (2S19 Msta-S/2S19М1 Msta-SM, 2B26 Grad-K)

245th Separate Anti-Aircraft Missile Division

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 81510, 9K330 Tor

417th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion

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military unit 13242

378th Separate Communications Battalion

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military unit 93987

539th Separate Engineer-Sapper Battalion

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military unit 33952

474th Separate Logistics Battalion

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military unit 43108

106th Separate Medical Battalion

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military unit 73615

150th Separate Anti-Tank Artillery Battalion

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 24566

42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division HQ

Intelligence briefRF forces

military unit 27777