57th Motor Rifle Regiment
Unit Identification and Designation
The designation 57th Motor Rifle Regiment does not appear as a widely confirmed, peacetime Russian Ground Forces regiment in open-source orders of battle available through 2024. By contrast, the 57th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade is well documented and is garrisoned at Bikin in Khabarovsk Krai under the 5th Combined Arms Army of the Eastern Military District. Russia has been reintroducing divisional and regimental structures since 2022, but no official Ministry of Defense announcement establishing a distinct 57th Motor Rifle Regiment has been published in open sources. If a wartime or newly raised regiment with this number exists, specific details are not publicly available.
Known Unit With Matching Number: 57th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade
The 57th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade is stationed at Bikin, Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Federation. It is associated in open sources with the 5th Combined Arms Army within the Eastern Military District. The Eastern Military District, with headquarters in Khabarovsk, was formed in 2010 during the reorganization of Russia’s military districts. The 5th Combined Arms Army headquarters is in Ussuriysk, Primorsky Krai. Publicly available references consistently link the 57th brigade to the Bikin garrison and to the 5th Army’s force structure.
Location Analysis
Bikin is a town in southern Khabarovsk Krai situated on the Bikin River near the Ussuri River corridor and along the rail line connecting Khabarovsk and Vladivostok. The location provides access to the Far Eastern rail network and regional road infrastructure, which are the primary modes for heavy military movement in this region. The placement of a motor rifle formation here aligns with the 5th Combined Arms Army’s geographic area of responsibility across Primorsky Krai and southern Khabarovsk Krai.
Organizational Subordination
Open sources place the 57th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade under the 5th Combined Arms Army in the Eastern Military District. The Eastern Military District oversees Russia’s Far Eastern region, while the 5th Combined Arms Army historically covers the Primorsky and southern Khabarovsk operational directions. No open-source, official documentation confirms a separate formation titled 57th Motor Rifle Regiment within this command as of 2024.
Historical Context
The 57th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade was formed during the 2008–2010 restructuring of the Russian Ground Forces, when many divisions were converted into separate brigades under the so-called New Look reforms. Open sources consistently associate the brigade’s creation and basing with Bikin and the 5th Combined Arms Army. Detailed lineage from specific Soviet-era divisions is not uniformly reported in public sources and is not confirmed here.
Infrastructure and Facilities
Brigade-level garrisons in Russia typically include barracks and administrative buildings, motor pools and maintenance workshops, ammunition and fuel storage, small-arms ranges and training yards, and rail-loading areas to interface with the national rail network. While Bikin is a rail-served town and hosts a motor rifle brigade, detailed schematics, exact facility layouts, and secure-site specifications for the Bikin garrison are not publicly released.
Structure and Capabilities (Doctrinal Reference)
By Russian Ground Forces doctrine, a motor rifle regiment or a separate motor rifle brigade generally fields multiple motor rifle battalions, a tank battalion, an artillery group with self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launchers, air defense elements, anti-tank, reconnaissance, engineer, signals, electronic warfare, logistics, medical, and CBRN support. Specific equipment mixes vary by unit and period; common platforms across such formations include T-72 series tanks, BMP and BTR family infantry carriers, 122/152 mm self-propelled howitzers, and BM-21 or similar multiple rocket launchers. No official, unit-specific equipment roster for a 57th Motor Rifle Regiment or for the 57th brigade is published in open sources.
Training Areas and Activities
The Eastern Military District conducts routine combined-arms training across a network of district ranges in Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krais. Units subordinate to the 5th Combined Arms Army are regularly featured in Ministry of Defense releases about live-fire, maneuver, engineer, and air defense training. However, official publications seldom identify subordinate units at battalion or regiment level by name, and there is no consistent, authoritative public record detailing the specific training cycle of a 57th Motor Rifle Regiment. References to training by the 57th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade appear in local and regional media, but granular schedules and range allocations are not systematically disclosed.
Operational Activity and Deployments
Russian official communications rarely attribute specific operations to individual motor rifle brigades and regiments by name. As of publicly available information through 2024, there is no authoritative Ministry of Defense statement detailing operational deployments of a 57th Motor Rifle Regiment, and open sources do not provide a consistent, verifiable record that would meet confirmation standards. Any such details, if they exist, have not been officially published or are classified.
Information Gaps and Classification Considerations
If the inquiry pertains to a unit explicitly titled 57th Motor Rifle Regiment, either as a newly formed element or as a reflagged component of a larger formation, the Russian Ministry of Defense has not publicly released definitive information as of 2024. Many specifics—including exact manning, equipment tables, internal structure, facility schematics, and detailed deployment histories—are not available in open sources or may be classified. Without official confirmation, further details cannot be provided.