6th Air and Air Defense Forces Army
Identification
This record matches the Saint Petersburg headquarters of Russia’s 6th Air and Air Defense Forces Army, the formation re-created in August 2015 from the 1st Air Force and Air Defense Command and described in open sources as headquartered in St. Petersburg. Open registry mirrors also tie military unit 09436 to this army; as of 22 December 2025 the formation had received the honorific “Guards.” ([tass.com](https://tass.com/russia/813466?utm_source=openai))
Mission
At re-formation, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the army combined fighter, bomber, transport and army aviation with air-defense units across 28 territories, covering about 2 million square kilometers of airspace and 3,000 kilometers of state border. A CNA assessment described it as the operational air and strategic air-defense command for western-northwestern Russia, with coverage from just south of Arkhangelsk to north of Volgograd and with St. Petersburg as its headquarters. ([tass.com](https://tass.com/russia/813466?utm_source=openai))
Force posture
As assessed by CNA in 2021, the army grouped the 105th Composite Aviation Division, three army-aviation regiments, an army-aviation brigade, and two air-defense divisions; the St. Petersburg sector was protected by a layered SAM network centered on the 2nd Air Defense Division with multiple S-400-equipped regiments. A June 2024 TASS source report further said the 689th Fighter Aviation Regiment and 44th Air Defense Division in Kaliningrad were reassigned to the 6th Army; because that report cited a source rather than a published order, the exact administrative status should be treated with caution. ([cna.org](https://www.cna.org/reports/2021/06/Russian-Forces-in-the-Western-Military-District.pdf))
Verified sites
Rosaviatsiya flight-restriction notices published in late 2025 and early 2026 list v/ch 49719 at Levashovo and Krasnoarmeyskiy, plus v/ch 12633 at Pushkin/Krasnoselskaya and Gatchinskoye Shosse, confirming a wider Saint Petersburg-area basing cluster associated with this headquarters. TASS also reported that Levashovo’s 33rd Separate Transport Mixed Aviation Regiment received a Mi-26 in 2019, and that the airfield is being reconstructed under a Defense Ministry–Gazprom agreement for continued military use with a civil terminal, materially increasing local lift and infrastructure capacity. ([favt.gov.ru](https://favt.gov.ru/public/materials/b/b/7/2/b/bb72b45a54235d262057a6327b3e2a1b.pdf?utm_source=openai))
Current status
On 2 March 2026, TASS reported that St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov was in contact with the command of the Leningrad Military District and the 6th Air Force and Air Defense Army during an air-defense engagement over the Gulf of Finland, confirming the headquarters’ active role in local air defense. That reporting makes the user-supplied placement under the Moscow Military District doubtful: recent open sources tie the army operationally to the Leningrad Military District, while a 2025 US Army War College study notes that the exact split of former Western Military District air assets after 1 March 2024 was not fully published. ([tass.com](https://tass.com/defense/1754815))
Command
As of April 2023, TASS/Defense Ministry footage identified Lt. Gen. Oleg Makovetsky as commander of the Western Military District’s air-force and air-defense grouping; 2024-2025 registry mirrors for unit 09436 still listed Oleg Makovetsky as commander. I did not find an official 2026 appointment notice, so his continued command is likely but not fully confirmed in a current primary-source release. ([tass.ru](https://tass.ru/obschestvo/17461565?utm_source=openai))