The Russian Airborne Forces (Russian: Воздушно-десантные войска России, ВДВ, romanized: Vozdushno-desantnye voyska Rossii, VDV) is a military branch of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. It was formed in 1992 from units of the Soviet Airborne Forces that came under Russian control following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Troops of the Russian Airborne Forces have traditionally worn a sky blue beret and blue-striped telnyashka undershirt and are called desant (Russian: Десант) from the French Descente.
The Russian Airborne Forces utilizes a range of specialist airborne warfare vehicles and are fully mechanized. They traditionally have a larger complement of heavy weaponry than most contemporary airborne forces.
The Air Landing Forces combine Parachute Landing (парашютно-десантние) and Landing Assault (десантно-штурмовие) units. The difference between the two is that while both were airborne qualified and mechanised with BMD, BTR-D, 2S9 Nona, the parachute landing units are lighter (only quarter mechanised) and play the role of entry element, while landing assault units were fully mechanised and were intended to develop the breach opened by the parachute landing forces.