Russian Holidays - Day of the Russian Pipeline Troops

Despite the non-combat name, servicemen of this unique branch of the military often perform combat missions under enemy fire The history of the Pipeline Troops (TrV) has many glorious pages Officially, the holiday was established by decree of the President of the Russian Federation in December 2021, although specialists of this branch of the military celebrated it earlier On January 14, 1952, Marshal Vasilevsky signs an order to create a separate battalion that will specialize in pumping fuel and lubricants This order marked the beginning of a new branch of troops - the pipeline troops of the USSR Pipeline troops are special rear troops whose tasks include creating pipelines and pumping hot water for units of various branches of the military In fact, the range of tasks of the units is much wider TrV fighters often have to lay alternative pipelines One of these problems was successfully solved quite recently In the spring of 2014, units of the pipeline troops removed the threat from Crimea of ​​being left without fresh water and thwarted the plans of the Ukrainian military First, an uninterrupted supply of fresh water to Old Crimea was ensured, and then other pipeline branches began to be created As a result, the actions of the military personnel made it possible to avoid drought and save the harvest One hundred and thirty kilometers of the pipeline became a kind of “road of life” for the peninsula The geography of TRV's combat operations is impressive: Afghanistan, Laos, Somalia, Cuba, the North Caucasus The activities of fighters in Afghanistan cannot be called anything other than combat operations Under the threat of enemy fire, not only new highways were laid, but also existing branches were repaired and protected The difficult terrain of the country did not allow the use of technology, so many tens of kilometers of pipes were installed virtually by hand The work of TRV units made it possible to conduct combat operations in Afghanistan The actions of the military personnel were highly appreciated by the government: • two were awarded the Order of the Red Banner; • two hundred fifty-nine received the Order of the Red Star; • fifty-five – Order “For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR”; • three hundred twenty – medal “For Courage”; • four hundred ninety-seven – medal “For military merits" In the seventies, the Soviet Union helped overcome a catastrophic drought in Somalia Similar assistance was provided by TrV units in other countries in Africa and Asia The most complex pipeline-laying operations were carried out by TrV fighters in the Northern Caucasus Carrying out combat orders under enemy fire, people successfully carried out their task Also, many purely civilian operations were carried out in the region Another type of civil operation is the installation of pipelines into forest fire zones, to burning peat bogs Such operations are carried out quite often in the Moscow region, Siberia, and the Far East The actions of TrV make it possible to extinguish fires in the absence of bodies of water within a radius of tens of kilometers The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant became a glorious and tragic page of TrV The fighters, despite the radiation, laid out pipeline branches to pump water and fuel The created water supply allowed the cement plant to operate and, as a result, to erect a sarcophagus over the emergency reactor The actions of the TRV military personnel made it possible to avoid the terrible consequences of this disaster On this day we express our gratitude to everyone who served and is serving in these special rear troops, for their courage and bravery, for their work, unnoticed, but no less necessary