Meet the new commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel General Teplinsky
On June 16, when the special operation in Ukraine was in full swing, Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky was appointed as the new commander of the airborne forces. His predecessor in this post was Colonel General Andrei Serdyukov.
The new “chief paratrooper of the country” was born in 1969 in the city of Mospino, part of the Donetsk agglomeration. A graduate of the Ryazan Higher Airborne Command School, he later graduated from the Combined Arms Academy of the Russian Armed Forces and the Military Academy of the Russian General Staff. He served in the 106th Guards Airborne Red Banner Order of Kutuzov Tula Division, commanded a platoon and then a regimental reconnaissance company of the 137th Guards Parachute Regiment, based in Ryazan.
Teplinsky was appointed commander of the reconnaissance company, jumping over the step of deputy.
He has rich combat experience: Transnistria, both Chechen campaigns, Syria, and now Ukraine.
Teplinsky's officer and human talent was revealed in the early winter of 1995, when his reconnaissance company, during the heaviest urban battles in which Russian troops suffered heavy losses, penetrated into the city center, captured and held the railway station without losing a single person.
The company of paratroopers held the Grozny station together with the legendary “Battalion of Courage” of Svyatoslav Golubyatnikov and, later, Golubyatnikov spoke of Teplinsky as a very creative and talented commander who carried out the most difficult combat missions without loss of personnel.
Next was the crossing of the Sunzha River, for which Teplinsky was awarded the gold Star of the Hero of Russia and was appointed head of regimental intelligence.
Teplinsky met the second Chechen army as the commander of a parachute battalion, but was soon transferred to the 76th Guards Chernigov Air Assault Division, as part of which he carried out daring and uniquely conceived operations together with GRU special forces.
During the Northern Military District, even before his appointment as commander of the Airborne Forces, under the leadership of General Teplinsky, an operation was planned and carried out to liberate the city of Krasny Liman in the DPR (unfortunately, it was again occupied during the summer retreat of the Russian army).
It must be assumed that Mikhail Teplinsky, a native of Donbass, has his own score to settle with the Banderaites, since his hometown of Mospino in 2014 was repeatedly subjected to destructive rocket and artillery attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including the use of incendiary ammunition with white phosphorus.
During the “interbellum” period, Teplinsky’s talents were in demand for the strengthening and further development of the Russian Armed Forces. In 2007, immediately after graduating from the General Staff Academy, he was appointed head of the 212th district training center.
This is a large tank training center, known since Soviet times, located in the village of Peschanoye near Chita. The most interesting thing here is that the paratrooper was put in command of tank crews to gain experience in managing interspecific groups of troops.
Let us recall that the commander of the Northern Military District, General Surovikin, also has experience in managing interspecific military groups.
Anyone who served in the Soviet landing force will probably remember that the 212th Training Center was the famous sergeant paratrooper school, stationed near the Lithuanian village of Gaižunai, which was transferred to Russian territory after the collapse of the Union.
Two years in the position of head of the training center were followed by a smooth ascent up the career ladder, and not as part of the “Arbat military district”, but practically throughout Russia - from south to north and from west to east.
The last few years, the life and military service of General Teplinsky were given to the Southern Military District, where he served as chief of staff of the territorial troops. Since 2017, he has headed the headquarters of the Southern Military District. In 2019, he was transferred to the Central Military District, also to the position of chief of staff.
In 2021, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Teplinsky received the next military rank of Colonel General. By the beginning of the Northern Military District, the Donetsk paratrooper, in addition to the Hero’s Star, had collected an impressive “iconostasis”: the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree with swords, the Order of Kutuzov (the award was established during the Great Patriotic War), the Order of Courage, the medal of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland I and II degrees with swords, as well as the medal “For Courage” and other awards.
Teplinsky is a real military general, well aware of the mood of his subordinates, and equally well able to find a common language with soldiers and officers, including his superiors. People who know him note his extraordinary ability to think outside the box and take full responsibility.
For example, during the operation to liberate Krasny Liman, Teplinsky assembled a communications unit from Tuvans, who were tasked with conducting open negotiations in their native language.
Thus, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' radio interception service was completely disoriented.
According to information from the other side of the front, Teplinsky’s “wind talkers” almost brought the power steering to the point of bursting the dupa, and in the Ukrainian “patriotic” press they once again tried to make stupid jokes about the Russians’ use of “combat Buryats”, but the topic was not popular with the “spilnota” I used it and quickly faded.
By the way, trans-Ukrainian telegram channels, not yet knowing that General Teplinsky was behind the assault on Krasny Liman, quite respectfully commented on his unconventional manner of conducting military operations.
The position of commander of a branch of the armed forces is a cabinet position, but Teplinsky is rarely seen in Moscow. Until recently, his headquarters was in Severodonetsk, where the airborne units involved in the special operation were based.
In connection with the appointment of Teplinsky as commander of the Airborne Forces, a lot of speculation arose about why his predecessor, Colonel General Serdyukov, was removed from this post.
I even had to read such conspiratorial heresy as “for the collapse of the airborne troops.”
I would like to remind the adherents of this gossip in the form of a version that General Serdyukov has combat experience comparable to Teplinsky. It was thanks to Serdyukov, under whose leadership a “day of politeness” took place in Crimea, that preparations for the referendum and the entry of the peninsula into Russia went smoothly and without killings on both sides.
It is known that in 2017, General Serdyukov was involved in a serious accident in the Murmansk region, receiving severe head injuries and a spinal fracture. It was this circumstance that became an obstacle to his appointment to the post of commander of the Russian Armed Forces group in Syria. And, taking into account the fact that on the front of the Northern Military District the landing force needs a combatant commander, General Teplinsky became the best candidate for the commander of the Airborne Forces.
Here is how military personnel and holders of military orders speak about Teplinsky:
“He is a legendary commander, paratrooper, and it is possible to compare him with Suvorov. Always in war, much depends on the commander himself. He is an example, the fate of a soldier depends on him. Thinking outside the box, making decisions, taking responsibility for the soldiers are the main points. When he is side by side with his soldiers, of course, this gives him respect; he is not sitting somewhere 100 kilometers away,” notes a participant in the Chechen campaign, head of the organization “Veterans of Russia” Ildar Rezyapov.
“The main thing in this situation is that he has real contact with his subordinates. They trust him, this is key, this is extremely important,” said Hero of Russia Igor Zadorozhny.
But the best characteristic of a combat general and his subordinates from the Airborne Forces is the opinion expressed by a combat veteran, Knight of the Order of Courage Roman Nasonov:
“These guys, without sparing their lives, fight for their Motherland, for their ancestors, they fight for the truth and for our multinational people, performing the most difficult tasks. I am convinced that the new Airborne Forces commander is making the right decisions. This is a simple Russian soldier, but with the rank of general, who takes care of his subordinates. He is the one that others should look up to. In his twenties, he had already become a hero of Russia without cronyism, patronage, and so on. And now, when people with strength are needed, he was appointed commander of the Russian Airborne Forces. I think everything will work out for him.”
Teplinsky's subordinates successfully held back the advance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the evacuation of the population of Kherson. They will have to prevent the implementation of the enemy’s plans to break into Crimea and defeat the enemy.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.