In April 2014, it was reported that a new mountain motor rifle brigade would be formed in Kyzyl, Tyva Republic, in 2015.[1] In July 2014 Krasnaya Zvezda wrote that the organizational core of the future brigade had already arrived in Tuva. Colonel Andrei Shelukhin, head of the organizing group, and many of his subordinates arrived in Tuva from mountainous Tajikistan "so they had experience in conquering peaks."[2] On June 28, 2014, a Snow Leopard mountaineering club team, together with officers of the mountain brigade Kydykbek Sheripov and Alexander Umrikhin, climbed the highest peak of Tuva and all of Eastern Siberia - Mount Mongun-Taiga (Silver Taiga), "and now their pennants are flying at the height of 3,976 meters." The head of government in Tuva, Sholban Kara-ool, reportedly ordered that each of the future mountain rifle candidates also had a recommendation signed by the relevant district official. The article also said that high-ranking officials made no attempts to avoid military service for their sons.
The brigade was formed in November 2015.[3] 1047 of the 1300 servicemen were natives of Tuva.[4]
A Tuvan soldier of the 55th brigade in Avdiivka, 22 February 2024
On March 3, 2022, the troops of the brigade entered the village of Yahidne near Chernihiv. The troops stopped in the village and set up their headquarters in the local school. According to local residents, the military herded people into the basement of the school.
In August 2022, social media posts revealed that the brigade was operating in the direction of Siversk, a town in the Donetsk Oblast.[7]
