The emblem of the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade features an anchor. But in recent years, this formation has hardly fought as a naval landing force. It has been used as regular assault infantry: in Volnovakha and Mariupol, on the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia fronts, near Krynky, and then in Kursk Oblast. Each new sector left behind obituaries, relatives' search notices, and another round of replenishment.

The brigade has a specific address and number — Military Unit 13140, Kazachya Bay in Sevastopol. Before the full-scale war, its strength was estimated at approximately 2,500–2,800 personnel. In spring 2022, the Ukrainian side reported 158 killed, approximately 500 wounded, and 70 missing in action. Russia did not confirm these figures. However, by mid-May, journalists independently found 51 obituaries, with 29 of the deceased being officers. In November 2024, "Verstka" identified 71 servicemen from the same brigade who went missing solely in the battles for Kursk Oblast.

During this time, the formation was not disbanded. On the contrary, it was awarded the Order of Ushakov, its commander was made a Hero of Russia, and Vladimir Putin supported the brigade's expansion into a division. This created a system where personnel and commanders changed, but the unit number accumulated new awards. This investigation is about how many times Military Unit 13140 was effectively reassembled and why the brigade's official biography barely acknowledges the disappearance of its previous composition.

What is Military Unit 13140?

The 810th Brigade is a naval infantry formation of the Black Sea Fleet. Its Soviet history began in 1966–1967 with a separate battalion and regiment, and in 1979, the unit was expanded into a brigade. After the collapse of the USSR, the unit remained in Sevastopol as part of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. In 1998, it was reduced to a regiment, and in 2008, it was again made a brigade.

By the start of the full-scale war, its structure included naval infantry battalions, amphibious assault and reconnaissance units, tanks, artillery, air defense, communications, and support. The separate 382nd Battalion was stationed in Temryuk, Krasnodar Krai. Such a structure was supposed to allow operations from the sea and holding a bridgehead, but in Ukraine, the brigade mostly assaulted fortified positions on land.

New status symbols gradually appeared in its official name. The brigade received the Order of Zhukov for the Syrian campaign. In January 2018, Putin awarded it the honorary title of "Guards." In August 2023, the Order of Ushakov followed — a rare award for a military unit. The award history grew in parallel with losses, the exact extent of which the Russian Ministry of Defense did not publish.

2014: The Unit Already Inside Crimea

A peculiarity of the 810th Brigade was that it did not need to be transferred across the border to participate in the annexation of Crimea. Russian naval infantrymen were already legally present in Sevastopol under agreements on the basing of the Black Sea Fleet. In February and March 2014, this allowed for the rapid deployment of a regular unit within Ukraine.

InformNapalm identified servicemen of the brigade in photographs from the operation period. Researchers matched faces, social media profiles, places of service, and "For the Return of Crimea" medals. According to a Crimea.Realities investigation, the marines blocked roads and surrounded Ukrainian military units and infrastructure facilities. Unit positions appeared near Chongar and Armyansk.

Participation in the operation became part of the unit's internal prestige, although official Russian documents long avoided a detailed named account. For the future war, this was significant: the brigade was perceived as proven, politically reliable, and familiar with Ukrainian territory. However, the experience of the bloodless 2014 operation did not prepare it for the protracted urban battles of 2022.

Volnovakha and Mariupol: No Amphibious Landing Occurred

Before the invasion, one of the 810th Brigade's units was planned for a landing on the Azov coast to link up with ground forces. The actual campaign unfolded differently. The marines advanced from Crimea and through Donetsk Oblast, participating in battles for Volnovakha, and then in the assault on Mariupol and Azovstal.

Deputy Commander Alexei Bernhard received the title of Hero of Russia for actions near Volnovakha. Brigade Commander Alexei Sharov died on March 22, 2022. Temporary command at various periods was associated with Bernhard and Yan Sukhanov. The frequent change of commanders itself indicates the scale of the blow to leadership: the brigade lost not only rank-and-file soldiers but also a significant part of its experienced officer corps.

On March 24, Russian landing ships came under attack in Berdiansk port. The "Saratov" was destroyed, while the "Caesar Kunikov" and "Novocherkassk" sustained damage. Crimea.Realities identified at least three deceased marines of the 810th Brigade who were on the ships. Official obituaries often did not report the circumstances; the place of death could be reconstructed from relatives' messages.

Mariupol: Commander Died, Bodies Disappeared

By May 17, 2022, Crimea.Realities journalists found 51 obituaries of servicemen from the 810th Brigade. 29 of these were officers — almost 57 percent of the early confirmed data set. This does not mean that officers constituted the same proportion of all casualties: their deaths were more often made public. But even with this caveat, the figure indicates heavy losses among the command staff.

The story of scout Ivan Lukin illustrates another problem — the disappearance of bodies. According to a letter from his father, the unit was encircled near Azovstal and broke through under fire. Lukin was killed by a sniper; his body was loaded onto an armored personnel carrier, but it was not returned to the family. The father wrote to Denis Pushilin and referred to reports from fellow servicemen describing the evacuation route. No public response explaining the fate of the body appeared.

In April, the Ukrainian General Staff estimated the brigade's losses at 158 killed, about 500 wounded, and 70 missing. Later, Ukrainian military intelligence spoke of approximately 300 personnel lost in the battles for Mariupol, without a clear breakdown of categories. These estimates cannot be added together or presented as a named, proven total. Obituaries provide a reliable minimum; the probable scale is indicated by reports of two battalion tactical groups being withdrawn for restoration and photographs of a rare formation in Kazachya Bay in summer 2022.

In official Russian history, Mariupol became the basis for awards. In human terms, it was the point after which parents searched for bodies, new people filled officer positions, and the unit required replenishment. The same episode gave rise to two incompatible chronicles: the ceremonial and the named.

Refuseniks and a Composition That Was No Longer the Same

In summer 2022, Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) stated that about 200 servicemen of the 810th Brigade refused to return to the front. The Russian side did not confirm this figure. However, relatives' publications and servicemen's accounts revealed a broader problem: people who had been through Mariupol did not understand why they were being sent back into battle after a short recovery.

Some losses were covered by transfers from other Black Sea Fleet units. Open sources reported sailors from ships, specialists of other profiles, volunteers, and mobilized personnel. A transfer in itself does not prove poor training for every serviceman. But a sailor, a support specialist, and a new contract soldier do not automatically replace a cohesive naval infantry squad that has trained together for years.

By September 2022, the Ukrainian General Staff stated that on the Kherson front, the brigade had lost up to 85 percent of its personnel, and many refused to return. The exact basis for this calculation is unknown, so the percentage remains a wartime claim. However, subsequent history indirectly confirms a severe crisis: the formation was again withdrawn, replenished, and returned, this time to the Zaporizhzhia front.

The Brigade That Was Reassembled

In 2023, the 810th Brigade appeared near Robotyne and in other sectors of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. ISW analysts wrote about its repeated restoration after previous losses. Ukrainian intelligence declared the formation "completely routed," but this phrase often describes the loss of combat capability of a specific grouping, not the legal disappearance of the entire military unit.

It is here that it is important to distinguish between the unit number and the people. Military Unit 13140 could retain its headquarters, banner, and documents while losing a significant portion of those who served in it before February 2022. After replenishment, it was again considered the same brigade. Therefore, statements about "three destructions" do not mean that every single person died three times. They mean three cycles of heavy losses, withdrawal, replacement of personnel, and return to the front.

Open named data show a cumulative result. In April 2026, the Crimea.Realities project, which analyzed two thousand obituaries of residents of Crimea and Sevastopol, linked 311 identified cases to the 810th Brigade — more than any other unit in their sample. This is not a complete list for the entire brigade: it included people from many Russian regions. But it is a verifiable lower bound that already exceeds early public estimates.

In the same material, the brigade's deputy political officer claimed that each new fighter is trained for a week, making him simultaneously a machine gunner, grenadier, rifleman, medic, and motor mechanic. Such a statement was intended to show the versatility of the training. In fact, it shows the opposite: complex specialties and team cohesion are attempted to be crammed into seven days.

Kumachovo: Award Ceremony Under Attack

On November 19, 2023, servicemen of the brigade gathered in the cultural center of the village of Kumachovo in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast. Artist Polina Menshikh performed for them. The building was struck. Russian sources confirmed Menshikh's death; reports of military casualties varied — the Ukrainian side and pro-war authors cited more than twenty killed and dozens wounded.

It is impossible to verify the exact outcome from an open named list. But the very fact of a mass event within range of high-precision weapons drew criticism even in the Russian pro-war community. The story repeated an already familiar pattern: the command created a vulnerable concentration of people, and the details of losses after the strike remained outside official reporting.

Krynky: An Admission They Tried to Edit

In December 2023, units of the brigade operated near Krynky on the left bank of the Dnipro. On December 22, a Telegram channel associated with the brigade described a "radical change in tactics": dropping K-51 aerosol grenades with irritant substances from drones onto Ukrainian positions. The publication was accompanied by a video. Subsequently, the mention of K-51 was edited and removed.

K-51 refers to Soviet aerosol grenades containing an irritant substance. The Chemical Weapons Convention prohibits the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare, even if the substance is considered non-lethal. ISW preserved and described the post's alteration as an attempt to conceal potential evidence of a violation.

We cannot, from a single post, establish the full composition of the substance in a specific grenade, the consequences of each drop, or the personal chain of command. But the digital footprint confirms something important: the brigade's own platform presented the use of K-51 from drones as a new tactic, and after external attention, the message was changed. This is no longer just a claim by the Ukrainian side.

Kursk Oblast: 71 Names in Search Notices

In August 2024, the brigade was redeployed to Kursk Oblast. Russian official publications spoke of the heroism of the naval infantry, but families began massively searching for missing personnel. "Verstka" analyzed notices from August to November and confirmed the identities of over 350 missing Russian servicemen from various units. The most numerous group was the 810th Brigade — 71 people.

It was mentioned at least three times more often than other units. Relatives described assaults without communication, lack of information after specific dates, and contradictory responses from command. In one episode, pro-war authors accused commanders of an attack without a proper plan, after which, according to their data, more than 30 people died and over 20 were wounded. This is an assessment from sources, not an official list, but it aligns with the sharp increase in search publications.

A missing person is not equivalent to a deceased person. An individual could be a prisoner, in a hospital, in another unit, or later make contact. However, the sheer volume of notices itself indicates a failure of record-keeping and communication. Two and a half years into the war, families were again doing what Ivan Lukin's family did near Mariupol: independently reconstructing a person's last known route because the system provided no answers.

In late December 2024 and early January 2025, the Ukrainian side reported strikes on the brigade's command posts in Lgov, Belaya, and Maryino. Russian pro-war channels confirmed at least some of the strikes, but casualty figures varied. In 2025, units with the 810th Brigade's insignia were also mentioned on the Sumy front. The unit number once again survived another difficult stage.

Commanders: Death, Awards, and Escalation of Scale

Alexei Sharov commanded the brigade at the start of the invasion and died in March 2022. Alexei Bernhard received the title of Hero of Russia for Volnovakha and temporarily served as commander. Yan Sukhanov also appeared in open sources. By the end of 2022, Oleg Vlasov was named commander; in 2023, he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia, and later — Major General.

On May 7, 2024, during a meeting with Putin, Vlasov stated that the formation's strength had grown from three thousand to over 11 thousand personnel. Putin responded that such a structure should be transformed into a division. ISW called the figure implausible for a regular brigade and suggested it might reflect an already ongoing expansion, attached formations, or another method of accounting.

Even if 11,000 is accepted as the administrative strength of the entire grouping, it does not mean that the brigade retained its pre-war core personnel. On the contrary: a fourfold increase after repeated losses indicates that many new units and people were assembled under the old number. The transformation into a division was not proof of the preservation of the former elite, but rather the formalization of its replacement.

What Is Proven — And What We Do Not Claim

The unit number and deployment are confirmed; the participation of brigade servicemen in the annexation of Crimea; actions near Volnovakha and Mariupol; the death of Brigade Commander Sharov; dozens of early obituaries; the death of marines on ships in Berdiansk; the awarding of the Guards title and the Order of Ushakov; Vlasov's command; the publication about K-51 and subsequent editing; the decision to expand the formation into a division.

Journalistic investigations confirmed 51 killed by May 2022, 71 missing in Kursk Oblast in autumn 2024, and 311 obituaries linked to the brigade in the Crimean sample by April 2026. These datasets have different geographies and periods, so they cannot be mechanically combined. They provide lower bounds and show dynamics, but not a complete balance of killed, wounded, captured, and missing.

Estimates of 158 killed, 500 wounded, 70 missing near Mariupol, 200 refuseniks, and 85 percent losses originated from Ukrainian bodies and were not confirmed by Russian named reports. Formulas like "destroyed three times" describe the loss of combat capability and repeated manning, not the literal death of every serviceman. The claim of over 11,000 personnel belongs to Commander Vlasov and requires cautious interpretation.

Conclusion: The Elite Remained in the Name

The history of the 810th Brigade is a story of organizational immortality. The regular naval infantrymen who entered Ukraine in February 2022 suffered heavy losses in Mariupol. The reconstituted force again lost personnel on the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia fronts. The next replenishment found itself near Krynky and in Kursk Oblast. At each stage, the number Military Unit 13140 remained the same, allowing the official biography to portray a continuous heroic line.

But the named history looks different. It consists of officer obituaries, bodies that could not be returned, refuseniks, a week of training for new recruits, and dozens of families searching for missing persons through social networks. Awards do not answer the question of how many original servicemen remained in service. The expansion into a division does not negate the fact that the former brigade was replaced by new compositions.

Military Unit 13140 did not disappear after failures — it grew because of them. The more people were lost, the more new units were incorporated under the old brand. Thus, the "elite brigade" transformed into an administrative shell that retains its banner, awards, and reputation, while the people within it change one after another.