The army was formed as part of the Russian military expansion announced in December 2022. Formation of the unit began in May 2023, with personnel recruited from
Buryatia,
Irkutsk, and the
Russian Far East. The army headquarters is reportedly based in
Yekaterinburg. According to recruitment ads, the army was initially supposed to be deployed to
Zaporizhzhia and
Kherson regions in December. However, the unit was instead deployed to
Luhansk Oblast in September, replacing the
76th Air Assault Division, which was sent to the
Robotyne region, and the
41st Combined Arms Army, which was sent to an unspecified area in southern Ukraine. Initially understrength, the unit was fully staffed by the end of September with around 17,000 personnel stationed near
Kreminna. ==Current structure==