Prior to the 1990s, there were 180 regiments (of varying size) of Internal Troops, of which 90 were mainly guards of correctional institutions, important public facilities and public order. Some of them became engaged in the ethnic conflicts that occurred during the Dissolution of the Soviet Union. Their activities during this period included the 1989 violent incident in Tbilisi when VV servicemen used entrenching shovels to decimate a crowd of unarmed Georgian civilians.