After the February Revolution and the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 the newly former Red Army and Soviet Navy incorporated the sapper units of the former Imperial Russian Army and Navy in its structure. By 1919, pontoon and electrical battalions and a mine-blasting brigade were raised in time for the Civil War. 10 years later, the Engineering Troops of the USSR () were in much better shape and had a much better organization. During the Second World War, ten sapper armies operated, later reorganized into brigades. From the mid-1940s to the 1970s, Engineer-Sapper Companies (ISR) were located in Soviet Army regiments, divisions, as well as combined-arms armies. Due to miscalculations in planning by the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union, there was a shortage of engineering units serving in Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. In 1986, the Engineering Troops took part in the military response to the biological effects of the Chernobyl accident. After the collapse of the USSR in late 1991, the Engineering Troops were dissolved and its component units were absorbed by Russia as well as the newly formed armed forces of nations such as Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Armenia.