6th Air Army The 6th Red Banner Leningrad Army of Air and Air Defence Forces ( ) was an Air Army of the Russian Air Force active from 1998 to 2009 . There were two earlier 6th Air Armies : 6th Air Army itself was formed in 1942 and redesignated in 1949 . After the war , the Soviet Air Defence Forces ' main command in the Leningrad area for some years was the 6th Independent Army of the Air Defence Forces . The 6th Air Army was first formed in 1942 from the Air Forces of the North - Western Front , and its first commander was General Major of Aviation D . F . Kondratyk , who held command to August 1943 . During its World War II service , the 6th Air Army included for a time the 588th Night Bomber Regiment , the all - female ' Night Witches ' . It was assigned initially to the North - Western Front until February 1944 , and after that to the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Front s . 6th Air Army appears to have been redesignated 73rd Air Army on 10 January 1949 . From March 1960 , the 6th Army of the PVO ( 6 - я отдельная армия ПВО ) was active as an air defence formation . It was composed of regiments of interceptor s and anti - aircraft missiles . It had two major tasks : to protect the most industrialized European part of the Soviet Union against possible U . S . cruise missile attack from the north via the North Pole ( using MiG - 31 interceptors ) , and to protect the deployment of nuclear submarine s stationed in the Kola Peninsula ( using Su - 27 fighters ) . In 1988 , the 6th Army , headquartered at St Petersburg , consisted of the 27th Corps of PVO at Riga , 54th Corps at Gatchina , and 14th Division of PVO at Tallinn , with nine fighter interceptor regiments ( possibly including the 54th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment at Vainode ) , five SAM regiments , five radar regiments , and the 498th PVO Training Centre . In turn , the 27th Corps of the PVO consisted in 1988 of the : The Army was reformed within the Russian Air Force on June 1 , 1998 , from the 76th Air Army of the VVS and the 6th Independent Army of the Voyska PVO , both headquartered in Saint Petersburg . Its new title was the 6th Army of Air Forces and Air Defence . The 6th Army had responsibility for the Leningrad Military District . General Lieutenant Gennadiy A . Torbov was appointed commander of the army by a presidential decree of 6 April 2000 . He replaced Lt - Gen Anatoliy Basov , who retired due to age . Its commanding officer was General Lieutenant Vladimir Sviridov from June 2005 until at least 2007 . Economic stringency and the reduction of the threat led to drastic cuts in the formation , as previously the 6th and 10th PVO Armies , which covered the area , had twelve fighter regiments between them . 10th PVO Army appears to have disbanded in August 1994 . The 174th and 470th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment s , at Monchegorsk and Afrikanda air base , both disbanded on September 1 , 2001 . There were also formerly fighter regiments at Amderma ( 72nd ) , Talagi Airport ( where the 518th Fighter Regiment disbanded in 1998 ) , Lodeynoye Pole ( 177th ) , Gromovo ( 180th ) , Poduzhemye ( 265th , originally flying Su - 15s ) , Letneozersky ( 524th , flying MiG - 25s ) , and Rogachevo ( 641st , Su - 27 Flankers ) . In 2009 the army was disestablished and reorganised as the 1st Air and Air Defence Forces Command .