144th Guards Motor Rifle Division

144th Guards Motor Rifle Division
Shoulder Sleeve Patch
Active	1922–1993 2016–present
Country	Soviet Union  Russia
Branch	Red Army (1922-1946)  Soviet Army (1946-1991)  Russian Ground Forces (1991-present)
Type	Mechanized infantry
Size	Division
Part of	20th Guards Army
Garrison/HQ	Yelnya
Engagements	World War II Russo-Ukrainian War Kyiv offensive[1] 2022 Ukrainian Kharkiv counteroffensive[2] Battle of Bakhmut[3] Battle of the Svatove–Kreminna line[4]
Decorations	Order of the Red Banner  Order of Suvorov 2nd class
Honorifics	Yelnya
Commanders
Current commander	Colonel Aleksey Alekseyevich Polyakov

The 144th Guards Yelnya Red Banner Order of Suvorov Motor Rifle Division (Russian: 144-я гвардейская мотострелковая Ельнинская Краснознамённая, ордена Суворова дивизия) is a motorized infantry division of the Russian Ground Forces, reestablished in 2016 with its headquarters at Yelnya, Smolensk Oblast.

The division traces its lineage back to the 32nd Rifle Division (First formation) of the Soviet Union's Red Army, first formed in 1922 and converted into the 29th Guards Rifle Division in 1942 for its actions in the Battle of Moscow during World War II. Postwar, it was stationed in the Estonian SSR and redesignated as the 36th Guards Mechanized Division in 1946 and the 36th Guards Motor Rifle Division in 1957. To perpetuate the lineage of the disbanded 8th Guards Motor Rifle Division, the 36th Guards was redesignated as the former and adopted its history in 1960. When the 8th Guards Motor Rifle Division was transferred to Central Asia in 1967, the 144th Motor Rifle Division was formed at Tallinn to replace it and redesignated as the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division to inherit the traditions of the 36th Guards later that year.

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Baltics following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the division became part of the Russian Ground Forces and was sent to Yelnya, where it was reduced to a storage base in 1993, which disbanded during the mid-2000s. As part of a Russian military buildup in the mid-2010s, the division was reformed as the 144th Motor Rifle Division in 2016 at Yelnya, and redesignated as the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division to become the official successor of the previous formation of the same name in 2018.