After the end of World War II, the brigade was based in the city of Rathenow in East Germany. In July 1945, it received new weaponry and was renamed the 65th Heavy Mortar Brigade.
At the end of June 1960, the brigade was relocated to Prokhladny in the North Caucasus Military District, where it was used to form the 46th Missile Brigade. The brigade included the 178th Missile Regiment (formed in August 1959), the 479th Pomeranian Missile Regiment from late 1960, and the 480th Dresden Missile Regiment.
The brigade was redesignated as the 35th Missile Division in April 1961, inheriting the awards of the brigade, and became part of the 43rd Rocket Army. The first battalion of the 178th Missile Regiment with four R-12 ground launchers became the first unit of the division to go on alert duty on 18 April 1961. During the same year, division headquarters was relocated to Ordzhonikidze. During the Groza strategic exercises on 22 December 1963, under the supervision of the Soviet Minister of Defense, the division conducted its first missile launch from a launch site. The division headquarters was relocated to the village of Oktyabrskoye, North Ossetia in 1967. Between 3 and 8 June 1968, during the Vesenny Grom (Spring Thunder) strategic exercise, the division fired a salvo of missiles for the first time. On 18 July 1974, a training launch of all three missiles of the 3rd battalion of the 480th Missile Regiment was made during an experimental exercise.
In 1982, the division was relocated to Borovikha in Altai Krai, where it became part of the 33rd Guards Rocket Army. From 1984 to 1989, the division was commanded by Colonel-General Nikolay Solovtsov, who from 2001 to 2009 was the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces. In November 1991, the division was re-equipped with RS-12M Topol intercontinental ballistic missiles, for a total of 36. The rearmament was completed in December 1994.[1]
The division was scheduled to be entirely rearmed with RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles during 2022. The regimental command post and first battalion of the 867th Missile Regiment went on alert duty with the new missiles in December 2021 and were scheduled to be followed by the rest of the regiment in April 2022.[2]
^Kristensen, Hans M.; Korda, Matt (2021). "Russian nuclear weapons, 2021". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 77 (2): 90–108. doi:10.1080/00963402.2021.1885869. ISSN0096-3402. The next mobile ICBM divisions to be upgraded are the 35th Missile Division at Barnaul and the 7th Missile Division at Vypolsovo. The first regiment at Barnaul (the 479th Guards Missile Regiment) went on preliminary combat alert duty with the Yars in September 2019 and full combat duty in December 2019 (Russian Federation Defense Ministry 2019c). The Barnaul division formally accepted its second Yars regiment (the 480th Missile Regiment) in December 2020 (RIA Novosti 2020). The Strategic Rocket Force is expected to put 13 additional Yars and Avangard systems on alert in 2021 (Russian Federation 2020a); it is expected that a portion of these Yars systems will be used to upgrade the third Barnaul regiment, with upgrades to the fourth regiment following a year or two later (Podvig 2020a).
