4th Black Sea Fleet Spetsnaz Brigade

The 4th Black Sea Fleet Spetsnaz Brigade is an army special-forces formation aligned with General Sergei Boychenko. Known informally as Boychenko’s Bodyguard, it becomes a prominent component of the rebel forces in the fighting near Kerch, where its rivalry with naval infantry turns institutional division into a direct battlefield confrontation.

Identity and Organization

The brigade’s name links it to the Black Sea Fleet, but the narrative distinguishes its identity from that of the naval forces around it: Boychenko’s Bodyguard is described as an army formation. The passage contrasts it with Naval Spetsnaz units, which worked closely with naval infantry and provided frogman and reconnaissance capabilities; those naval units technically belonged to the GRU, military intelligence. The brigade’s place in the army therefore matters as much as its fleet-associated name.

The men’s joking nickname, Boychenko’s Bodyguard, signals their close association with General Sergei Boychenko. They are not presented as a detached specialist unit: the brigade appears among the forces aligned with him during the struggle for control around Kerch.

Operations Around Kerch

As rebel forces withdrew up the coast road, a report to Dmitriev estimated that about 1,500 were on the move, most of them from the brigade. The report places the unit within a larger retreating force rather than describing a separate operation or objective of its own.

Scouts subsequently located the rebels on a low ridge south of Kerch, near the Arsincevo refinery and fuel storage complex. American fleet units were reported approaching from the south. The ridge’s position near a significant fuel facility brought the brigade into the path of a developing confrontation involving both Boychenko’s forces and the approaching Americans.

Rivalry and Combat

The brigade’s most explicit combat role is in its clashes with naval infantry. On the ridge, Boychenko’s Spetsnaz held off another charge by the naval infantry; one assault had come close to sweeping over their position. The account presents this not as a unified Russian force fighting a common opponent, but as a bitter internal contest in which army and naval formations faced one another directly.

That division gives the brigade’s battlefield role a wider significance. Its identity as an army unit, its association with Boychenko, and its repeated resistance to naval infantry place it at the center of the fragmented loyalties shaping the fight around Kerch. The available account establishes the brigade’s retreat, position, and resistance, but does not specify its eventual fate.