My uninformed opinion would probably be that someone somewhere realised that air assault is no longer viable, in light of a lack of Russian air superiority. And in general, the VDV has always been more of a ‘somewhat decently trained conscript force’, which only has an overall better image because they undergo slightly more training than their ‘normal’ conscripted brethren
They’ve always been more “air mobile” rather than actual air assault anyway, much like marines don’t do much amphibious landing nowadays.
IIRC they tried to land on that one airport at the very start, and bailed when it became a hot LZ. It’s kind of an open question if air assault is even viable in this day and age.
My uninformed opinion would probably be that someone somewhere realised that air assault is no longer viable, in light of a lack of Russian air superiority. And in general, the VDV has always been more of a ‘somewhat decently trained conscript force’, which only has an overall better image because they undergo slightly more training than their ‘normal’ conscripted brethren
They’ve always been more “air mobile” rather than actual air assault anyway, much like marines don’t do much amphibious landing nowadays.
IIRC they tried to land on that one airport at the very start, and bailed when it became a hot LZ. It’s kind of an open question if air assault is even viable in this day and age.