In 1967, the Troops of Anti-Missile and Anti-Space Defence by the Soviet Union. The branch was then named Ministry of Defence Space Units in 1982. Then in 1991, the Soviet Union broke up. So the new Russian Military created the Russian Space Forces. The branch was abandoned in 1992, but brought back in 2001. General Vladimir Popovkin took the lead of the branch in 2004, after the previous leader, Colonel General Anatoly Perminov.