The Soviet Ground Forces (Russian: Советские сухопутные войска, romanized: Sovetskiye sukhoputnye voyska) was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army.

After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under the command of the Commonwealth of Independent States until it was formally abolished on 14 February 1992. The Soviet Ground Forces were principally succeeded by the Russian Ground Forces in Russian territory. Outside of Russia, many units and formations were taken over by the post-Soviet states; some were withdrawn to Russia, and some dissolved amid conflict, notably in the Caucasus.

While the Ground Forces are commonly referred to in English language sources as the Soviet Army, in Soviet military parlance the term armiya (army) referred to the combined land and air components of the Soviet Armed Forces, encompassing the Ground Forces as well as the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Air Defence Forces, and the Air Forces.

At the end of World War II the Red Army had over 500 rifle divisions and about a tenth that number of tank formations. Their war experience gave the Soviets such faith in tank forces that the infantry force was cut significantly. A total of 130 rifle divisions were disbanded in the Groups of Forces in Eastern Europe in summer 1945, as well as 2nd Guards Airborne Division, and by the end of 1946, another 193 rifle divisions ceased to exist. Five or more rifle divisions disbanded contributed to the formation of NKVD convoy divisions, some used for escorting Japanese prisoners of war. The Tank Corps of the late war period were converted to tank divisions, and from 1957 the rifle divisions were converted to motor rifle divisions (MRDs). MRDs had three motorized rifle regiments and a tank regiment, for a total of ten motor rifle battalions and six tank battalions; tank divisions had the proportions reversed.

The Land Forces Main Command was created for the first time in March 1946. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov became Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces in March 1946, but was quickly succeeded by Ivan Konev in July 1946. By September 1946, the army decreased from 5 million soldiers to 2.7 million in the Soviet Union and from 2 million to 1.5 million in Europe. Four years later the Main Command was disbanded, an organisational gap that "probably was associated in some manner with the Korean War". The Main Command was reformed in 1955. On February 24, 1964, the Defense Council of the Soviet Union decided to disband the Ground Forces Main Command, with almost the same wording as in 1950 (the corresponding order of the USSR Minister of Defense on disbandment was signed on March 7, 1964). Its functions were transferred to the General Staff, while the chiefs of the combat arms and specialised forces came under the direct command of the Minister of Defence. The Main Command was then recreated again in November 1967. Army General Ivan Pavlovsky was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Ground Forces with effect from 5 November 1967.

From 1945 to 1948, the Soviet Armed Forces were reduced from about 11.3 million to about 2.8 million men, a demobilisation controlled first, by increasing the number of military districts to 33, then reduced to 21 in 1946. The personnel strength of the Ground Forces was reduced from 9.8 million to 2.4 million.

To establish and secure the USSR's eastern European geopolitical interests, Red Army troops who liberated eastern Europe from Nazi rule in 1945 remained in place to secure pro-Soviet régimes in Eastern Europe and to protect against attack from Europe. Elsewhere, they may have assisted the NKVD in suppressing anti-Soviet resistance in Western Ukraine (1941–1955) and the Forest Brothers in the three Baltic states. Soviet troops, including the 39th Army, remained at Port Arthur and Dalian on the northeast Chinese coast until 1955. Control was then handed over to the new Chinese communist government.

Within the Soviet Union, the troops and formations of the Ground Forces were divided among the military districts. There were 32 of them in 1945. Sixteen districts remained from the mid-1970s to the end of the USSR (see table). Yet, the greatest Soviet Army concentration was in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, which suppressed the anti-Soviet Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. East European Groups of Forces were the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary, which put down the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. In 1958, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania. The Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia was established after Warsaw Pact intervention against the Prague Spring of 1968. In 1969, in the far east of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Soviet border conflict (1969) prompted establishment of a 16th military district, the Central Asian Military District, at Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan.