Didn't they get all wiped out at the Battle of Hostomel Airport? The idea of the blitzkrieg was sound. The execution of it was poor.
A battalion of VDV was wiped out at Hostomel and nearby.
There were about four divisions worth of VDV at the time (counting actual divisions, independent brigades and regiments), but these weren’t up to strength. There were probably @35 battalions of VDV in terms of maneuver units in total. Two divisions more or less were deployed on the Kiev axis as mechanized infantry, and these took very heavy casualties, a lot of those photos of smashed columns near Kiev were the VDV. The rest of the VDV was drawn into the Izyum and Severodonetsk and Kherson battles.
There are two divisions of the VDV plus a separate regiment, all very understrength as these were reconstituted units, in the Kherson bridgehead at the moment, IIRC. These are the stiffeners in the Russian lines there.