Russian horse breeds

[area23]

I got some new toys in the mail and I noticed Copplestone horses differ in size, i.e. Tibetans have smaller horses than Russians. I have some Foundry horses that are even smaller which I'd like to use for my tachankas.
So I'm wondering now; were there smaller common breeds of horse in western Russia and the Ukraine?  Where military horses of a different breed?
I admit I'm a complete noob on this matter.

[Khmorg]

Horses were the ones that could catch, steal, exchange or buy. Large horses were not, but the average were

[vodkafan]

Dipping into my book of The Horse,  Russian breeds dating from the 18th century onwards include the Don (because used by the Don Cossacks) and the Orlov. Both of these are mixtures of other horses however. Far more ancient is the Akhal-Teke, known to be 2,500 years old. It is smaller than the other two and is almost hairless (no mane). It was used by the Mongols and Turkopoles.
The very best Russian cavalry horse was (is) the Budyonny, but it is a blend of other horse breeds and only dates from 1920.
Finally mention must be made of the small Mongolian wild horse (Przewalski's Horse) which is almost certainly the closest link to a prehistoric horse. It has been identified in cave paintings 15,000 years old. Aggressive in a group, it can of course interbreed with other horses. That is a long way from Ukraine though of course.

There are many Polish horse breeds in the book, too many to mention , and that is closer to Ukraine so some may have come from this direction? Hope this helps.

[edit] Looking again at the OP's question, I would say in general from the info above that the more East you go in Russia towards the Eurasian Steppe the smaller the horses might be?

[cuprum]

You can not worry about the size of the horses in the Russian armies during the Civil War. The vast majority of horses were confiscated from the peasants. These are ordinary, no breed horses, of relatively small stature.
More or less good horses were among the Cossacks, who bred the battle horses for themselves, since they had to go to military service with their own horse. The main species - Don (a mixture based on steppe horses). These are also not very large horses.
I think the officers, on average, had better horses. These are also not very large horses, including purebred European or oriental ones.

[area23]

Thanks a lot, that's much of the information I was looking for.