After winter battles in eastern Belarus the 217th played leading roles in the liberation of Zhlobin and Bobruisk in the early stages of Operation Bagration as part of 48th Army.

When completed it had the following order of battle: Col. Mikhail Alekseevich Grachyov was appointed to command on the day the division began forming; Col. Vladimir Petrovich Shlegel became his chief of staff in June.

At the same time the 10th Motorized Division had been directed to seize crossings of the Desna in order to protect the flank of 2nd Panzer Group and to intercept Soviet forces attempting to escape encirclement.

The division was reported as "successfully defending the Buda and Kholopenkovy front... except in the Lozitsy, Krasnyi Shchipal, Pavlova Sloboda and Molotkovo sector, where an enemy force of up to two [infantry regiments] and 130 tanks penetrated the forward security positions at 1000 hours but were contained short of the main defensive belt.

The 217th was reported as holding its previous positions "while repelling and destroying enemy units attacking in the Snopot and Piatnitskoe region" with artillery, mortar and machine gun fire; this situation was essentially unchanged 48 hours later.

The next day General Petrov was able to break contact with most of the German forces and his divisions completed a 50km rapid march to the east on October 9 before running into significant resistance.

A report by German 4th Army the next day claimed 40,000 prisoners had been taken and that the 50th had been destroyed but in fact it had reached a line from Podbuzhe to Karachev and was preparing a breakout across the Resseta River.

By November 5 all German efforts to take the city from the south had been frustrated, in part because their supply lines were vastly overstretched while arms and ammunition were being fed to 50th Army direct from the factories in their immediate rear.

The reinforcements went over to the counterattack at dawn on November 7 but this developed slowly due to active German resistance and inexperience on the Soviet side and made no permanent gains.

By November 22 the 2nd Panzer Army had captured Stalinogorsk and Tula was deeply outflanked but its defenses were continuing to hold and the German troops were severely worn down, still lacking clothing and equipment for winter warfare.

The next day the Army's forward detachments began to liberate Kaluga, and by December 24 the division had reached the east bank of the Oka River along the sector Korekozevo–Golodskoe–Mekhovo and was preparing to attack toward Peremyshl.

Meanwhile the 1st Guards Cavalry had captured Odoevo and reached the Oka and one rifle regiment of the division was moved to the area of Vorotynsk station in preparation for a deep envelopment of Kaluga from the southwest and west.

After the fall of Kaluga, Boldin was tasked with getting the main forces of his Army into the rear of the German grouping based at Kondrovo and then to develop the pursuit in the directions of Myatlevo, Medyn and Yukhnov, while during January 1-6, 1942, the 217th and 413th continued advancing on Uteshevo.

By the end of this week the Army was encountering a stronger defense and the 217th had one rifle regiment defending along a line from Troskino to Yeremino covering the flank of the shock group attacking Yukhnov.

On January 27 Boldin ordered the 217th to attack in the direction of Trebushinki in a further effort to bypass Yukhnov from the southwest, but with the arrival of further German reinforcements the rate of advance slowed to a crawl and the city was not finally liberated until March 5.

[32] The 217th spent the summer and fall holding its lines on the salient's southeastern shoulder, rebuilding from the winter battles and in August it was again transferred, now to 16th Army, still in Western Front.

The 8th and 36th Guards Corps with heavy tank support went over to the attack at 1300 and quickly broke through the forward edge of the German defense, which was soon falling back to its intermediate line.

The town was now outflanked from three sides and on the morning of August 10 was completely cleared of German forces as remnants fell back to the west; the battle had cost them 7,500 officers and men, 70 armored vehicles and 176 guns and mortars.

A new offensive was to begin the following day and the Army was tasked with conducting the assault on Gomel proper while other forces of the Front liberated the nearby town of Rechitsa on the Dniepr.

The painful advance continued over the next several days, but German resistance finally began to flag by November 23 after the 217th captured Pokoliubichi, 8km northeast of the city's center.

Soviet successes to the north and south, including the liberation of Rechitsa, forced German 9th Army to begin falling back to the Dniepr, and Gomel finally fell on November 26.

With the fall of Gomel, Rokossovskii saw the next objectives of his center armies as Parichi and Bobruisk to the northwest; the terrain along this route was excessively swampy but seen as easier to traverse in mid-winter.

After four days of bitter fighting to overcome the forward defensive belt two divisions of 29th Corps managed to make an advance of nearly 3km before running into further German strongpoints west and northwest of Shatsilki.

The 217th advanced northward and captured the strongpoint at Rudnia before fighting its way across the Chirka River and reaching the south bank of the Berezina, in the process enveloping the left wing of the 253rd Infantry and forcing it to withdraw to Chirkovichi.

By the end of January 27 the forward elements of 48th Army were just 15km from the southern outskirts of Parichi but after two weeks of heavy combat its divisions, already understrength at the outset, were utterly worn out and unable to continued without significant reinforcements and replacements.

The second attack began on February 22 and struck the boundary between the 253rd and 36th Infantry Divisions with the 29th and 42nd Rifle Corps, driving forward another 5km through the swamps before being halted by German strongpoints at Pogantsy and Hill 143.

[61] Early on the morning of June 28 the 29th Corps was continuing to mop up German remnants in the forests between Zhlobin and the Berezina but in the afternoon began a crossing in the Polovets area to relieve elements of 65th Army south of Bobruisk.

[63] In the course of the offensive to this point the 217th, which had already reached Baranovichi, had officially accounted for 48 tanks and self-propelled guns destroyed; 32 mortars, 76 motor vehicles, 2,000 rifles and 300 grenades taken as trophies; plus 3,700 German soldiers and officers killed and 1,500 prisoners.

The German garrison, consisting of remnants of 7th and 299th Infantry Divisions and the 30th Panzergrenadier Regiment, contested the major brick structures and a series of concrete pillboxes, but despite this units of 42nd Corps soon broke into the town.

The troops who took part in the battles when they entered the southern regions of East Prussia, during which Tannenberg and other cities were liberated, by the order of the Supreme High Command of 21 January 1945, and a commendation in Moscow, are given a salute of 20 artillery salvoes from 224 guns.