After being formed in the Kiev Special Military District it soon took part in the fighting in northern Ukraine where it joined the 5th Army north of Kyiv.

During the next few months the 228th moved to the northwest as a reserve unit but was assigned to 53rd Army shortly after the start of the offensive that drove Romania out of the Axis in August.

When completed it had the following order of battle: Col. Aleksandr Mikhailovich Ilyin was appointed to command on the day the division began forming.

[6] By July 23 it was fighting southwest of Malyn and as of August 11 it was located east of that city near the confluence of the Teteriv and Irsha Rivers.

At this time the remnants of the division were attempting to hold positions west of Chernihiv from elements of the XXIII Army Corps outflanking it to the east.

[11] While the division was noted as effectively destroyed by October 1,[12] it was not officially removed from the Red Army order of battle until December 27.

[15] Its order of battle was similar to that of the 1st formation: Col. Nikolai Ivanovich Dementev took command on February 18, 1942, and would lead the division until it was disbanded.

On July 10 the Front was ordered to form those divisions into a task force along with a special tank group to move northeastward to block the XXXX Panzer Corps in the Chertkovo area.

He was promoted to the rank of major general in January 1943 before being wounded in February and hospitalized for several months; he did not see any further front line service.

The 106th took heavy losses during the early stages of Case Blue and returned to the Reserve of the Supreme High Command and then Moscow Military District in September for rebuilding.

Once the front stabilized in March the brigade was assigned to the 4th Guards Rifle Corps of 6th Army and was again rebuilt, at least in terms of infantry, but remained short of heavy weapons until it was converted to the new 228th.

[25] In July the 6th Army was near the right flank of Southwestern Front, along the Donets River southeast of Kharkiv, but was not directly involved in the first Donbas strategic offensive.

The Front launched a new effort in the Donbas on August 13 in cooperation with the Soviet forces attacking toward Kharkiv from the north in Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev.

I. S. Konev and on October 15 he launched an offensive with elements of four armies, including the 37th, from a bridgehead roughly halfway between Dnepropetrovsk and Kremenchuk in the direction of Kryvyi Rih.

A counterattack by XXXX Panzer Corps from October 27–30 drove Konev's forces back up to 30 km and badly damaged nine rifle divisions.

[30] The Front's first effort to renew the drive on Kryvyi Rih began on January 10, led mainly by 46th Army, but made only modest gains at considerable cost and was halted on the 16th.

The offensive was renewed on January 30 after a powerful artillery preparation against the positions of the German XXX Army Corps on the same sector of the line, but this was met with a counter-barrage that disrupted the attack.

During the next two days German 6th Army tried to avoid encirclement by slogging through the mud to the Kamianka River line, which was already compromised by the Soviet advance.

Much of this area consisted of a large, irregular bend of lowlands that were nearly indefensible, but retaining possession depended on capturing high ground to the west that dominated the lower terrain.

The 92nd Guards also reached the east bank north of the town but ran into effective resistance from the 257th Infantry Division which prevented any crossings.

Colonel Yesin was fortunate to escape the fate of his fellow division commanders, both of whom were wounded in the day's fighting and required evacuation.

57th Corps was to capture Novye Lipkani (a suburb of Bender) to the south of the town and Varnița to the north as part of an encircling move but the artillery preparation, which began at 0700 hours on April 13, proved utterly ineffective and this effort ended in total failure.

The assault began at 1015 hours following a brief but powerful artillery preparation and the Army was able to advance 2–4 km on the first day despite facing defenses in mountainous terrain and the fighting continued through the night.

The next phase involved completing the encirclement of Budapest and began on December 10 but again the 53rd Army advanced very little until Pliyev's Cavalry-Mechanized Group rolled up the German/Hungarian defense from the Šahy area in the general direction of Szoldiny.

This made only modest progress and on December 18 General Managarov was directed to relieve Plyiev's Group to enable it to regroup for a new assignment.

[44] The city of Brno was cleared on April 26 and following the German surrender, on May 28, the 228th would be awarded the Order of Suvorov, 2nd Degree, for its role in this victory.

[45] By now 53rd Army was in the process of being sent to the far east in preparation for the Soviet invasion of Manchuria but the division was considered excess to these requirements[46] and was therefore briefly assigned to the Central Group of Forces.