[2] By the time of the main German offensive against Moscow at the end of September, 40th Army was on the extreme right flank of Southwestern Front defending the Kursk axis.

By 3 November 40th Army had been driven from Kursk, but by the end of the month it had brought the German advance to a halt near the town of Tim some 50 kilometres further east.

During July, 40th Army, subordinated to Voronezh Front, was assigned to defend the river Don along the Liski - Pavlovsk sector, positions that it held throughout the remainder of 1942.

This offensive was coordinated with an attack by a Soviet tank army further south to surround Axis forces on the Liski - Novaya Kalitva sector of the Don front.

These defensive positions, which were to form part of the southern face of the Kursk Salient, remained largely unchanged through April, May and June 1943.

On 5 July 1943 Germany's last strategic offensive on the Eastern Front (Operation Citadel) opened with attacks on the northern and southern shoulders of the Kursk Salient.

During the Battle of Kursk, where the Army fought as part of Voronezh Front, it transferred a number of reinforcements to 6th Guards Army to help 6th Guards hold back the 48th Panzer Corps, including the 29th Tank Destroyer Brigade and the 1244th and 869th Tank Destroyer Regiments, a total of over 100 antitank guns.

The Army was re-created on December 16, 1979, in the Turkestan Military District on the directive of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces.

In a couple of days, the Minister of Defence Marshal Dmitriy Ustinov communicated to the Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Ogarkov that the Politburo had adopted a decision on the temporary introduction of troops in the country and ordered to prepare somewhere around 75,000-80,000 concentration of force.

On December 24, 1979 Minister of Defense Ustinov officially announced about the adopted decision to invade Afghanistan and signed the directive #312/12/001.

Out of the reserves were drafted additional 50,000 people from the republics of Soviet Central Asia and the Kazakh SSR, some 8,000 units of automobiles were transferred out of the public sector.

Preparations for the Soviet force's withdrawal from Afghanistan (ru:вывод советских войск из Афганистана) were underway by 1988.

But due to attempts by the Najibullah Afghan government to retain at least part of the 40th Army in Afghanistan, little withdrawals were made from September to December 1988.

After long negotiations between the Afghan and Soviet leaders, the requests to retain troops were rejected and on January 27, 1989, the withdrawal resumed.

From September 1989 the Army commander was General Lieutenant Anatoliy Semenovich Ryabtsev (ru:Рябцев, Анатолий Семёнович).

[16] Moscow ITAR-TASS World Service in Russian of 0840 GMT 16 April 1992 reported that Ryabtsev was born in Rostov Oblast.

Apparently there was a struggle in early 1992 between Ryabtsev and Colonel General Georgy Kondratyev, the commander of the Turkestan Military District.