After the beginning of the siege of Leningrad the division defended the line of the Neva, capturing the Nevsky Pyatachok during the Sinyavino Offensive of September 1942.

Under the command of Kombrig Shmyrov, it was transferred to the Leningrad Military District and relocated to Chyornaya Rechka on the Finnish border in 1936.

For its "courage and exemplary fulfillment of command tasks" during the breakthrough of the Mannerheim Line at the end of the Winter War the division received the Order of Lenin on 21 March 1940;[2] the 252nd Rifle and 227th Howitzer Artillery Regiments received the Order of the Red Banner on 11 April.

[3] After the end of the Winter War the division became part of the 50th Rifle Corps of the 23rd Army in the Leningrad Military District, defending the Karelian Isthmus.

At the beginning of July 1941 it was transferred to the 11th Army of the Northwestern Front, and first entered combat against German troops from the on the left bank of the Shelon River, near the town of Soltsy.

[2] During the Sinyavino Offensive, an attempt to break the siege, the division overcame fierce German resistance to cross the Neva River on the night of 26 September, capturing the Nevsky Pyatachok bridgehead.

[3] The division was reformed from the 47th and 146th Rifle Brigades in April 1943 at Kaluga in the Moscow Military District, under the command of Lezgin Colonel Makhmud Abilov.

[6] Between 9 February and 21 March the division was temporarily commanded by Colonel Kornily Rakhmanov, while it was part of the 113th Rifle Corps, holding defensive positions on the Pronya on the line of Blazhki and Polyashitsa.

252nd Rifle Regiment telephonist Yefreytor Tatyana Baramzina was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union for her actions on 5 July.

After the capture of Memel, the 70th defended the coast of the bay, responsible for an 80 kilometer sector, in the reserve of the Samland Group of Forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front.

In March and April the division, again with the 43rd Army, this time with the 90th Rifle Corps, fought in the Battle of Königsberg and the Samland Offensive, participating in the storming of the former.

[13] The army transferred to the 2nd Belorussian Front in late April, but remained in East Prussia until the end of the war.