It was then sent north to join Northwestern Front and became locked into the dismal fighting around Demyansk until that salient was finally evacuated by the German II Army Corps in February 1943.

During operations in the Baltic states that summer and autumn the 7th Guards was awarded both a battle honor and the Order of the Red Banner.

After falling back from the Kaluga region in late October,[3] the division was transferred to the 49th Army in Western Front by the start of November.

On November 25 its lead regiment occupied a defensive line from the woods east of Yesipovo and Zhukovo (8 km southeast of Solnechnogorsk) while the remaining units were concentrating, as they disembarked, in an area about 12 km southeast of the same city with the objective of occupying a defensive line from Shelepanovo to Terekhovo to Zhukovo, astride the Leningrad road.

[5] During the following days the 7th Guards was involved in heavy fighting in the area south of Solnechnogorsk with the German 4th Panzer Group seeking to break out to the southeast.

During December 2-3 the German forces managed to take Kryukovo after heavy street fighting but were unable to break through 16th Army's lines.

Both the 1st and 2nd Guards Rifle Corps were deployed to the region southeast of Lake Ilmen in order to complete the encirclement from the north.

The lead elements of 1st Guards Rifle Corps arrived near Staraya Russa after an approach march of 110km over frozen marsh tracks from Valday.

Battlegroup Leopold at Davidovo commanded about 900 men from a wide variety of sources, backed by artillery, antitank guns and mortars.

7th Guards, backed by several rifle brigades and ski battalions, began a series of violent attacks on Group Eicke at Zeluchye, which was based on about 4,000 men of the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf.

The spring thaw turned the land to a quagmire and the German advance was reduced to a crawl; it wasn't until April 12 that their leading elements were able to spot Ramushevo in the distance.

Two days later a breakout effort, Operation Fallreep began, using a force mostly based on the 32nd Infantry Division to batter a thin wedge through the 7th Guards' positions and advance towards the Lovat.

A tenuous ground link less than 4km wide in places was soon established, but II Corps remained dependent in part on airlifted supplies.

The Corps launched offensives in July, August and September in efforts to link up with 11th Army and cut the lifeline, but 7th Guards played little role in these.

On September 27 the 16th Army launched Operation Michael in an attempt to drive back or even destroy the 1st Guards Corps in a salient it held south of the corridor.

Yet another attack on the corridor began on the night of November 23/24, this time focused on its eastern end, but the division played no major role in it.

The 391st and 7th Guards formed a secondary shock group to launch an attack on a 5km sector from Shotovo to Viazki, with the objective of taking Ramushevo.

Near the end of June, as the destruction of Army Group Center was going on in Belarus, the 7th Guards was in the area of Novorzhev in western Russia, facing the defenses of the German Panther–Wotan line.

The troops who participated in the liberation of Daugavpils and Rezekne, by the order of the Supreme High Command of July 27, 1944, and a commendation in Moscow, are given a salute of 20 artillery salvoes from 224 guns.

[29]By the beginning of August, 10th Guards Army was redeployed somewhat northwards to the area of Kārsava, from where it advanced westward into Latvia over the next six weeks, reaching Lubāna by mid-September.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Bogatkin was the commander of the 1st Guards Antitank Battalion and led his unit through August in aggressive direct support fire in attacking several towns in Latvia and providing protection against several German counterattacks.

He led his troops in suppressing seven German firing points, and on the night of September 26, in order to secure the advance of his men he used his body to block the embrasure of a bunker.