[3] The division was mobilized from conscripts and transferred to Dauriya to defend against a possible Japanese attack from Manchuria during May and June 1939.

[4] Colonel Konstantin Erastov, who was promoted to the rank of kombrig on 4 November 1939 and became a major general on 4 June 1940, was appointed division commander on 14 August 1939.

The division formed a ski battalion selected from its best personnel for the Winter War that went to the front in November.

When Operation Barbarossa began, the 93rd included the following units:[7] After Operation Barbarossa began on 22 June 1941, the division was moved forward to the Dauriya steppes where it spent two months digging border defenses in the stony soil along a 56-kilometer line.

[6] The relocation of the 93rd from the Transbaikal to the Eastern Front began on 7 October, and on arrival it was concentrated in the Podolsk area.

During October and November the division fought in defensive battles as part of the 43rd Army on the Maloyaroslavets and Naro-Fominsk axis.

[9] The division's chief of staff, Colonel Nikolay Korzhenevsky, succeeded him as its commander on 31 March.