In November it was assigned to Kalinin Front and played an important role in the liberation of Velikiye Luki during the winter, primarily in helping to block several attempts to relieve the besieged city.

On November 28 the division was forced to abandon the city entirely and fall back eastward to a line from Aleksino to Zhevnevo (6 km [3.7 mi] west of Dedovsk) where it consolidated.

Beloborodov was dismayed to see such senior officers but duly attacked at dawn on December 1 with a rifle company and two tanks to evict a German platoon from a handful of houses.

[4] Over the following days the center and left flank forces of 16th Army, including the 9th Guards, were involved in heavy fighting in the area to the south of Solnechnogorsk and to the east of the Istra reservoir.

The 9th Guards was engaged in heavy fighting with German infantry and tanks on the eastern outskirts of Nefedevo (3 km [1.9 mi] north of Dedovsk) with the 36th Rifle Brigade arriving in support.

Although this place was briefly given up, on December 5 a counterattack by the division, backed by the 17th Tank and 40th Rifle Brigades, retook it, as well as Turovo, by noon and continued to advance on Petrovskoe as the German forces began to go over to the defense.

Almost immediately Beloborodov received new orders moving the division to the command of 43rd Army; he was also to remove his forces from the corridor and strike back at the German pincers.

A new plan was put together the next day which involved an early afternoon attack with a more sophisticated artillery preparation, an outflanking move to the south by the 258th Regiment, and close cooperation with the flanking 1st Guards Motor and 17th Rifle Divisions.

[11] Over the next ten days the German 17th Infantry Division, supported by tanks and aircraft, made several attempts to retake Zakharovo but these were held off while the 9th Guards continued to advance slowly towards the Vorya River into the former corridor.

Through tenuous communications the divisional command was aware that the survivors were still holding, and they began breaking out the following night as the division attacked towards the village of Berezki.

On June 22 the German 1st Panzer and 6th Armies launched Operation Fridericus II as a follow-up to the Kharkov fighting and to set the stage for the main summer offensive.

This effort unhinged the defenses of Southwestern Front and 38th Army was authorized to retreat from the Oskol to a line situated 35–40 km (22–25 mi) to the east along the Aidar River.

This support and the direct fire of antitank guns helped clear the place by 2000 hours, after which the regiment advanced to the Velikiye Luki - Nevel railway.

[29] On the same day the rest of the 9th Guards was pushing towards Ostryan station, 10 km (6.2 mi) west of Velikiye Luki, to link up with the 381st Rifle Division advancing from the north to complete the outer ring of encirclement.

During fighting that day with German infantry and tanks the commander of the 31st Regiment, Col. Nikolai Gavrilovich Dokuchaev, was mortally wounded; he was replaced by his deputy, Maj. A. I. Belev.

Although the German command was successful in evacuating some of its encircled troops, it was unable to hold its ground, and when the lines stabilized the distance to Velikiye Luki had barely lessened.

About 20 German tanks with infantry advanced into the gap before stumbling into a minefield and coming under direct artillery fire which jointly cost them six vehicles knocked out and forced a withdrawal.

On the morning of December 24 the 360th Rifle Division was transferred to the 5th Guards Corps and immediately retook Alekseykovo and Height 179.0; the German grouping was forced over to the defensive.

[38] During fighting in the village of Zhukovka in the Smolensk region on August 28 Guardsman Vasilii Ivanovich Solovyov of the 31st Regiment burst into a German trench with his squadmates and helped destroy two machine guns with grenades.

This began with an assault on the German positions at Rudnya, led by the 1st Penal Battalion and a mobile group from 43rd Army and followed by three divisions of the Corps while 9th Guards remained in second echelon.

Although the divisions of the two Soviet armies were worn down to about half strength from earlier fighting, they still held a five-fold advantage in infantry, as well as superiority in armor and artillery.

The attack made very limited gains, and 5th Guards Corps was withdrawn and sent south of the Smolensk - Vyasma road on December 21, with the entire offensive shut down two days later.

9th Guards was deployed on the Corps' left (south) flank, with the immediate objective of the village of Laputi, although the overall goal of the offensive was to link up with 4th Shock Army and encircle the German forces in Vitebsk.

By December 26, 5th Guards Corps had advanced a mere 2–3 km, leading to a caustic telegram from the STAVKA to the 1st Baltic Front, demanding greater progress.

5th Guards Corps formed 39th Army's shock group on a 6 km-wide (3.7 mi) between the Smolensk - Vitebsk road and the village of Vaskova, facing the 206th Infantry Division.

A new offensive began on February 29, but just prior to its start the German command withdrew several units east of Vitebsk, including the 206th Infantry, back to shorter and more defensible lines.

On May 18 Jr. Lt. Anatoly Grigorevich Myagchilov was ordered to break through the German lines in the Idritsa district with his platoon of the 18th Guards Regiment to make a passage for a reconnaissance party and to then seize a hill to cover its withdrawal.

2nd Guards Corps was in the Army's second echelon and even on the second and third days was struggling to keep up with the lead elements which had reached the Western Dvina River but not yet broken through the German defenses there.

[49] On the same day, while the 18th and 22nd Regiments were mopping up defeated German forces from the forests around Selishche and Zhuravno, General Babakhin was killed in the explosion of an antitank mine.

Momyshuly was by now a minor celebrity in the USSR following the publication of Aleksandr Bek's novel Volokolamsk Highway the previous year; the main character is a lightly-fictionalized version of him serving as a battalion commander in the 316th Rifle Division in front of Moscow in October, 1941.