In December 2022, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu proposed to reestablish it along with the Moscow Military District,[1] a decision confirmed in June 2023 by Deputy Chief of the General Staff Yevgeny Burdinsky.

[2] On December 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to recreate the Leningrad Military District as a reaction to Finland joining NATO.

[3] The district was formally reconstituted on 26 February 2024 by a Presidential Decree No.141, transferring the Northern Fleet under its command.

[5] It is one of two military districts of the Russian Armed Forces, with its jurisdiction primarily within the western central region of European Russia.

Additionally, the command contains most of Russia's islands in the Arctic Ocean, including those located in federal subjects not within the district.

The Petrograd District was reestablished as a part of the Red Army (RKKA) by an order of the Highest Military Council of 6 September 1918.

The district included Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod, Olonets, Cherepovets, and Murmansk Governorates and the Karelian SSR.

On June 9, 1940, directive 02622ss/ov was given to the District by Semyon Timoshenko to be ready by June 12 to (a) capture the vessels of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Navy in their bases and/or at sea; (b) Capture the Estonian and Latvian commercial fleet and all other vessels; (c) Prepare for an invasion and landing in Tallinn and Paldiski; (d) Close the Gulf of Riga and blockade the coasts of Estonia and Latvia in Gulf of Finland and Baltic Sea; (e) Prevent an evacuation of the Estonian and Latvian governments, military forces and assets; (f) Provide naval support for an invasion towards Rakvere; (g) Prevent the Estonian and Latvian airplanes flying either to Finland or Sweden.

The Front's forces efforts played a major part in resisting the German attacks during the Siege of Leningrad.

Pressing home the attack, the forces of the Leningrad Front in summer and in the fall of 1944 helped seize Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Initially the district controlled two combined arms armies: the 10th Guards in Estonia and the 23rd on the Karelian Isthmus.

Control of forces in the Estonian SSR, which included the 4th Guards Rifle Corps with three divisions, was transferred to the Baltic Military District on 27 January 1956.

The 2nd Guards Tank Division was transferred to the district from the Estonian SSR in 1958, based at Garbolovo and Vladimirsky Lager.

In the late 1960s the 14th Separate Machine Gun Artillery Regiment of the 30th Guards Army Corps was used to create the mobilization 37th Motor Rifle Division.

[15] In 1962 the troops of the district participated in Operation Anadyr, the Soviet military deployment to Cuba that resulted in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On 22 February 1968, in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Army and for its successes in combat and in political training, the District was awarded the Order of Lenin.

[18] On the evening of 7 June, the Norwegian Garnisonen i Sør-Varanger garrison heard the noise of powerful engines coming from the manoeuvres along the entire Soviet front of the Norwegian-Soviet border.

[22] By 1990 the district included 60,000 servicemen, 822 tanks, 2,000 armored fighting vehicles, 1,100 guns, mortars and MLRS systems, and 100 helicopters.

The 111th Motor Rifle Division (still part of 6th Army) was active until 1994, and then seemingly became the 20th Separate MR Bde, which became a VKhVT between January 1997 and June 1998.

[27] In early December 1997, President Boris Yeltsin said in Sweden that Russia would make unilateral reductions to forces in the northwest, which included the Leningrad Military District.

[32]The 138th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade at Kamenka was deployed for operations during the Second Chechen War, in which, along with other Russian Ground Forces units, its personnel was reported to have behaved badly at times.

[34] The Russian Airborne Troops' 76th Air Assault Division was also based within the district's boundaries, at Pskov.

[37] On 2 September, 2024, it was announced that the district's deputy commander, Valery Mumindzhanov, a Shoigu loyalist, was arrested on corruption charges as part of an apparent purge by Andrey Belousov.