Soviet women in World War II

However, after massive losses in the face of Operation Barbarossa, attitudes had to be changed, ensuring a greater role for women who wanted to fight.

In the early stages of the war, the fastest route to advancement in the military for women was service in medical and auxiliary units.

While there were no formal restrictions on women serving in combat roles, their applications tended to be blocked, run through red tape, etc.

Raskova is credited with using her personal connections with Joseph Stalin to convince the military to form three combat regiments for women.

[7] These regiments with strength of almost a hundred airwomen, flew a combined total of more than 30,000 combat sorties, produced at least twenty Heroes of the Soviet Union, and included two fighter aces.

Women frequently served as medics and communication personnel, as well – in small numbers – as machine gunners, political officers, tank drivers, and in other parts of the infantry.

Manshuk Mametova was a machine gunner from Kazakhstan and was the first Asian woman to receive the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

In response to the high casualties suffered by male soldiers, Stalin allowed planning which would replace men with women in second lines of defense, such as anti-aircraft guns and medical aid.

Through small opportunities like this, women gradually gained credibility in the military, eventually numbering 500,000 at any given time toward the end of the war.

At the village of Obukhovo near Naro-Fominsk, Kosmodemyanskaya and other partisans crossed the front line and entered territory occupied by the Germans.

In 1958, Portnova was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, there is a monument to her in the city of Minsk and some youth pioneer movement detachments were named after her.