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Mountain Divisions on the Steppes of Ukraine y 197

e Soviet 9th Army was opposed by forces which had no tank divisions at all. e 9th
Army was not yet completely manned and equipped, but it was planned to be in the next days
and weeks, and by the highest quality weapons.
Colonel General P. Belov (at that time Major General, Commander of the 2nd Cavalry
Corps of the 9th Army) testified that even the cavalry of this army was preparing to receive
the best tanks in the world, the T-34. At the head of the 9th Army was a colonel general.
2
At that time, this was an extremely high rank. In all the armed forces of the USSR, there
were only eight colonel generals; moreover, in the mighty Soviet tank troops there was none,
in aviation there was none, and in the NKVD there was none. At the head of thirty Soviet
armies were major generals and lieutenant generals. e 9th Army was the only exception
among them.
In addition, the most promising officers and generals were gathered in this exceptional
army. ree future Marshals of the Soviet Union were among them: Malinovsky, Zakharov,
and Krylov, future Marshal of Aviation and three-time Hero of the Soviet Union Pokryshkin,
future Marshal of Aviation Pstygo, future Army Generals Petrov, Pavlovsky, and Lashchenko,
and many other talented and aggressive commanders who had already proven themselves in
battle, like the twenty-eight-year-old Air Force Major General Osipenko. ey all expressed
hopes, which in most cases were later fulfilled. A caring hand carefully picked the best and
most promising and placed them in this army.
But where was this super-army located? Here an amazing discovery awaits us: the 9th
Army was not located near the German border. In the first half of June 1941, the Soviet
Union was forming the most powerful army in the world on the Romanian border. e
9th Army was created in the fall of 1939, immediately after the signing of the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Pact. Its appearance was always an unwelcome sign for the country on whose
border it emerged. In the fall of 1939, the 9th Army was deployed on the Finnish border.
A week after the completion of its formation and concentration, the 9th Army fought for
the bloody “liberation” of Finland. After the Finnish war, the army disappeared. e 9th
Army command was disbanded on March 26, 1940. e army suddenly appeared again in
June 1940 on the Romanian border. Ahead was a “liberation crusade” into Bessarabia, and
Soviet sources indicated that the 9th Army was created especially for the completion of that
important task. After another brief “liberation crusade,” the 9th Army disappeared again and
3
its command was disbanded on July 10, 1940. In reality, its troops remained on the border,
but in order not to alarm the neighbors those troops were not officially called an “army.” On
June 14, 1941, the 9th Army again “reappeared” on the Romanian border, in the same exact
place where a year ago it had completed the “liberation.” A new “liberation crusade” of the
4
9th Army into Romania would have entirely changed the strategic situation in Europe and
in the world, since Romania was Germany’s main source of oil. A blow to Romania meant
death to Germany.
But Hitler did not allow any of that to happen. In the declaration made by the German
government to the Soviets at the start of the war, reasons were listed for the German attack
against the Soviet Union. Among them was the unjustified concentration of Soviet troops on
Romanian borders, which presented a clear danger to Germany.
Let’s pay attention to the mountain rifle divisions in the 9th Army. e 9th Army was
located on the Romanian border, and its headquarters was in Odessa. ere are no moun-
tains in the Odessa military district. e 30th Irkutsk Mountain Rifle Division of the 9th