A division commander caught between encirclement and higher command
After his supply routes were cut and permission to withdraw was denied, he led part of the division across frozen Lake Kiantajärvi.
Andrei Zelentsov was a professional officer who entered the Red Army after serving in the imperial army and passed through the Civil War and interwar military reorganization. In the Winter War he led the 163rd Rifle Division in capturing Suomussalmi, but the division became the first Soviet formation in the campaign to be encircled after its supply routes were cut. He requested permission to withdraw and was denied, then led part of the division across a frozen lake to the border. He later commanded the 88th Rifle Division and was killed on the Karelian front in 1941.
Activities and affiliations
- 1918–1921 Military command · Soviet Union · Military and defence
Career Timeline
- 1915–1917Imperial Russian infantry officer and aviation observer
- 1918–1921Joins the Red Army; commissar and rear-area commander during the Civil War
- 1921–1933Commands rifle regiments and serves in military education and staff posts
- 1936–1939Chief of staff of the 5th Independent Heavy Tank Brigade; armored-service chief of the 3rd Rifle Corps
- 1939–1940Commands the 163rd Rifle Division; directs encirclement and withdrawal at Suomussalmi
- 1940–1941Promoted major general; commands the 88th Rifle Division and temporarily leads the Arkhangelsk Military District
- 1941Killed while commanding the 88th Division on the Karelian front
Related historical events
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionRed Army rear-area commanderDuring the Civil War, he served as a Red Army commissar and rear-area commander.
- 1939.11–1940.03The Winter WarCommander of the surrounded division at SuomussalmiAs commander of the 163rd Rifle Division, he attempted a breakout but was denied permission to retreat by higher command.
The Kuhmo relief operation and the rescue of the 54th Division
The 163rd Rifle Division had effectively ceased to exist as an organized formation at Suomussalmi, but its headquarters and surviving troops were redeployed from the Suomussalmi area toward Kuhmo in late February 1940. Around Kuhmo, the Finnish 9th Division had gone over to the offensive on 28 January, cutting the 54th Mountain Rifle Division's 45-kilometre-long road column at several points and creating several mottis, and on 1 February it severed the road at Löytövaara, breaking the division's link with its rear entirely. A separate ski brigade under Dolin, tasked with a breakout, was virtually destroyed in the fighting at Vetko and Kesseli in mid-February, and other relief attempts likewise achieved nothing.
In this situation the 163rd Rifle Division under Zelentsov broke through the Finnish defenses at Kilpeläkangas on 3 March, forcing the Finns to fall back toward Löytövaara. Two months after breaking out of encirclement at Suomussalmi, the same division now stood on the rescuing side of another surrounded formation. The final outcome of the relief, however, depended more on the Moscow Peace Treaty of 13 March than on the division's breakthrough itself. With the armistice the encircled elements of the 54th Division survived, and the troops who fought at Kuhmo never learned that peace talks had been under way. Finnish losses in the Kuhmo fighting are estimated at 4,603 (1,348 killed, 132 missing, 3,123 wounded) and Soviet losses at about 20,620 (roughly 5,318 killed, 2,070 missing, 13,232 wounded).