6th Army ( Soviet Union ) The 6th Army was a field army of the Soviet Red Army formed four times during World War II and active with the Russian Ground Forces up until 1998 . It appears to have been reformed in 2010 . It was first formed in August , 1939 in the Kiev Special Military District from the Volochiskaya Army Group ( a corps - sized formation ) . In September 1939 it participated in the Soviet invasion of Poland . At the beginning of war the Army ( 6th Rifle Corps , 37th Rifle Corps ( which included the 80th , 139th , and 141st Rifle Division s ) , 4th and 15th Mechanized Corps , 5th Cavalry Corps , 4th and 6th Fortified Regions , and a number of artillery and other units ) was deployed on the Lviv direction . It started the Second World War as part of the Soviet Southwestern Front . The army ' s headquarters was disbanded 10 August 1941 after the Battle of Uman . In this battle , the 6th Army was caught in a huge encirclement south of Kiev along with the 12th Army . It was immediately reformed within the Southern Front on the basis of 48th Rifle Corps and other units , and defended the west bank of the Dnepr River northwest of Dnipropetrovsk . On 1 September 1941 it consisted of 169th , 226th , 230th , 255th , 273rd , and 275th Rifle Divisions , 26th and 28th Cavalry Divisions , 47 сп ( 15th NKVD Rifle Division ) , 269th , 274th , and 394th Corps Artillery Regiments , 522 гап б / м , 671st Artillery Regiment of the Reserve of the Supreme High Command ( ап РВГК ) , 14 , 27 озад , and 8th Tank Division . It was then transferred to the Soviet Southwestern Front and took part in defensive actions in the Donbas , the Barvenkovo - Lozovaia operation , and the Second Battle of Kharkov , but along with the 57th Army , was surrounded in the Izium pocket with the loss of 200 , 000 plus men in casualties alone , and afterwards formally disbanded . The Army was reformed in July 1942 for the third time from the 6th Reserve Army , comprising the 45th , 99th , 141st , 160th , 174th , 212th , 219th , and 309th Rifle Division s plus the 141st Rifle Brigade . It was assigned in sequence to the Voronezh , Southwestern , and 3rd Ukrainian Front s . In January 1943 , the 6th Army smashed through the defensive lines of the Alpini divisions of the Italian 8th Army as part of Operation Little Saturn . In 1944 it took part in the Nikopol - Kryvyi Rih , Bereznogova - Snigorovka , and Odessa offensives . However in June 1944 it was broken up again , and only reformed in December 1944 with troops posted in from 3rd Guards and 13th Armies . On 1 January 1945 the Army consisted of the 22nd Rifle Corps ( 218th and 273rd Rifle Division s ) , the 74th Rifle Corps ( 181st and 309th Rifle Division s ) , the 359th Rifle Division , the 77th Fortified Region , and other support units . During 1945 the Army took part in the Sandomierz - Silesia , and the Lower Silesia offensives . During the Lower Silesia offensive in February 1945 , 6th Army , commanded by Marshal Ivan Koniev , besieged Fortress Breslau ( " Festung Breslau " ) in the Battle of Breslau . The army besieged the city as part of the Lower Silesian Offensive Operation on February 13 , 1945 , and the encirclement of Breslau was completed the following day . The 1st Ukrainian Front forces besieged the city with the 22nd and 74th Rifle Corps , and the 77th Fortified Region , as well as other smaller units . Even approximate estimates vary greatly concerning the number of German troops trapped in Breslau . Some sources claim that there were as many as 150 , 000 defenders , some 80 , 000 and some 50 , 000 . The Siege of Breslau consisted of destructive house - to - house street fighting . The city was bombarded to ruin by artillery of the 6th Army , as well as the 2nd Air Army and the 18th Air Army . During the siege , both sides resorted to setting entire districts of the city on fire . 6th Army then fought in the Bresla offensive . After the end of the Second World War , the 6th Army was withdrawn from Germany and stationed briefly in the Orlovskiy Military District before being disbanded in the Voronezh Military District late in 1945 . Its second formation was ( re ) formed from Headquarters Northern Military District in May – June 1960 with headquarters at Petrozavodsk . In 1988 it consisted of : In 1989 the 71st Motor Rifle Division became the 5186th Base for Storage of Weapons and Equipment ( БХВТ ) ( 30th мотострелковая бригада ) , and the 37th similarly became a weapons and equipment storage base ( VKhVT ) . In 1994 - 95 the 111th Motor Rifle Division ( Sortavala ) became the 20th Independent Motor Rifle Brigade and shifted into the 30th Guards Army Corps . In January 1996 it consisted of the 161st Artillery Brigade , the 182nd MRL Regiment , the 485th Separate Helicopter Regiment , the 54th Motor Rifle Division ( Allakurtti ) , and the 131st Motor Rifle Division ( Pechenga ) . It finally disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1997 - 98 . In 2010 , as part of the creation of the Western Military District / Western Operational - Strategic Command with headquarters at St . Petersburg , the army was reformed . The new 6th Army may include :