4th Army ( Soviet Union ) The 4th Army was a Soviet field army of World War II that served on the Eastern front of World War II and in the Caucasus during the Cold War . It was disbanded after the fall of the Soviet Union , with its divisions being withdrawn to Russia and disbanded . World War II . First Formation . The Fourth Army was created in August 1939 in the Belorussian Special Military District from the Bobruisk Army Group as an independent army . In September 1939 , the Fourth Army took part in the Soviet invasion of Poland commanded by the future Marshal of Soviet Union V . I . Chuykov , the defender of Stalingrad . Its order of battle in that operation is listed here . Elements of the army , apparently 4th Battalion , 29th Light Tank Brigade , took part in the German – Soviet military parade in Brest - Litovsk on September 22 , 1939 . When the German invasion of the Soviet Union commenced on 22 June 1941 , the Army was part of the Western Front and had the 28th Rifle Corps ( 6th Rifle Division and 42nd Rifle Division ) , 14th Mechanised Corps , and 49th and 75th Rifle Division s , as well as the 62nd Fortified Region . General Colonel Pavlov , Commander of the Western Front , had decided to redeploy some of 4th Army ’ s troops early in 1941 , and John Erickson wrote that 12th Rifle Division was accordingly moved into Brest , and HQ 14th Mechanised Corps to Kobrin , which in Erickson ’ s words , ‘ deprived 4th Army simultaneously of its reserve and its second echelon . ’ It should be clearly understood that historian was writing in the pre - 1990 period when formation designations could be unclear , sometimes to the point of deliberate deception ( Soviet ' maskirovka ' ) . According to Sharp the 12th Rifle Division was identified by the Germans on the Western Front , but the unit was assigned to the Far East for the entire war . The formation that appears to have been moved into Brest Fortress was 42nd Rifle Division . Facing the 4th Army across the Bug River was deployed the German Fourth Army , with twelve infantry divisions and a cavalry division , as well as Panzer Group 2 . Some units faced several difficulties ; when General Major A . A . Khorobkov , the army commander , saw his officers on 10 June , General Major S . I . Oborin , 14th Mechanised Corps commander , emphasized that more than half his soldiers were untrained recruits , that his artillery had received guns for which there was no ammunition , and that he only had enough lorries to make a quarter of the corps mobile – the rest would have to march . On the eve of the attack , 4th Army suffered , as did many Soviet formations , from German communication sabotage . Units lost telephone connections , electrical power , and the Brest Fortress lost its water supply . From about 5 am on 22 June fierce fighting began around the Brest fortress , but the seven battalions around the fortress , from 28th Rifle Corps , were undermanned , disorganized , and slow off the mark to man the defences . Despite these deficiencies the final German reduction of the fortress took some time in the face of determined Soviet resistance . By 1600 hours on 22 June , 4th Army HQ was back at Zapruda , whereupon Front HQ ordered that 14th Mechanised Corps be launched in an attack to clear Brest and reach the frontier line . However the Army staff felt the plan had no chance of success , and so it proved ; when the attack was launched the next day , only insignificant progress was made . Three days later Western Front ordered a general withdrawal to try to keep the frontier armies out of threatened German encirclement ; 4th Army was directed to fall back on a line from Bytin to Pinsk . Further instructions came through from Pavlov after a chance meeting later the same day ; to cover the concentration of reserve armies on the Dnieper , 4th Army was to hold the Shchara , the Slutsk ‘ fortified district , ’ and the Sluch river line . However the Slutsk fortified district , as the district commander reminded Khorobkov , had long ago been instructed to dispatch all its weapons to the Brest fortress ( which was continuing to hold ) . The planned defence was thus practically non - existent , and Slutsk fell on 27 June . The Army took part in the defenses of the area around Babruysk . At the end of July 1941 , the Fourth Army began to dissolve . The Fourth Army ' s staff members were absorbed into the general staff of the Central Front , and the troops were absorbed into other armies . Composition on 22 June 1941 . Source : Commander Lieutenant General Alexander A . Korobkov Order of Battle for Operation Barbarossa Second Formation . At the end of September 1941 , the Fourth Army was formed for the second time , retaining its Independent status until December while remaining in the Stavka Reserve . The field staffs of the 52nd and 54th Armies were used to fill the command contingent of the Army . The new formation was made up of the 285th , 292nd , and 311th Rifle Divisions along with the 27th Cavalry Division , a Tank brigade , the 2nd Reserve aviation group , and other artillery and support units . The Fourth Army participated in the defense and attack of Tikhvin from October to December 1941 . On December 17 , 1941 , the Fourth Army was allocated to the Volkhov Front . From January 1942 to November 1943 , the Fourth Army fought on the front in Volkhov and Leningrad while also doing many rear - area duties . Unlike in other parts of the Eastern Front , the Red Army was not making significant gains in the north by 1943 . Third Formation . The 4th Army was disbanded in November 1943 and set up again in January 1944 as part of the Transcaucasus Front . The staff of the Fourth Army was composed of the staff of the 34th Army . The 4th Army was stationed in Iran until August 1945 in accordance with the Soviet - Iranian treaty of 1921 . In February 1944 , the 4th Army consisted of : Postwar service . In the years after World War II the Fourth Army was stationed in the Azerbaijan SSR within the Transcaucasus Military District until the fall of the Soviet Union . It was headquartered at Baku , and after it arrived from Iran in 1946 the Baku Military District was abolished . Most of the divisions listed below joined the Army ' s forces in the Baku region toward the end of the 1940s . From its wartime divisions , toward the end of the 1980s only the 60th Motor Rifle Division ' named for Marshal of the Soviet Union F . I . Tolbukhin ' ( the former 296th , then 6th Rifle Division ) remained . 1988 Order of Battle . In the late 1980s the 4th Army was composed of :