On January 31, 2023 Documents about the defence of Stalingrad and the counteroffensive of the Soviet troops have entered the Collection of Digitized Archival Documents, Film and Photo Materials dedicated to World War II and are now available on the Presidential Library’s portal subordinate to the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation.  

The Collection contains about 250 documents of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation on the Battle of Stalingrad: these are directives and orders of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on the construction of defensive lines near Stalingrad, on measures to protect the city, on the formation of the Don and Stalingrad fronts, on the timing the beginning of the counter-offensive near Stalingrad; combat orders, operational reports and reports from the headquarters of the 62nd Army, 24th Army, 1st Tank Army and 8th Air Army of the Stalingrad Front, 65th Army of the Don Front on the situation at the front and enemy actions; operational and reconnaissance reports of the Volga military flotilla.

Combat reports, operational reports and orders from the headquarters of the South-Eastern Front, the Stalingrad and Don Fronts tell about the depletion of the enemy’s forces and preventing him from entering the depths of the Soviet defense, about conducting power reconnaissance, offensive operations and defensive battles, regrouping troops, destroying the enemy who has broken through, clearing areas, the formation of fortified areas and the state of defensive work.

The directives of the commander of the troops of the Southwestern Front contain data on the preparation of an operation to encircle the main forces of the Stalingrad enemy grouping, the results of reconnaissance and readiness to go over to the counteroffensive.

The maps and diagrams of the troops of the Stalingrad Front, the position of the units, the balance of forces of the Red Army and the enemy on the Stalingrad Front, as well as the plan and map of the offensive operation of the troops of the Southwestern Front "Uranus" are also available.

In the near future, more than 1,000 documents from the period June 22, 1941 - November 19, 1942 from the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation will enter the Collection.

In accordance with the List of instructions for the implementation of the Address of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation dated January 15, 2020, the organizers of the Collection of Digitized Archival Documents, Film and Photo Materials "World War II in Archival Documents" are the Federal Archival Agency (Rosarkhiv), the Administrative Directorate of the President of the Russian Federation and the Presidential Library.

The Collection is carried out by Rosarkhiv and federal state archives with the participation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, the state archives of Belarus and others.

To date, the volume of the Collection is over 10 thousand materials: maps, diagrams, periodicals, photographs, newsreels for the period from January 1933 to November 1942.

Archival documents of the Collection World War II in Archival Documents are available from anywhere in the world thanks to the Presidential Library’s portal. Especially for the foreign audience, the titles and annotations to the documents as well as the texts of the accompanying articles are also available in English.

In addition to digitized archival documents the Collection contains a list of the main Internet projects, databases, other thematic online documents, virtual tours of the history of World War II, developed by government agencies of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and various organizations.