30th Cavalry Division (Soviet Union)

The 30th Cavalry Division was a unit of the Soviet Red Army. The unit was disbanded in 1938 but reformed shortly after the June 1941 invasion of the USSR by Nazi Germany. It served on the Southern Front and helped push back Axis forces during the Battle of Rostov. In August 1943 the 30th Cavalry Division was commended by Joseph Stalin for their actions in the liberation of Taganrog and it later operated near Odessa. In the second half of 1944 the division was deployed in the Soviet centre, in modern-day Belarus. The unit received the honorifics "Baranovichi", "Slonim" and "Brest" but was almost destroyed at Nyíregyháza by a German counterattack during the Battle of Debrecen. After the war, the division was briefly converted into the 11th Mechanised Division, disbanded in 1947.