RP78LO
Moskva

(the second line of defense of Moscow)

The units of the 93rd East Siberian Rifle Division that arrived at the Podolsk combat area on October 25, 1941, stopped the German advance near the village of Kresty and, after fierce fighting, threw them over the Desenka River and to the Nara River, gaining a foothold at the Kamenka-Gorka line, tightly closing the Warsaw Highway. The command of the 43rd Army did not rule out the possibility of further attempts by German troops to break through to the highway from other directions of the front.

One of such sites could be the left flank of the defense of the Naro-Fominsk direction, the boundary of which passed along the Nara River. Here the Moscow militia - the 113th (Frunzensky district) and 110th (Kuibyshev district) rifle divisions of the 33rd Army fought stoutly against the Germans. It was not excluded that the enemy would seek to break through the defenses of these divisions in the area of the villages of Romanovo, Melnikov, Kamenskoye, Sliznevo and advance towards the settlements of Plaksino, Machikhino, Zinaevka, Butyrki, Svitino, Yuryevka, then to Kosovka and Voronovo - on the Kaluga highway (old Kaluga road) and Warsaw highway in the area the villages of Yasenki and Lukoshkino, thus bypass the defensive line of Kamenka-Kresty and further develop the offensive on Krasnaya Pakhra and Podolsk.

Therefore, the Soviet command took urgent measures to build the Voronovsky defensive line - the 2nd line of defense of the 43rd Army. The boundary passed along the eastern bank of the Voronok River, along the course from the Crosses - through the villages of Krutovka (Lviv), Semenkovo, Kosovka, Voronovo, then along the northern bank of the Mocha River near the village of Bezrazovo. Here, defensive structures were built throughout, consisting of trenches, long-term reinforced concrete firing points (machine-gun "nests") — pillboxes, wooden-earth firing points - bunkers, interconnected by deep communication passages. Barriers of three to five rows of barbed wire were stretched along the opposite banks of the rivers, and in front of them all approaches were mined.

Bridges were blown up in Voronovo and Kosovka.

Bogolyubov Alexander Nikolaevich, Colonel, Chief of Staff of the 43rd Army.

in the village of Yasenki, he placed his headquarters in a wooden school building.

The defensive line in Krutovka, Kosovka and Voronovo passed directly through the vegetable gardens, next to the houses of residents of the western settlement. But the village of Semenkovo turned out to be on the other side of the line (on the territory of the expected enemy) - trenches and pillboxes on the eastern bank of the river, and wire fences on the opposite bank - 10-20 meters from the windows of houses. Mines in Semenkovo were placed not only in the vegetable gardens behind the houses, but also in the alleys. As a result, free passage remained only along the front gardens and along the paths to the wells.

Soldiers and commanders of the 51st Rifle Regiment of the 93rd East Siberian Division, who occupied this line, were housed in peasant houses and in Voronovsky Park - in hastily built dugouts and dugouts.

Waging fierce battles on the Warsaw Highway, the 43rd Army simultaneously continued to strengthen its right flank of the 2nd line of defense. Immediately with the deployment of units at the positions of the Voronovsky frontier, measures continued to strengthen and expand it from the west through the use of a forest area stretching from the village of Zinaevka to the village of Bezobrazovo. Apparently, protracted battles were envisaged throughout the winter. Military builders and workers' battalions began hastily to build a "leading" line. Anti-tank blockages of large trees were formed in the forest, which were piled perpendicular to each other, and bunkers of two- or three-sided shelling were built at the gatherings of forest clearings. Trenches were dug along the edge of the forest along the eastern bank of the Mocha River along its entire length to the village of Bezobrazovo,