The contribution of NKVD troops to the defense and liberation of Karelia during the Great Patriotic War

The purpose of the research is to study the little-known history of the participation of the troops of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in the combat operations on the territory of the Karelian-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) during the Great Patriotic War in order to supplement the information base on the history of the war in Karelia. The article introduces the archival data of the Russian State Military Archive and the Central Border Archive into the scientific circulation for the first time and systematizes the scattered information about the composition and combat history of the units of the USSR NKVD troops operating on the territory of the Karelian-Finnish SSR during the Great Patriotic War on the Northern and Karelian fronts, as well as about their contribution to the defense and liberation of the Republic in 1941-1944.