Volodin outlines plans to expand memorial near Dudkino

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on October 10 that a memorial complex in Russia’s Smolensk region would be expanded in 2027, with a monument to fallen servicemen also planned.

The site commemorates fighting near Dudkino in early October 1941, when a battalion of the 119th Krasnoyarsk Rifle Division held back German troops advancing toward Rzhev and Moscow. Volodin said the unit, led by Captain Sergey Ivanov, was almost entirely destroyed. He put the losses at 780 soldiers and officers, including their commander.

A small memorial complex has already been built at the battlefield. In his MAX post, the speaker described two planned projects: enlarging that complex and installing a monument at a nearby remembrance site that has also been prepared. He placed both projects in the following year.

Volodin joined local residents involved in developing the memorial on Saturday to commemorate the dead. He said preserving the memory of the country’s defenders should help prevent distortions of World War II history and keep the human cost of defeating fascism in public memory.