The 1948 report was declassified by the state archive in 2015, after production on Panfilov’s 28 Men was underway.
A new film about a possibly untrue or exaggerated act of second world war heroism has become the latest weapon in Vladimir Putin’s drive to restore national pride.
However, later investigations – including an official report compiled in 1948 by a military judge – suggested that the action had been at best exaggerated, and at worst entirely invented.
In 1942, the entire group was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and a number of monuments were erected, including one in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty.