The "Panfilov 28" are the stuff of legend in Russia: 28 brave soldiers from the Panfilov division of the Soviet Red Army who stared down German tanks on Nov. 16, 1941, dying to save Moscow rather than surrender to the Nazis. "Russia is vast, but there's nowhere to retreat," one of the squadron leaders said before dying, according to a contemporary report in the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. "It's Moscow behind us."
Stirring words, still recited today. But, The Wall Street Journal notes, almost certainly made up by the Krasnaya Zvezda reporter and his editor, along with most other details of the story. "The recent online publication of a Soviet-era investigation into the matter has touched off a storm over the sanctity of a cherished piece of wartime lore," reports The Journal's Paul Sonne. "Though the findings were printed in a journal in the 1990s, their re-emergence now — in the era of social media and amid a resurgence of Soviet pride under President Vladimir Putin — is striking an especially sensitive nerve."
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