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    a) GARF is the archive of the Russian Federation, so you probably can't access that source if you're not in Russia. b) It doesn't look to me like that source itself is likely to tell you anything new. It's unsurprising that Russians weren't systematically documenting what they saw in soldiers armpits and unlikely that Beria would have told Stalin how they found out. So the question becomes how the US managed to figure it out so much faster.
    – Brian Z
    Commented Jun 22 at 11:54
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    There is also the usual question of "who knew what when?" Some Soviet intelligence officer learns of the pattern (by his own observation or foreign liaison), the information is submitted to his superiors, the superiors think about it, they decide to disseminate it down the chain of command, until it arrives at a frontline unit screening POWs (and there were many POWs by then).
    – o.m.
    Commented Jun 23 at 16:35
  • @BrianZ Well, quite a number of people in Germany knew about it and it seems to me that any individual deserter to the allies who knew this should have realized that this is powerful information in the hands of the allies. Once the allies have the idea, even if coming from a not entirely trustworthy source, it is relatively straightforward to check for its truth.
    – quarague
    Commented Jun 26 at 11:22