After a series of battles in the border area and the defeat of the Dubno-Lutsk-Rivne tank battle, the Supreme Command of the Red Russian Army believed that the southwest direction was the main direction of the German offensive, so it deployed most of the forces of the Red Russian Army in Ukraine, including the Southwestern Front (5th, 6th, 26th, 12th Army) and the Southern Front (18th and 9th Army), totaling 6 army groups, 69 infantry divisions, 11 cavalry divisions and 28 armored brigades, commanded by the commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Direction, Red Russian Marshal Budyonny. Pen ~ fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info The Southwest Front of the Red Russian Army began to retreat from Western Ukraine on March 30, the 21st year of the Taichu Dynasty, in accordance with the orders of the headquarters of the Supreme Command. The task of the Front was to occupy by April 9 with field troops the fortified areas of Korostin, Volynsky Novya, Shepetovka, Staro-Konstantinov, Proskurov, etc., which were built on the old border, and to organize a strong defense on this front. The purpose of the basic strength of the German Army Group "South" (the 1st tank group - commander is General Kleist*, and the 6th and 17th armies - commanders are General Reichenau and General Sprager respectively) scheduled to operate in the direction of Kiev is to break through the front of the Red Russian army on the front line of the old fortified area, advance to the Kiev area, and seize the landing ground on the Dnieper River. Then the assault group turned to the southeast to attack in order to prevent the main forces of the Southwestern Front from retreating across the Dnieper and to destroy it by surprise from the rear.

The South-Western Front, with 44 divisions, which had also been severely weakened in battle, confronted the German 40 divisions (including 10 tank and motorized divisions). The German army had more than 1 times more infantry, artillery and mortars than the Red Russian army, and 50% more aircraft. On 5 April, the Germans began their offensive, arriving in the main assault direction before the Front had completed its retreat and had begun its front line in the fortified area. On April 7, the Germans, with tank corps as the first echelon, broke through the defenses of the Red Russian army north of Novomiropol and captured Berdichev in the evening. Next. After three tug-of-war battles, Zhytomyr was finally captured and the passage to attack Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, was opened.

On 11 April, the advance force of the 1st Tank Group advanced 110 kilometers in two days and nights to the Irpian River, 15-20 kilometers west of Kiev. Here, tanks and motorized infantry were blocked by the Red Russian army in the outer encirclement of the fortified area of Kyiv. The attempt of the Germans to seize Kiev from the march was broken.

At this time, the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Russian Army, General Zhukov, advised the Zhulishviks to abandon Kiev and withdraw the Southwestern Front to the other side of the Dnieper River to avoid being encircled by the Germans, and then defend Moscow with all their might. But being categorically rejected by the Zhulishviks, Zhukov was relieved of his post as Chief of the General Staff and appointed commander of the Reserve Front.

On April 16, the German Army Group Center under the command of Field Marshal Manstein mobilized the 2nd Panzer Corps of General Guderian to capture Smolensk and open the door to Moscow. While Guderian and other German officers and soldiers were preparing to attack Moscow, Führer Hess decided to temporarily abandon the operation in the Moscow direction, with Ukraine and Leningrad as the main targets, which he always considered to be of greater importance than Moscow. Despite the repeated persuasions of his generals, he issued an order for Army Group Center to cooperate with Army Group South to conduct a major encirclement of the Red Russian army near Kiev. Since the start of the war against Russia, Rensted's Army Group South has not progressed as smoothly as Army Group Center, and although Kleist's 1st Panzer Corps has advanced all the way to the southeast with remarkable success, the 6th Army on the left flank has been held back on the west bank of the Dnieper River in front of Kiev.

The two reinforcements of Army Group South and Army Group Center were tasked with the encirclement operation. Guderian's 2nd Panzer Corps crossed the Desna River west of Tubitzivsk and advanced south, straight into Romney in the rear of Kiev; The 2nd Army of Army Group Center moved south from Gomel to cover Guderian's right flank. Kleist's 1st Panzer Corps attacked north from Klimenchog on the Dnieper bend and joined Guderian near Romney; The 17th Army of Army Group South was responsible for pinning down the Red Russians in the Dnieper bend north of Cherkassai and covering Kleist's left flank. At the same time, the 6th Army of Army Group South moved eastward, crossed the Dnieper and attacked Kiev.

The Germans' far-reaching frontal assault and subsequent flank assault split the Front into isolated groups. The 5th Army on the right flank of the front northwest of Kiev fought for about a month and a half in the fortified area of Koros, pinning down about 10 German divisions with its actions. The counter-assault carried out by the army group on the flank of the German army group, which was directly attacking Kiev, greatly improved the situation of the Red Russian army defending the city. Following the instructions of the headquarters of the Supreme High Command, the army group retreated to a new fortified area north of Kiev in late April. The 6th and 12th armies and the 18th Army, with a total of 20 divisions, fought the left flank of the front southwest of Kiev.

On 3 May, the Germans encircled the group in the Uman area with a two-flank assault. On May 8, the "Uman pocket" was eliminated, and the Germans captured 103,000 Red Russian troops, including Lieutenant General Muzychenko, commander of the 6th Army, and Major General Poniegerin, commander of the 12th Army, and the Germans captured 317 tanks and 858 artillery pieces. Combat operations continued here until 13 May. The failure of these operations greatly complicated the situation at the junction of the Southwestern Front and the Southern Front (the 6th and 12th armies had been reassigned to the Southern Front since 25 July 1941 and became their right flank). In the center of the defense were the 37th and 26th armies (the former was formed on the basis of the fortified area of Kiev, and the latter was basically formed by the reserve corps operating south of Kiev).

On May 19-29, the 26th Army attempted to conduct a campaign to disrupt the encirclement maneuver of the 1st German tank group, but it only held back the group for a few days, and then was forced to retreat under the German assault. German troops rushed to the suburbs of Kiev to Pirogov, Zhuliane, Meshelovka, Khoroyv Forest, as well as to the Forestry Engineering Institute and the Agricultural Academy. However, the counter-assault carried out by the Red Russian army allowed the front along the outer layer of the fortified area to be almost completely restored by 15 June. One of the main counterattacks was the 5th Airborne Brigade stationed at the airport in Juliane (led by Alexander ??). Rodimtsev) raided the Germans at night, pushing back the German front by 2-3 km; and the newly formed 37th Army, which in the first half of June successfully repelled a powerful assault by a heavy German group from the southwest to capture the Ukrainian capital. The citizens of Kyiv and nearby residents, mainly ethnic Russians, took an active part in the defense of the city. By the decision of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Peasants' and Workers' Party, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Republic and the Council of People's Commissars, the City Defense Command was created. In a short period of time, 200,000 Russians in Ukraine volunteered to join the Red Russian army.

The stubborn resistance of the Red Russians and the repeated counter-assaults delayed the offensive on the left flank of Army Group South for a long time, forcing the German High Command to transfer a large part of Army Group Center from the direction of Moscow - the 2nd Army (commanded by General Weix) and the 2nd tank group (commanded by General Guderian) to deal with the Southwestern Front. The German plan was for the 2nd Tank Cluster to cross the Desna River west of Tubitzivsk and advance southward to Romne, behind Kiev; The 2nd Army moved south from Gomel to cover the right flank of the 2nd tank group; The 1st Tank Group attacked north from Kremenchuk on the Dnieper Bend, joined up with the 2nd Tank Group in the area of Romne and Lokhvica, and cut off the Red Russian army on the west bank of the Dnieper River in the area of the Great River Meander; The 17th Army was responsible for pinning down the Red Russians in the Dnieper bend north of Cherkasy, while covering the left flank of the 1st Tank Group; The 6th Army went east, crossed the Dnieper, entered Kiev, and began to encircle and annihilate this group of heavy Red Russian troops. On June 21, the German high command ordered to intensify the offensive on the northern and southern flanks of the Soviet-German battlefield, and to make a far-reaching detour of the front along the east bank of the Dnieper River from the north and south.

On July 8, the German 2nd Tank Group and the 2nd Army began an offensive in the direction of Starodub, Konotop and Gomel and Chernihiv. At this time, the Red Russian army saw through the German attempt, and on July 19 ordered the withdrawal of the armies of the Southwestern Front to the other side of the Dnieper River and organize a defense along the eastern bank. On the West Bank, the Red Russian Army should hold only its positions in the Kyiv region. In order to cover the right flank of the Front, the 40th Army, reorganized from corps withdrawn from other sectors, spread out along the Jesna River north of Konotop. The base camp instructed the Bryansk Front to prevent the Germans from breaking through from the north to the rear of the Southwestern Front. However, the front was unable to complete the tasks assigned to it and to stop the flank movement of the German troops. At the beginning of August, the Germans reached the Desna River and made forced crossings in the areas of Southka, Koropp, and Wibley. On 10 August, the advance unit of the 2nd Tank Group captured the city of Romne (180 km from the Kremenchuk stronghold) in the rear of the South-Western Front.

On August 11, the commander-in-chief of the southwestern direction of the Red Russian army, Marshal Budyonny, sensed the danger and asked the Zhulishviks to withdraw eastward, which was also rejected by the Zhulishviks, who ordered to hold on to Kiev (it turned out to be a rumor that the Julishviks were not stubborn and explicitly demanded to hold Kiev at all costs, he only demanded a retreat, they had to stay defensive along the Dnieper line and launch a counterattack against Guderian's armored forces in advance). And without the approval of the Supreme High Command, Kiev must not be abandoned, nor any bridges must be abandoned). On the 13th, the Julishviks considered Budyonny to be passive and avoided the war, dismissed him from his post and replaced him with Marshal Timoshenko of Red Russia, commander-in-chief of the Western Direction and commander of the Western Front. But this temporary change of generals did not achieve any effect, and the news of the Chinese army's offensive on the Eastern Front made the German Wehrmacht see the dawn of victory.