The cold wind blew from the wilderness, and people involuntarily wrapped their clothes tightly. The cold winds on the plains of Ukraine are enough to make people in thick cotton clothes feel cold, and for those who lack food and clothing, it is a complete disaster.

About 400,000 people were eventually encircled in the encirclement near Donetsk, and these Soviet units trudged through the cold and snow in an attempt to escape the huge encirclement. But in the end, they still failed, and were compressed in a small space, unable to even break through.

Although these Soviet Red Army still had a slight advantage in numbers, they even had an absolute advantage over the German forces in each direction of encirclement. However, they lacked ammunition and food, and even lost their baggage on the way to escape, and now they were fragile and lacked fighting spirit, and there was no way to cope with the encirclement and interception of the German army.

Hundreds of cannons were thrown on the way to escape, and the mortars were left in the field like a scrap steel pipe, and anyone could find the shells of these mortars, as well as the disassembled gun carriages and sighting devices, not far away. If you look carefully, you can occasionally find boxes of shells and empty oil drums...... In short, in the eyes of the Germans, this was definitely a rout without organizational discipline.

To the despair of these frightened birds, at the end of their lives, they heard the news of the total destruction of the Crimean Peninsula, where 190,000 soldiers had laid down their arms and surrendered, and more than 300,000 were being driven to concentration camps in Poland and Ukraine, plus the soldiers who had been defeated and captured.

Luckily, these Soviet soldiers didn't have many cars and almost no heavy equipment like tanks, so they didn't have a huge need for fuel and spare parts. And because of this, these Soviet troops have not yet shown signs of large-scale collapse. If it was the main force of the Soviet army in Zhukov's hands that was besieged, it would have been defeated by now because it was unable to fight.

However, there are naturally advantages and disadvantages, because such a force lacks heavy weapons and has no source of ammunition supply, so it simply does not have the ability to break through. In the face of the dense fire network of the German army, simply using soldiers to carry out a surprise attack is simply no different from going to die. After a few attempts, no one wanted to use their bodies to fight the German tanks, after all, there were not many outright madmen like the Japanese.

In the beginning, the commanders and fighters of the Soviet Union were looking forward to the arrival of winter, and when winter came, the weather did help the Soviet Red Army a lot. But now the Soviet troops in the Donetsk encirclement are looking forward to the winter passing quickly, because they do not have many reserves of supplies for the winter.

The Soviet defenders near Donetsk were in slightly better condition, after all, they were able to share in some of the benefits offered to them by the city. But the troops stationed on the outskirts of the entire encirclement did not have such a good time, they lacked tents for the winter, and every day people froze to death in the cold trenches.

What made the defenders most desperate was that their food reserves were about to bottom out, and when they were originally surrounded, they fled backwards in order to reduce their burdens, discarding part of the food, and in the impression of all Soviet front-line infantrymen, Donetsk should have a lot of food reserves. Unfortunately, when they arrived here, they found that the grain was already in the Caucasus. This was Zhukov's rush order, and in order to ensure that the supplies did not fall into the hands of the German army, he coldly ignored the Soviet troops in the encirclement.

In Zhukov's plan, the Soviet soldiers in the encirclement should "take the initiative to break through because of lack of food, desperately engage in a bloody battle with the German armored forces in front of them, break through and reach the Caucasus, and participate in the encirclement of the Caucasus." However, any high-ranking generals who participated in the formulation of this order took the initiative to interpret this order as "I took the food, and if you don't want to starve to death, find your own way!"

"Damn bastard! he's trying to starve us to death in Donetsk!" a Soviet company commander crouched in a trench and cursed loudly to the commander-in-chief of the Soviet army on the Minsk front. His hands were wrapped in his sleeves from the cold, and he shivered as he hugged his Mosin Nagant.

The wise and resolute commander-in-chief of the front line was almost like an idiot and fool in his mouth. This is the thinking of the grassroots soldiers, whoever gives them food so that they do not have to die is a really great general. As for the rest, it's all floating clouds in the sky, or bullshit around you.

There were other Soviet soldiers beside him, who were still shivering from the cold wind, although they were wearing old military coats. They all huddled in improvised trenches, waiting for the Germans across their positions to take away their pitiful lives. Everyone on this position only had a dozen rounds of ammunition left, but the replenishment of ammunition from the higher authorities had not been issued for a long time, and some well-informed people were spreading everywhere that even the division headquarters did not have much ammunition in stock.

The ammunition is exhausted, the food is gone, the food is lacking, and there is little food. This is a true portrayal of the Soviet troops besieged near Donetsk. Around them were German soldiers in white winter camouflage uniforms, wearing thick sweaters and padded jackets, and even thickened snow boots. What made people even more desperate was that these German troops had enough ammunition, which was more than enough to deal with the Soviet troops who tried to break through.

On the way they retreated, it was the most elite army of the German army, what kind of combat effectiveness this army was, looking at the previous records along the way, people did not have any desire to fight; to the north of them was the rearguard of Moder, the master of defense, who could penetrate Moder's defense line, and if they went back, they could do it with the deputy commander-in-chief; to the south of them was a dead end in the Black Sea; and although there were not many German troops on their front, what was the difference between hitting back and crashing into the M Army under the command of Manstein who rushed to death？

The Soviet troops on the Crimean Peninsula, with the Sevastopol fortress group and the Kerch fortress as their support, can at least struggle and show a heroic spirit that would rather die than give in, but unfortunately there are only simple trench fortifications around Donetsk, and the defenders do not even have real support.

It is not without fanatical patriots who want to fight street battles, but there is not enough ammunition and not enough food, and there is really no need to fight a battle that will not last long. So after this difficult choice, the Soviet defenders adopted a passive posture of waiting for death, waiting for the opposite German army to attack first.

"Look at people, eat hot canned food in the cold, not only dare to make a fire, but also candy and snacks to eat. A Soviet soldier on guard looked at the Germans on the opposite side eating lunch, and said to his comrades: "I smell the meat, really." It would be nice if they could give us a little bit of their canned food. ”

"Don't talk nonsense, I'm really hungry. Look at these soldiers, we are also soldiers, why is the gap so big?" complained a Soviet soldier holding a gun next to the sentry. They had just been eating, but the Germans fired a few 60 mm mortar shells, and their lunch was completely ruined - one shell hit the iron pot, blowing up half a pot of water and two cooks.

The Soviet troops here no longer cared about the so-called supervision, their helpless situation had left them with no hope, and those political workers who fled all the way here were more desperate than ordinary soldiers, because they were well-informed and heard that political workers were treated the worst in German concentration camps, which was quite a bit of "occupational discrimination".

"Hey, look over there, look over there! Maybe we're about to eat the Germans' tin cans. The Soviet soldier who was on guard pointed to the distance and shouted in a muffled voice: "Look! I have seen those people, they are senior officers of our army!"

Several Soviet soldiers who heard his shouts stood up from their trenches and looked not far from the position, where a dozen Soviet officers were slowly walking towards the German-occupied positions with white flags in their hands. They walked cautiously, as if afraid of being shot by friendly troops on the other side or behind them, and it was not until they approached the German trenches that they lowered the glaring white flag in their hands.

In the evening, the Soviet officers returned from their German positions, they returned to their positions, and passed a group of soldiers who looked forward to it, where no one wanted to continue fighting, and many of the more Ukrainian troops had begun to experience mass surrenders out of control.

The next day, the 407,000 soldiers of the Donetsk side of the Soviet Red Army laid down their weapons and surrendered to Army Group G under the command of Guderian on the retreating road, handing over their flags and documents.

According to the agreement between the two sides, all the documents concerning the political workers of this group army were burned, and all the political workers of this unit were scattered and assigned to the combat units to be treated as ordinary prisoners.

The surrender agreement stipulates that soldiers of Ukrainian origin can directly lay down their arms and leave the army to return home, and those who are unwilling to leave can accept Vlasov's integration. As for the Russian Soviet soldiers, they were sent to Polish concentration camps as laborers.

In a huge encirclement, part of the armies of the two armies of the Germans swallowed up the entire Soviet army around Donetsk 400,000 soldiers. Armies G and M were completely liberated, creating a high-pressure situation for the entire Caucasus. At the sound of an order, these two forces could break through to Forte in the Soviet Union, threaten the oil-producing bases in the Caucasus, and advance into Stalingrad.