The Soviet Offensive

The first Soviet attempts to liberate Ukraine were made in spring 1942. Unfortunately for the Soviet command they ended in disaster (240,000 Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner near Kharkiv, and 200,000 – in Crimea). After these victories the Germans were able to launch a wide-scale offensive on Stalingrad. In the Stalingrad battle Germany lost 300,000 of its best troops (91,000 of them surrendered). That was the turning point in the World War II. In December 1942, the Soviets reached Ukraine and in September 1943 – the Dnieper.

The right bank of the river was heavily fortified and the German command considered it impregnable. Hitler proudly called it the “Eastern Rampart.” Stalin gave an order to liberate Kyiv, which was located on the right bank, by 7 November (to commemorate the 26^th anniversary of the Revolution). Thus, the Soviet army had to start an unprepared storm of Ukraine’s capital. Kyiv was taken on 6 November at the cost of horrible casualties. The Dnieper was literally red with blood. A soldier remembered, “Our unit of 25 thousand entered the river and only 3 thousand reached the opposite bank.” There were so many Soviet soldiers killed in the Dnieper that their corpses even blocked the river near the Liutezh platsdarm. Dynamite was used to break this frightening dam made of dead bodies. More than 400, 000 Soviet soldiers died in the Kyiv battle. For the Kyiv battle about 2 500 soldiers were decorated with the highest Soviet military reward – the Golden Star. That is 20 percent of all the warriors rewarded with this decoration during the Second World War.

The battle over the Dnieper has another tragic page. Dozens of thousands of Ukrainian youngsters (aged 16-17) were mobilized by the Soviet command and thrown on the German defensive lines. The youth were not trained and not even given uniforms. Hence their nickname was піджаки (jackets). They were used as cannon-fodder to spear Soviet regular troops. It took the Soviets almost a year, after the liberation of Kyiv, to push the Germans and its allies out of Ukraine (October 1944).

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