Battle of The Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket

Battle Of The Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket

The Korsun–Shevchenkovsky Offensive led to the Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket which took place from 24 January to 16 February 1944. The offensive was part of the Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive. In it, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, commanded, respectively, by Nikolai Vatutin and Ivan Konev, trapped German forces of Army Group South in a pocket near the Dnieper river. During weeks of fighting, the two Red Army Fronts tried to eradicate the pocket. The encircled German units broke out in coordination with a relief attempt by other German forces, with “roughly two out of three” encircled men succeeding in escaping the pocket, "and almost one third of their men ... dead or prisoners."

The Soviet victory at Korsun–Shevchenkovsky Offensive created a large gap in the German defensive lines in Ukraine, and created conditions for the Red Army to attack in multiple directions and cut the German Army Group South in half, forcing the German army to retreat from Ukraine three months later.