Battle of Uman - Prelude

Prelude

In the initial weeks of Operation Barbarossa, Army Group South had rapidly advanced East, capturing Lviv, Ternopil and Vinnytsia, and destroying four mechanized corps that Kirponos used in a counterattack at the Brody. By 29 June 1941, the German advance was temporarily halted, but the Soviet forces were exhausted and started to retreat. With the failure of the Soviet armor counter-offensive against the German 1st Panzer-Armee, Army Group South continued to advance East and reached to within a few kilometes of Kiev by mid-July. An attempt was then made by Budyonny to counter-attack from north of Uman in the direction of Berdychiv to prevent Panzergruppe 1 from cutting off his lines of communication. However this counterstroke failed to contact significant German armoured forces which passed only some 50 km (31 mi) to the east of the Soviet concentration in its continued offensive. The counterstroke however exhausted the ability of Soviet formations to continue withdrawal more rapidly than the advance of the German offensive, and in mid-July German troops cut the rail road at Talnoye and other bridges over the Gorniy Tikich, and soon after the bridges over Sinucha.