Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive

Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Soviet advances during the operation
Date 24 December 1943 – 17 April 1944 Location South-western Ukrainian SSR Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Soviet Union Czechoslovakia	Germany  Romania
Commanders and leaders
Nikolai Vatutin † Georgy Zhukov Ivan Konev Rodion Malinovsky Feodor Tolbukhin Lev Vladimirsky	Erich von Manstein Walther Model Ewald von Kleist Ferdinand Schörner Petre Dumitrescu
Strength
24 December: 2,406,100 men 2,015 tanks and assault guns 28,654 guns and mortars 2,600 combat aircraft	Unknown
Casualties and losses
1,192,000 men 270,198 killed or missing 839,330 wounded and sick 4,666 tanks and assault guns destroyed 7,532 guns and mortars lost 676 aircraft destroyed	250,956 men 41,907 killed 157,888 wounded 51,161 missing Unknown

1,192,000 men

250,956 men

The Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, also known in Soviet historical sources as the liberation of right-bank Ukraine, fought from 24 December 1943 – 17 April 1944, was a strategic offensive executed by the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Ukrainian Fronts, along with the 1st Belorussian Front, against the German Army Group South, intended to retake all of the Ukrainian and Moldovian territories occupied by Axis forces. The operation brought the Red Army forces into Poland and Romania, completely destroyed 18 Wehrmacht and Romanian divisions, and reduced another 68 to below half of their establishment strength.

As part of the Lower Dnieper Offensive in autumn 1943, which secured the Left-bank, or eastern Ukraine and cut off the German 17th Army in the Crimea, several Soviet bridgeheads were established across the Dnieper River, which were then expanded throughout November and December to become the platforms from which the Dnieper—Carpathian Offensive was launched. This offensive and its follow-ups, which continued into December, left several large German salients along the Dnieper, including one south of Kiev centered on the city of Korsun, between the areas of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts, and another to the south, around Kryvyi Rih and Nikopol. Adolf Hitler's "No retreat" policy forced German troops to hold the tenuous positions, despite opposition from Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group South.

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