Eastern Front · Soviet Union vs Germany
Battle of the Dnieper
26 August 1943 – 23 December 1943
Four Soviet fronts advanced across eastern Ukraine to the Dnieper on a 750 km frontage, seizing bridgeheads before the Germans could consolidate the river line. Kiev was liberated in November. It was one of the costliest operations of the war, with around four million troops engaged.
Explore Battle of the Dnieper on the interactive map · Wikipedia
Day by day
— Out of Kursk
Three weeks after the German attack at Kursk collapsed, Rokossovsky's Central Front attacks westward towards Sevsk and the Desna. Behind it the Voronezh, Steppe, Southwestern and Southern Fronts take up the same movement along 750 kilometres, from the Bryansk woods to the Sea of Azov.
— The Donbass
Stalino, the capital of the coal basin, is taken today and Konotop fell on the 6th. Manstein has been to see Hitler twice in a fortnight; this evening he is given leave to pull Army Groups South and A back to the Dnieper and the Melitopol line, and to wreck everything east of the river as he goes.
— Across the river
The retreat has become a race for six crossings, with the Red Army marching on the same roads as the rearguards. Tonight men of the 3rd Guards Tank Army paddle over at Velikiy Bukrin on rafts and fishing boats, without artillery or bridging. Chernigov fell yesterday.
— Zaporozhye
The airborne drop meant to widen the Bukrin bridgehead was scattered over two nights in September and largely destroyed, and the ground there will not take tanks. Tonight the 8th Guards Army storms Zaporozhye and the Germans blow the great dam behind them. Bridgeheads are being held at Lyutezh above Kiev and below Kremenchug.
— Kiev
Rybalko's tanks were moved 200 kilometres north from Bukrin behind their own front, in the dark and under wireless silence, and attacked out of the Lyutezh bridgehead on 3 November with headlights and sirens. Kiev is clear this morning; Fastov falls tomorrow and Zhitomir on the 12th. Melitopol went on 23 October and the Crimea is cut off.
— The line broken
Manstein's counter-attack with XXXXVIII Panzer Corps retook Zhitomir on 19 November and Korosten a week later, and has now run out of strength in the mud short of Kiev. The Dnieper line is broken along its length: only the Nikopol bridgehead is still held east of the river. Tomorrow the 1st Ukrainian Front attacks again towards Zhitomir and Vinnitsa.
