THE DNIPRO AS A STRATEGIC LINE IN THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THE RED ARMY AND THE WEHRMACHT ON THE EASTERN FRONT IN THE SUMMER–AUTUMN OF 1941

Abstract

During the Second World War, Ukraine became the scene of fierce battles between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. The German-Soviet front swept across Ukrainian territory from west to east in 1941–1942, and later in the opposite direction in 1943–1944. In both campaigns, the Dnipro River served as a strategic line for the opposing forces. The author emphasizes that the Dnipro watershed in the German-Soviet confrontation of 1941 was not effectively utilized by Soviet command, which resulted in a series of large-scale tragedies for the Red Army and demonstrated the triumph of the Wehrmacht during the first months of the war against the USSR. Based on a historiographical review of military-historical events in Ukraine during the summer–autumn of 1941, the researcher concludes that the Red Army’s resistance to the advance of German formations to the east did not appear as a clearly structured strategy grounded in intelligence data and the principles of modern military science. The Soviet command failed to exploit the opportunities provided by the Dnipro watershed as a natural obstacle. Furthermore, the defensive operations of the Southwestern Direction armies, which are known in historical scholarship and allegedly carried out in July–October 1941, were later adjusted by Soviet military historians to correspond with the course of events at the front during that period. Emphasizing the losses of the Red Army and the achievements of the Wehrmacht, and taking into account the strategic importance of the Dnipro River as well as the mineral deposits of the Nikopol-Kryvyi Rih and Donets basins for further military operations and the conduct of war, the researcher proposes referring to the summer–autumn campaign on the Eastern Front as the Battle for the Dnipro of 1941, which had an exclusively defensive character for the Red Army and entirely negative consequences.