Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive

Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive
Previous	Second Battle of Kiev
Next	Leningrad-Novgorod Offensive
Conflict	World War II
Date	24 December 1943-14 April 1944
Place	Southwestern Ukraine
Outcome	Soviet victory
Combatants
Soviet Union
Nazi Germany Romania
Commanders
Nikolai Vatutin † Georgy Zhukov Ivan Konev Rodion Malinovsky Fyodor Tolbukhin Konstantin Rokossovsky Lev Vladimirsky
Erich von Manstein Hans-Valentin Hube Walter Model Karl-Adolf Hollidt Maximilian de Angelis Erhard Raus Otto Woehler Wilhelm Stemmermann † Petre Dumitrescu Ioan Mihail Racovita
Strength
2,406,100 troops
1,300,000 troops
Casualties
1,192,000 dead or wounded
250,956+ dead, wounded, or captured

The Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive occurred from 24 December 1943 to 14 April 1944 when the 1st Ukrainian Front, 2nd Ukrainian Front, 3rd Ukrainian Front, 4th Ukrainian Front, and the 1st Belorussian Front launched an offensive to liberate western Ukraine and Moldova from the Axis Powers, facing the German Army Group South. 2,406,100 Soviet Red Army troops launched a massive offensive in conjunction with the tank armies in the Ukraine, and the Soviets had adequate supplies of tanks and trucks for an assault on the Axis forces. Adolf Hitler forbade a retreat, but the Soviets made several advances, and the major Ukrainian city of Odessa fell to the Soviets on 10 April 1944. The unmotorized Romanian troops suffered heavy losses, leading to Romania opening secret negotiations with the USSR about an armistice before the Soviets could invade Romania. The Soviets had retaken Vinnytsia, Volyn, Zhytomyr, Kiev, Kirovohrad, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Poltava, Odessa, and Moldova, and they destroyed 18 Axis divisions while leeching 64 Axis divisions to half-strength.