Stalemate in the South

As the center of gravity of Russian effort moved north with the weather (see above) the Germans counterattacked in the south. For the time being they and the mud stabilized the southern front.

Berlin claimed that the Germans were on the offensive along a 155-mile front in the middle and upper Donets River regions, presumably near Izyum. Troops operating in the "area of Kharkov," Berlin said, had encircled the Soviet Third Tank Army. Other forces were said to have "stormed" Slavyansk, an important railhead north of Stalino, which the Russians had recaptured in mid-February. The Germans were evidently bent on holding the Donets salient as long as they could, regardless of what happened in north Russia.

West of Kursk, where the snow was still deep, the Russians still pushed ahead. One column drove to within 25 miles of the Bryansk-Kiev railway, which links the German armies in the Ukraine with those on the northern front. If this drive between the fronts succeeds in cutting that line, the Russians will have made it less easy for the Germans to shift forces laterally from south to north. That would hamper the Germans in their effort to counterattack eventually in the north as they did last week in the south.

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