February 1944

Eastern Front

South of Lake Ilmen the X Corps of the 16th Army relinquishes Staraya Russa, the town falling to the 1st Shock Army.

With the bulk of Group Stemmerman either destroyed as it marched toward III Panzer Corps, or free, the 57th and 88th Infantry Divisions disengage and link up with the main line. After nearly a month of bloody fighting the battle for Korsun has ended. The Germans have managed to save 30,000 of the 56,000 encircled but lost huge amounts of equipment. For the III Panzer Corps the battle is not over though, it having to extricate its panzer divisions from theri exposed positions.

The Stavka reorganizes its front command in the Central Sector. The Belorussian Front is disbanded and the new 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts are created. Kurochkin's 2nd Belorussian Front (47th, 70th, 61st and 6th Air Armies) deployed between Rokossovsky's 1st Belorussian (3rd, 11th, 48th and 65th Armies plus 16th Air Army) and Vatutin's 1st Ukrainian Ftonts, covering the northern edge of the Pripet marshes.