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Troops of five fronts passed to the offensive From Smolensk to Sea of Azov on the broad front of 1400 km length.
To somehow hinder he advance of the Soviet troops, the German Command was blowing up bridges over big and small rivers and held scorched earth policy on the occupied territories. Gen. Vatutin, commander of the Voronezh Front, was unsuccessfully trying to break through from Liutezh and Burkin bridgeheads. The winter was coming and the front line looked frozen along the Dnepr.
But in the morning of 5 November the best tank formations of the front, Rybalko and Kravchenko's, cut the highway Kiev-Zhytomir and intercepted the German retreat. The Ukrainian capital was liberated the next day.
In the winter of 1943/1944 the south sector of the front became a scene of a tremendous battle. Almost all Soviet tank armies and the main German forces concentrated in Ukraine participated in Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Offensive. The Soviet tank armies dashed to Lvov and Romania. German expectations to consolidate in Romania were collapsing.
