After the German 6th Army had given up its last eastern Dniepr bridgehead at Nikopol and had been beaten in the Nikopol–Krivoi Rog offensive in Februari 1944, it retreated behind the Inhulets River. The High Command of the Wehrmacht decided to use this river as a defensive line. On the night of March 3, the 8th Guards Army launched a surprise attack and reached the opposite bank, west of Shyroke. Based on this success, the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, Army General Rodion Malinovsky, decided to make a front breakthrough via Novyi Buh with the 8th Guards Army and the 46th Army. Lieutenant General Issa Pliyev and his Cavalry mechanized group was to proceed via Novyi Buh in the rear of the German front and cut off all enemy units in the area east of Nikolayev.