However, after a few days the offensive – the Toropets–Kholm operation – began to roll forward, with 3rd Shock approaching Kholm, but it was getting dangerously separated from its neighbour, 4th Shock Army. By mid January, 3rd Shock had surrounded Kholm and its forward units had cut the road between Kholm and Toropets. Kholm itself was surrounded on 22 January, though it was never taken and was relieved on 5 May. With some success in view, Stalin widened the operation's goals, and with a Stavka directive on 19 January directed 3rd Shock, as part of the wider operation, to head for Velikie Luki, and then to Vitebsk, Orsha, and Smolensk. Two days later, 3rd Shock was shifted from the North–Western Front to the Kalinin Front. However, the forces available were becoming dangerously thin for the enormous tasks that Stalin was setting them. The Army got no further than Velikie Luki, and was unable to take the town in the face of stiffening German resistance and shortages of food, fuel, and ammunition. Velikie Luki was finally taken by the Kalinin Front on 17 January 1943.