Sozh River
Following this, the army was reassigned back to Bryansk Front. Renewing the offensive, Boldin's forces made two secret re-groupings before striking the weak left flank of the German position south of Kirov on September 8, unhinging their line and forcing them to abandon Bryansk on the 17th. In Soviet accounts it is Gen. M.M. Popov, the Front commander, who gets most of the credit for this success. By September 27, 50th Army had seized a bridgehead across the Sozh River, and it was on this date that Popov met at the Kremlin with Stalin, Deputy Chief of the General Staff A.I. Antonov, and Gen. K.K. Rokossovsky, commander of Belorussian Front (later renamed 1st Belorussian Front). As a result of this meeting 50th Army was handed over to the latter Front in the first week of October.