Southwestern Front
Following the crossing of Dnieper by German forces on 22 August 1941, the city of Kiev came under threat of complete encirclement and the command of the Southwestern Front appealed to the Stavka to allow withdrawal of forces from Kiev. Red Army Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov wrote a letter to the Southwestern Front on the 17th of September authorising a withdraw from Kiev, when the encirclement was already completed at Lokhvytsia in Poltava region.