Battle of the Dnieper The Lower Dnieper Offensive took place in 1943 during the Second World War . It was one of the largest operations in the Second World War , involving almost 4 , 000 , 000 troops on both sides and stretching on a 1 , 400 kilometer long front . During its four - month duration , the eastern bank of the Dnieper was recovered from German forces by five of the Red Army ' s Fronts , which conducted several assault river crossings to establish several bridgehead s on the western bank . Subsequently , Kiev was liberated in a separate offensive . One of the costliest operations of the war , the casualties of the Chernigov - Poltava Strategic Offensive are estimated at being from 1 , 700 , 000 to 2 , 700 , 000 on both sides . The operation consisted of several operational phases . The first phase of the battle : The second phase of the operation includes : The following took place at the same time but are considered independent operations . Strategic situation . Following the Battle of Kursk , the German High Command was no longer in a position to mount large - scale offensives against the Red Army in the East . During the long retreat after Kursk , the " Wehrmacht " { ' } s " Heer " and supporting Luftwaffe forces had managed to cross the Dnieper river to the West and reestablished the defences along the Wotan fortified line . The crossing of the Dnieper was accomplished by thousands of German soldiers in small rafts and boats while under continuous air and ground attack by pursuing Soviet forces . German losses in men and materiél had been considerable , many of the experienced units were weakened . This meant that the " Wehrmacht " forces had to adopt an operational sustained defence against the Soviet Fronts . On occasions " Wehrmacht " tactical counter - attacks did meet with considerable success , but this could not be translated into a return of the strategic initiative lost at Kursk . While the strength in personnel , materiél and logistical support of the " Wehrmacht " forces declined , that of the Red Army steadily increased , allowing the latter to create an ever larger numerical superiority for further conducting offensives . By mid - August , Adolf Hitler understood that the Soviet offensive could not be contained and he ordered construction of a series of fortifications to slow down the Red Army ' s offensive capability , demanding that the " Wehrmacht " defend the Wotan Line positions on the Dnieper at all costs . On the Soviet side , Joseph Stalin was determined to pursue the recovery of the occupied territories , started at the beginning of the year . The Ukrainian industrial region was the first priority , since it was a densely populated area , and its coal mines and other ores would provide precious resources for the Soviet state . The main thrust of the offensive was in a southwesterly direction ; the northern flank being largely stabilised , the southern flank rested on the Sea of Azov . Planning . Soviet planning . The operation begun on 24 August 1943 with divisions starting to move on a 1 , 400 - kilometer front stretching between Smolensk and the Sea of Azov . Soviet organisation . The operation involved five fronts : Overall , the operation would be executed by 36 Combined Arms , four Tank and five Air Armies . Personnel availability . 2 , 650 , 000 personnel were brought into the ranks for this massive operation . Equipment availability . The operation would use 51 , 000 guns , 2 , 400 tanks and 2 , 850 planes . German planning . The order to construct the Dnieper defence complex , known as " Eastern Wall " , was issued on 11 August 1943 and began to be immediately executed . Fortifications were erected along the length of the Dnieper . However , there was no hope of completing such an extensive defensive line in the short time available . Therefore , the completion of the " Eastern Wall " was not uniform in its density and depth of fortifications . Instead , they were concentrated in areas where a Soviet assault - crossing were most likely to be attempted , such as near Kremenchuk , Zaporizhia and Nikopol . Additionally , on 7 September 1943 , the SS forces and the " Wehrmacht " received orders to strip the areas they had to abandon from anything that could be used by the Red Army to slow it down , and to try to create supply shortages for the Soviet forces by implementing a scorched earth policy . Description of the strategic operation . Initial attack . Despite a great superiority in numbers , the offensive was by no means easy . German opposition was ferocious and the fighting raged for every town and city . The " Wehrmacht " made extensive use of rear guards , leaving some troops in each city and on each hill , slowing down the Soviet offensive . Progress of the offensive . Three weeks after the start of the offensive , and despite heavy losses on the Soviet side , it became clear that the Germans could not hope to contain the Soviet offensive in the flat , open terrain of the steppes , where the Red Army ' s numerical strength would prevail . Manstein asked for as many as 12 new divisions in the hope of containing the Soviet offensive – but German reserves were perilously thin . Years later , Manstein wrote in his memoirs : After analysing this situation , I concluded that we can ' t keep the Donbass with the forces that we already possess , and that even a greater danger for the whole Eastern Front is being created on the north flank of the group . The 8th and 4th Armies won ' t be able to contain the Soviet offensive for very long . Decisive action . As a result , on 15 September 1943 , Hitler ordered Army Group South to retreat to the Dnieper defence line . The battle for Poltava was especially bitter . The city was heavily fortified and its garrison well prepared . After a few inconclusive days that greatly slowed down the Soviet offensive , Marshal Konev decided to bypass the city and rush towards the Dnieper . After two days of violent urban warfare , the Poltava garrison was overcome . Towards the end of September 1943 , Soviet forces reached the lower part of the Dnieper . The hardest part was still to come , though . Final commitment . Dnieper airborne operation . STAVKA ( the Soviet high command ) , detached the Central Front ' s 3rd Tank Army to the Voronezh Front to race the weakening Germans to the Dnieper , to save the wheat crop from the German scorched earth policy , and to achieve strategic or operational river bridgehead s before a German defence could stabilize there . The 3rd Tank Army , plunging headlong , reached the river on the night of 21 – 22 September and , on the 23rd , Soviet infantry forces crossed by swimming and by using makeshift rafts to secure small , fragile bridgeheads , opposed only by 120 German Cherkassy flak academy NCO candidates and the hard - pressed 19th Panzer Division Reconnaissance Battalion . Those forces were the only Germans within 60 km of the Dnieper loop . Only a heavy German air attack and a lack of bridging equipment kept Soviet heavy weaponry from crossing and expanding the bridgehead . STAVKA , sensing a critical juncture , ordered a hasty airborne corps assault to increase the size of the bridgehead before the Germans could counterattack . On the 21st , the Voronezh Front ' s 1st , 3rd and 5th Guards Airborne Brigades got the urgent call to secure , on the 23rd , a bridgehead perimeter 15 to 20 km wide and 30 km deep on the Dnieper loop between Kaniv and Rzhishchev , while Front elements forced the river . The arrival of personnel at the airfields was slow , necessitating , on the 23rd , a one - day delay and omission of 1st Brigade from the plan ; consequent mission changes caused near chaos in command channels . Mission change orders finally got down to company commanders , on the 24th , just 15 minutes before their units , not yet provisioned with spades , anti - tank mines , or ponchos for the autumn night frosts , assembled on airfields to load for an 1830 take - off . Owing to the weather , not all assigned aircraft had arrived at airfields on time ( if at all ) . Further , most flight safety officers disallowed maximum loading of their aircraft . Given fewer aircraft ( and lower than expected capacities ) , the master loading plan , ruined , was abandoned . Many radios and supplies got left behind . In the best case , it would take three lifts to deliver the two brigades . Units ( still arriving by the over - taxed rail system ) , were loaded piecemeal onto returned aircraft , which were slow to refuel owing to the less - than - expected capacities of fuel trucks . Meanwhile , already - arrived troops changed planes , seeking earlier flights . Urgency and the fuel shortage prevented aerial assembly aloft . Most aircraft , as soon as they were loaded and fueled , flew in single file , instead of line abreast , to the dropping points . Assault waves became as intermingled as the units they carried . As corps elements made their 170 to 220 km flights from four of five fields ( of which one them received no fuel ) , troops ( half of whom had never jumped , except from training towers ) got briefed on drop zones , assembly areas and objectives only poorly understood by platoon commanders still studying new orders . Meanwhile , Soviet aerial photography , suspended several days by bad weather , had missed the strong reinforcement of the area , early that afternoon . Non - combat cargo pilots ferrying 3rd Brigade through drizzle expected no resistance beyond river pickets but , instead , were met by anti - aircraft fire and starshells from the 19th Panzer Division ( only coincidentally transiting the drop zone , and just one of six divisions and other formations ordered , on the 21st , to fill the gap in front of the 3rd Tank Army ) . Lead aircraft , disgorging paratrooper s over Dubari at 1930 , came under small arms , machine gun , and quad - 20 anti - aircraft fire from the armored personnel carrier battalion ( Pioneers ) of the 73rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment and elements of the division staff of 19th Panzer Division . Some paratroops began returning fire and throwing grenades even before landing ; trailing aircraft accelerated , climbed and evaded , dropping wide . Through the night , some pilots avoided starshell - lit drop points entirely , and 13 aircraft returned to airfields without having dropped at all . Intending a 10 by 14 km drop over largely undefended terrain , the Soviets instead achieved a 30 by 90 km drop over the fastest mobile elements of two German corps . On the ground , the Germans used white parachutes as beacons to hunt down and kill disorganized groups and to gather and destroy airdropped supplies . Supply bonfires , glowing embers , and multi - color starshells illuminated the bizarre and macabre battlefield . Captured documents gave the Germans enough knowledge of Soviet objectives to arrive at most of them before the disorganized paratroops . Back at the Soviet airfields , the fuel shortage allowed only 298 of 500 planned sorties , leaving corps 45mm anti - tank guns and 2 , 017 paratroops undelivered . Of 4 , 575 men dropped ( seventy percent of the planned number , and just 1 , 525 from 5th Brigade ) , some 2 , 300 eventually assembled into 43 ad - hoc groups , with missions abandoned as hopeless , and spent most of their time seeking supplies not yet destroyed by the Germans . Others joined with the nine partisan groups operating in the area . About 230 made it over ( or out of ) the Dnieper to Front units ( or were originally dropped there ) . Most of the rest were almost casually captured that first night or killed the next day ( although , on that first night , the 3rd Co , 73rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment , suffered heavy losses while annihilating about 150 paratroopers near Grushevo , some 3 km west of Dubari ) . The Germans underestimated that 1 , 500 to 2 , 000 had dropped ; they recorded 901 paratroops captured and killed in the first 24 hours . Thereafter , they largely ignored the Soviet paratroopers , to counterattack and truncate the Dnieper bridgeheads . The Germans deemed their anti - paratrooper operations completed by 2100 on the 26th , although a modicum of opportunistic actions against garrisons , rail lines , and columns were conducted by remnants up to early November . For a lack of manpower to clear all areas , forests of the region would remain a minor threat . The Germans called the operation a fundamentally sound idea ruined by the dilettantism of planners lacking expert knowledge ( but praised individual paratroops for their tenacity , bayonet skills and deft use of broken ground in the sparsely wooded northern region ) . STAVKA deemed this second ( and , ultimately , last ) corps drop a complete failure ; lessons they knew they had already learned from their winter offensive corps drop at Viazma had not stuck . They would never trust themselves to try it again . Soviet 5th Guards Airborne Brigade commander Sidorchuk , withdrawing to the forests south , eventually amassed a brigade - size command , half paratroops , half partisans ; he obtained air supply , and assisted the 2nd Ukrainian Front over the Dnieper near Cherkassy to finally link up with Front forces on 15 November . After 13 more days combat , the airborne element was evacuated , ending a harrowing two months . More than sixty percent never returned . Assault - crossing the Dnieper . Execution considerations . The Dnieper is the third largest river in Europe , second only to the Volga and the Danube . In its lower part , its width can easily reach three kilometres , and being dammed in several places made it even larger . Moreover its western shore — the one still to be retaken — was much higher and steeper than the eastern , complicating the offensive even further . In addition , the opposite shore was transformed into a vast complex of defenses and fortification s held by the " Wehrmacht " . Faced with such a situation , the Soviet commanders had two options . The first would be to give themselves time to regroup their forces , find a weak point or two to exploit ( not necessarily in the lower part of the Dnieper ) , stage a breakthrough and encircle the German defenders , rendering the defence line next to useless ( very much like the German Panzer s bypassed the Maginot line in 1940 ) . This , however , would give them time to get more reserve s and furthermore , would expose the Soviet troops to out - flanking mechanized attacks - every Soviet commander ' s nightmare since 1941 . The second option would be to stage a massive assault without waiting , and force the Dnieper on a broad front . This option left no additional time for the German defenders , but would lead to much larger casualties . For political reasons ( Stalin wanted Kiev to be retaken on 7 November ) , the second option was chosen . The assault was staged on a 300 - kilometer front almost simultaneously . All available means of transport were to be used to transport the attackers to the opposite shore , including small fishing boats and improvised rafts of barrels and trees ( like the one in the photograph ) . The preparation of the crossing equipment was further complicated by the German scorched earth strategy with the total destruction of all boats and raft building material in the area . The crucial issue would obviously be heavy equipment . Without it , the bridgehead s would not stand for long . The assault - crossings . The first bridgehead on the Dnieper ' s western shore was established on 22 September 1943 at the confluence of the Dnieper and Pripyat rivers , in the northern part of the front . On 24 September , another bridgehead was created near Dniprodzerzhynsk , another on 25 September near Dnipropetrovsk and yet another on 28 September near Kremenchuk . By the end of the month , 23 bridgeheads were created on the western side , some of them 10 kilometers wide and 1 - 2 kilometres deep . The crossing of the Dnieper was extremely difficult . Soldiers used every available floating device to cross the river , under heavy German fire and taking heavy losses . Once across , Soviet troops had to dig themselves into the clay ravines composing the Dnieper ' s western bank . Securing the bridgeheads . German troops soon launched heavy counterattack s on almost every bridgehead , hoping to annihilate them before heavy equipment could be transported across the river . For instance , the Borodaevsk bridgehead , mentioned by Marshal Konev in his memoirs , came under heavy armored attack and air assault . Bombers attacked both the bridgehead and the reinforcements crossing the river . Konev complained at once about a lack of organization of Soviet air support , set up air patrols to prevent bombers from approaching the bridgeheads and ordered forward more artillery to counter tank attacks from the opposite shore . When Soviet aviation became more organized and hundreds of guns and Katyusha rocket launcher s began firing , the situation started to improve and the bridgehead was eventually preserved . Such battles were commonplace on every bridgehead . Although all the bridgeheads were held , losses were terrible – at the beginning of October , most divisions were at only 25 to 50 % of their nominal strength . Western bank operations . Lower Dnieper offensive . By mid - October , the forces accumulated on the lower Dnieper bridgeheads were strong enough to stage a first massive attack to definitely secure river ' s western shore in the southern part of the front . Therefore , a vigorous attack was staged on the Kremenchuk - Dnipropetrovsk line . Simultaneously , a major diversion was conducted in the south to draw German forces away both from the Lower Dnieper and from Kiev . At the end of the offensive , Soviet forces controlled a bridgehead 300 kilometers wide and up to 80 kilometers deep in some places . In the south , the Crimea was now cut off from the rest of the German forces . Any hope of stopping the Red Army on the Dnieper ' s east bank was lost . Criticisms . Stalin ' s determination to recover Kiev before 7 November has raised quite a few criticisms among historians . It is commonly accepted now that the bridgeheads on the Lower Dnieper were deliberately " left alone " to draw German forces from Kiev , resulting in heavy losses . While this hypothesis could be true to some extent , one must not forget that the action of establishing a bridgehead alone is dangerous enough and can ( and usually does ) lead to heavy casualties . Outcomes . The Battle of Dnieper was another defeat for the " Wehrmacht " that required it to restabilize the front further West . The Red Army , which Hitler hoped to contain at the Dnieper , forced the " Wehrmacht " s defences . Kiev was recaptured and German troops lacked the forces to annihilate Soviet troops on the Lower Dnieper bridgeheads . The west bank was still in German hands for the most part , but both sides knew that it would not last for long . Additionally , the Battle of Dnieper demonstrated the strength of the Soviet partisan movement . The " rail war " operation staged during September and October 1943 struck German logistics very hard , creating heavy supply issues . Incidentally , between 28 November and 1 December 1943 the Teheran conference was held between Winston Churchill , Franklin D . Roosevelt , and Stalin . The Battle of Dnieper , along with other major offensives staged in 1943 , certainly gave Stalin a dominant position for negotiating with his Allies . Casualties debate . Casualties during the Battle of Dnieper are still a subject of heavy debate . Some sources give very low figures ( 200 , 000 to 300 , 000 total casualties ) , which is much lower than for instance , the Battle of Kursk . However , given the duration of the campaign and the huge area involved , more than one historian argues that the losses involved were huge , easily reaching or even surpassing those at the Stalingrad , but going " unnoticed " because of the large operational area ( and of the aura of fame enveloping the latter ) . The death toll also depends on the time frame considered . It also depends on whether the toll of the Battle of Smolensk , which was fought to draw German forces away from the area in which the Dnieper battle would be held , is included in the total . On the subject of Soviet casualties , Nikolaï Shefov in his " Russian fights " puts the figure of 373 , 000 killed in action ( KIA ) and more than 1 , 500 , 000 total Soviet casualties . British historian John Erickson , in his " Barbarossa : The Axis and the Allies " , puts a figure of 173 , 201 Soviets KIA , during a time frame from 26 September to 20 December 1943 , therefore not taking into account the period from 24 August to 26 September . Glantz / House ' When Titans Clashed ' put a figure of 428 , 000 total losses ( 103 , 000 KIA ) during 26 August to 30 September ( Chernigov - Poltava Operation ) and 754 , 000 total losses ( 173 , 000 KIA ) during 26 September and 20 December . Given the heavy German resistance even before the Dnieper forced - crossing , this figure seems a low estimate ( Soviet sources estimate casualties from the post - Kursk offensive alone at 250 , 000 killed , wounded and captured ) , the figure of over 300 , 000 KIA could seem correct , with the wounded in action number following the 3 : 1 empiric ratio . German losses , however , are more difficult to evaluate . The simple rule of 3 : 1 losses during an offensive operation against a heavily defended enemy would lead to a 500 , 000 toll , matching the one at Kursk . Shefov and other Soviet / Russian historians quote casualties as high as 1 , 500 , 000 . The Battle of the Dnieper is listed among the most lethal battles in world history .