Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive

Lvov-Sandomierz strategic offensive operation
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
Red Army soldiers and tanks enter Lvov, 27 July 1944
Date 13 July – 29 August 1944 Location Western Ukraine/Eastern Poland Result Soviet victory
Belligerents
Germany  Hungary	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Josef Harpe Erhard Raus Walther Nehring Ferenc Farkas Otto Dessloch	Ivan Konev Mikhail Katukov Pavel Rybalko Dmitry Lelyushenko Vasiliy Gordov Nikolay Pukhov Kirill Moskalenko Pavel Kurochkin Stepan Krasovsky
Units involved
Army Group North Ukraine 1st Panzer Army 4th Panzer Army 1st Army Luftflotte 4 Luftflotte 6	1st Ukrainian Front 1st Guards Tank Army 3rd Guards Tank Army 4th Tank Army 3rd Guards Army 13th Army 38th Army 60th Army 2nd Air Army
Strength
On 1 July 1944: 547,000 ration strength[1] (incl. rear support services) 440,512 actual strength[2] (in divisions and GHQ combat units) 850 operational tanks and assault guns[3] 978 tanks and assault guns in total (incl. in repairs) 976 guns 1,000 aircraft[4] 255,000 ration strength[5] (1 July 1944)	1,002,200 men[6] 1,979 AFVs 11,265 guns
Casualties and losses
55,000 killed, missing and captured 136,860 overall[7] Casualty reports of the army group for 11 July-31 August 1944[8]: - 16,438 killed - 69,895 wounded - 57,500 missing - 143,833 in total 30,000+ killed, wounded and missing in total[9]	65,001 killed, missing or captured 224,295 wounded 289,296 overall 1,269 tanks and SP guns 289 aircraft[6]

The Lvov–Sandomierz offensive or Lvov–Sandomierz strategic offensive operation (Russian: Львовско-Сандомирская стратегическая наступательная операция) was a major Red Army operation to force the German troops from Ukraine and Eastern Poland. Launched in mid-July 1944, the operation was successfully completed by the end of August.

The Lvov–Sandomierz offensive is generally overshadowed by the overwhelming successes of the concurrently conducted Operation Bagration that led to the destruction of Army Group Centre. However, most of the Red Army and Red Air Force resources were allocated, not to Bagration's Belorussian operations, but the Lvov-Sandomierz operations.^[10] The campaign was conducted as Maskirovka. By concentrating in southern Poland and Ukraine, the Soviets drew German mobile reserves southward, leaving Army Group Centre vulnerable to a concentrated assault.^[11] When the Soviets launched their Bagration offensive against Army Group Center, it would create a crisis in the eastern German front, which would then force the powerful German Panzer forces back to the central front, leaving the Soviets free to then pursue their objectives in seizing western Ukraine, the Vistula bridgeheads, and gaining a foothold in Romania.^[12]

The offensive was composed of three smaller operations:

• Lvov offensive operation (13–27 July 1944)
• Stanislav offensive operation (13–27 July 1944)
• Sandomierz offensive operation (28 July – 29 August 1944)

In Soviet propaganda, this offensive was listed as one of Stalin's ten blows.