Sinyavino offensive (1942)

Sinyavino offensive
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II
A typical road for vehicles on the Volkhov Front
Date 19 August – 10 October 1942 Location Southern shore of Lake Ladoga, near present-day Sinyavino and Saint Petersburg, Russia Result Soviet offensive defeated, German offensive cancelled.
Belligerents
Germany	Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Erich von Manstein Georg von Küchler	Kirill Meretskov Leonid Govorov Filipp Starikov
Strength
18th Army Reinforcements: 11th Army	2nd Shock Army 8th Army Elements of Leningrad Front Total 190,000 men
Casualties and losses
(Only between 28 August and 30 September) 5,893 dead, Total 26,000[1][2]	40,085 dead and missing (including 12,000 captured) 73,589 wounded and sick Total 113,674[3]

The Sinyavino offensive (or third Sinyavino offensive) was an operation planned by the Soviet Union in the summer of 1942 with the aim of breaking the siege of Leningrad, which had begun the previous summer, to establish a reliable supply line to Leningrad. At the same time, German forces were planning Operation Northern Light (German: Nordlicht) to capture the city and link up with Finnish forces. To achieve that heavy reinforcements were arriving from Sevastopol, which the German forces captured in July 1942.^{[clarification needed]} Both sides were unaware of the other's preparations, and this made the battle unfold in an unanticipated manner for both sides.

The Soviet offensive began first in two stages. The Leningrad Front began the offensive on 19 August and the Volkhov Front launched the main offensive on 27 August. From 28 August the German side shifted the forces which were building up for their own offensive to gradually halt the Soviet offensive. Initial German counterattacks failed, but the Soviet forces could not advance either. After a ten-day stalemate, the significantly reinforced Germans launched a counterattack against the Soviet forces on 21 September. After five days of heavy fighting, the German forces linked up and cut off the bulge formed by the Soviet offensive.^[4] By 10 October the front line returned to the position before this battle; heavy fighting continued until 15 October, as the last pockets of Soviet resistance were destroyed or broke out.

In the end, the Soviet offensive failed, but heavy casualties caused the Germans to order their forces to assume a defensive stance. In November, the German reinforcements and other units were stripped from Army Group North to deal with the major Soviet offensive at Stalingrad and Operation Northern Light was aborted.^[5]