it linked with the advancing armor of Konev's front and trapped 56,000 German troops. By 17 February, Vatutin and Konev's forces had eliminated the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket, but many of the encircled troops had managed to escape. Death On 28 February 1944, Vatutin, regrouping for a new operation and heading to Slavuta (Khmelnytskyi Oblast), was ambushed by Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) insurgents far behind the front lines near the village of Mylyatyn in Ostroh Raion (Rivne Oblast). He succumbed to sepsis, caused by the injuries, in a hospital at Kiev six weeks later. Vatutin's brothers, Afanasy Fyodorovich and Semyon Fyodorovich, were killed in action in February and March 1944. Their mother, Vera Yefimovna, buried her three sons in two months. Nikolai Vatutin was given a state funeral in Kiev and was succeeded by Georgy Zhukov. After the war, the Chekists documented two more versions of the attack on Vatutin. During one of the Chekist operations, on January 15, 1946, Fedir Vorobets (Vereshchak), the former commander of the "Tyutyunnyk" UPA group, was captured. During one of the interrogations, he said that the attack on Mykola Vatutin had taken place in the area of Sotnia of Derkach and had been one by units of the Sluzhba Bezpeky (OUN Security Service) in the villages of Mikhalkivtsi and Siancy of Ostrovsky district of Rivne region. According to various sources, 17 to 27 fighters took part in the operation. Another version of Vatutin's death was told in the 1990s by the UPA veteran Yevhen Basyuk ("Chernomorets"). According to him, a detachment of 30 people under the command of Primak ("Troyan") took part in the clash with the general's bodyguard. When the column appeared, the UPA soldiers unloaded the carts of the convoy, which had been seized from the Red Army, and the carts opened fire spontaneously without any ambush. Vatutin was buried in Kiev's Mariinskyi Park near the Ukrainian Parliament. A monument dedicated to him was erected at his burial site in 1948. This monument was designed by prominent Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich. The Kyiv City State Administration dismantled the Vatutin monument on 9 February 2023. In June 2017 the Kyiv City Council had already renamed the city's General Vatutin Avenue into Roman Shukhevych Avenue. Shukhevych was a UPA military leader. Legacy His influence on the Red Army strategic planning, operational, and tactical techniques continued even after his death. After the Cold War, a decline in