formed, and stationed 100-150 kilometers from the border. Defeat in Operation Barbarossa The 6th Mechanized Corps was heavily involved in the first battles with Germans. At 11:40pm on the day of German invasion, Pavlov ordered his Deputy Front Commander Lieutenant General Ivan Boldin to take command over what would be later called Boldin's group. The group's core was the 6th Mechanized Corps and the 6th Cavalry Corps, with 11th Mechanized Corps to be attached soon. Boldin's group first and last mission was against German armored forces of Hoth's 3rd Panzergruppe advancing at the vulnerable boundary line between Soviet Northwestern Front and Soviet Western Front at Merkinė. It is considered part of the larger Battle of Białystok–Minsk. Historian David Glantz stated that the tank divisions of 6th Mechanized Corps on 24 June 1941 were inferior against the advancing German units often without infantry support and were relentlessly pounded by the German aircraft of the Luftflotte 2. Without adequate ammunition and with many tanks in a state of disrepair and sent to several different locations without fuel reserves, they were quickly immobilized. A report from the Western Front on 27 June noted that 6th Mechanized Corps had lost 20–26% of its tank strength in its 4th and 7th tank Divisions. Solonin states that the only battle that 6th Mechanized Corps saw was an attack of 24 June, when it lost 2% of tanks. The corps dissipated soon without any other combat, with negligible losses to aircraft, and with distance traveled that hardly necessitated any fuel tanking or repairs. The corps dispersed on 27 June near Krynki, with the personnel retreating east in small groups, and the equipment being abandoned or destroyed en masse. Communication with the headquarters of Boldin was lost and Major General Khatskilevich was killed on 25 June 1941. Hoth's panzers had reached Vilnius on the 23rd of June, then Grodno, and finally Minsk by 26 June. By 25 June 1941 General Heinz Guderian's 2nd Panzergruppe reached Slonim and Vawkavysk and cut off the retreat of the greater part of the 10th and 3rd Armies at Białystok encirclement. The Soviet armies could not retreat across the Shchara River because Luftflotte 2 had destroyed the bridges. Guderian's "pincer" reached Minsk on the 27th June trapping the greater part of 13th and 4th Armies in another encirclement west of the city. The 6th Mechanized Corps was destroyed in the Białystok encirclement. It