which were delivered only by air. Thus, although the Soviet troops managed to cut off large amount of German forces and push them back into a relatively small area north of Kamianets-Podilskyi, the conditions for the destruction of the German troops were not created. Both the internal and the external fronts were vulnerable and in the most important places. Red Army troops, operating on the inner front, somewhat outnumbered the 1st Panzer Army but did not have enough artillery, especially tanks. The combined-arms armies, which advanced through difficult terrain and had great difficulty in towing their artillery through the deep spring mud, did not possess sufficient striking force for decisive actions to dismember the German grouping, which had a large number of panzer divisions. The 4th Tank Army, significantly weakened and experiencing great difficulties in ammunition and fuel supplies, barely repulsed the German attacks. For the destruction of the 1st Panzer Army, the Soviet 1st Tank Army, led by Katukov, could be used, but it went far ahead and acted on a broad front south of the Dniester river in the foothills of the Carpathians. Furthermore, the Soviets also transferred part of the rifle divisions behind the Dniester as well, to assist Katukov's 1st Tank Army in the rout of German forces from Chernovtsy, near the Soviet border. As a result, the only Soviet force that was still capable to inflict a decisive strike against the 1st Panzer Army, was effectively excluded from the attempts to destroy it, as it pursued other operational goals, namely to deny the 1st Panzer Army chance of retreating south in the areas behind the Dniester river, which were highly successful. Under these circumstances, the Soviet front command decided to intercept the German withdrawal paths and destroy it with blows from all sides. However, the front command did not accurately determine the direction of the breakthrough of the Germans. At first, it believed that the 1st Panzer Army would make its way south through the Dniester, to Romania. This assumption was based on some intelligence data. The command of the 1st Ukrainian Front, which believed that the enemy would retreat south, directed the main efforts of the troops in late March to cut off the Germans from the crossings on the Dniester and capture them. Persistent German attacks in the western direction and the fact that the Soviet 4th Tank Army held back attacks with