The Battle of the Sea of Azov, also known as the Chernigovka pocket was an Axis military campaign fought between 26 September 1941 and 11 October 1941 on the northern shores of the Sea of Azov on the Eastern Front of World War II during Operation Barbarossa. It resulted in a complete Axis victory over the Red Army. After destroying five Soviet armies at Kiev in late September 1941, the German Army Group South advanced east and south to capture the industrial Donbas region and the Crimea. Within days of the battle of Kiev's conclusion, the Soviet Southern Front launched an attack on 26 September with two armies on the northern shores of the Sea of Azov against elements of the German 11th Army, which was simultaneously advancing into the Crimea. After initially pushing back the Romanian 3rd Army, which fought under German command, the Soviet advance ground to a halt when the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler Brigade arrived to reinforce their Axis allies. On 1 October the 1st Panzer Army under Ewald von Kleist swept south to isolate the two Soviet armies. The offensive caught the Red Army completely by surprise, forcing them to retreat on 3 October to avoid encirclement. The Germans now attacked from the west, north and east, cutting the Soviets off on 7 October after capturing Melitopol and Berdiansk. The Soviet 9th and 18th Armies were caught in a vice and annihilated in four days. The Soviet defeat was total; 106,332 men captured, 212 tanks destroyed or captured in the pocket alone as well as 766 artillery pieces of all types. All units of the German 11th Army and the 1st Panzer Army lost 12,421 men combined from 21 September to 10 October; actual German losses in the battle were lower as only parts of both armies fought in the battle. The death of or capture of two-thirds of all Southern Front troops in four days unhinged the Front's left flank, allowing the Germans to capture Kharkiv on 24 October. Kleist's 1st Panzer Army took the Donbas region that same month, while Von Manstein's 11th Army was freed to conquer Crimea with its full strength from 18 October onward. The battle After concluding the Battle of Kiev in September 1941, the German Army Group South advanced from the Dniepr to the Sea of Azov coast. The city of Rostov was assigned as the objective for