ABSTRACT
After planning commenced for Operation Gallop the STAVKA displayed its growing optimism by expanding the winter offensive to include operations by Golikov’s Voronezh Front. Although Golikov’s forces were engaged in heavy fighting with German forces in Kastornoye area, the STAVKA planned for a continuation of the offensive westward virtually without an operational pause. The STAVKA was willing to undertake a calculated risk that its forces, already worn down by a month of fighting, could, in conjunction with pressure from adjacent fronts, produce a final inexorable collapse of German forces on the entire southern wing of the Eastern Front. Thus, while the Southwestern and Southern Fronts planned an operation through the Donbas toward the Dnepr River, the Voronezh Front received orders to advance on Kursk and Khar’kov.
