[1] On January 27, Dybenko and his chief of staff Sergey Ivanovich Petrikovsky were urgently summoned to Kharkiv by the commander of the Ukrainian Front, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko.

Antonov-Ovseenko ordered Dybenko to create a rifle division from the rebel and partisan detachments of Northern Tavria (Tavricheskaya province), train personnel and begin to perform combat missions as part of the Ukrainian Front.

Based on the number of units in Northern Tavria, the command of the division planned to form six regiments, combined into three brigades.

Hryhoriv broke off relations with the Ukrainian People's Republic command due to the fact that the Directorate of Ukraine agreed with the Entente expansion of the occupation zone, after which the fighters of his division, formed from the rebel detachments of the Kherson region, left their homes and went north.

Hryhoriv stated that he had twenty partisan detachments at his disposal, ready to fight against the Ukrainian People's Army, White Guards, Germans and interventionists.

During the negotiations, he agreed to submit to the command of the Red Army, as well as to recognize the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR – thereby, he actually renounced the Borotbist Tsentrrevkom.

[1] On February 2, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR, Christian Rakovsky, reported to Moscow: "There was an agreement between the representatives of our armies operating on the border of the Yekaterinoslav and Kherson provinces and the Otaman Hryhoriv.

In the operational summary of the headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Group of Forces of the Kharkiv direction of February 5, 1919, it was reported that Hryhoriv's detachments controlled the region of Znamianka-Koristovka-Oleksandriia-Kherson-Kryvyi Rih-Dolgintsevo-Apostolove, as well as the Novo-Poltavka station, north of Mykolaiv.

[4] Having launched a general offensive on Kherson, Hryhoriv recaptured Voznesensk a week later, and the Entente units were forced to create an extended front along the Mykolaiv-Kherson railroad, using up to 8 thousand soldiers, 20 guns, 18 tanks, 4 armored cars and 5 aircraft.

When it became clear to the command of the allied forces in Kherson that defeat was inevitable, the Greeks set fire to the port warehouses, in which several hundred hostages from among the local residents burned to death.

[4] Simultaneously with the operation to capture Kherson, the troops of the 1st Brigade attacked Mykolaiv, which was defended by the German 15th Landwehr Division under the command of General Zak-Galhausen (10,000 people).

However, a few days later, in view of the loss of Kherson and the arrival of fresh reinforcements to the offensive, the French command announced the evacuation of the allied forces, and on March 14 Mykolaiv was surrendered without a fight.

In the surrender of Mykolaiv, a significant role was played by the position of the German garrison and the commander of the 15th Division, General Zak-Galhausen, who decided to support the offensive of the Hryhorivites and signed an agreement on the restoration of Soviet power in the city.

At the same time, German units disarmed a small volunteer White Guard squad, transferring power in the city and seizing 20 heavy guns, military equipment and more than 2 thousand horses for the Soviet of Workers' Deputies and Hryhoriv's troops.

[1] The seizure of Kherson, Mykolaiv and adjacent territories with the main railways created favorable conditions for the further offensive of the troops of the Kharkiv Direction Group in southern Ukraine.

[1] On March 17, the Hryhorivites captured the Berezivka railway station, which was held by Polish legionnaires, French bayonets and White Guards.

[7][8] Leaving Berezovka, the command of the Entente troops nominated General Timanovsky's units of the "Volunteer Army of the Odessa Region" to the front.

Two more cavalry squadrons of volunteers, with the support of the Polish battalion, blocked the Mykolaiv-Odessa railway, and the Greeks (one thousand bayonets) were located in the rear of this defense sector.

The aggravation of the situation near Kiev prevented the full implementation of these plans, which Antonov-Ovseenko to transfer most of the combat-ready units from the south to the defense of the city from the Petliurists.

[1] On April 7, the People's Commissar for Military Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Nikolay Ilyich Podvoisky, notified the Soviet government by telegram about the capture of Odessa.

On March 20, the commander of the Kharkiv group of forces, Anatoly Evgenievich Skachko, assigned the Zadneprovsk Division and its 3rd Brigade to enter the Platovka-Mariupol line and gain a foothold on it.

[2] On April 5, the division completed its task – it captured the Isthmus of Perekop and had to stop at advantageous positions, locking up the Whites in Crimea.