Ivan Chernyakhovsky was born on 29 June 1907 in Oksanyna [uk], Russian Empire (now Uman Raion, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine).

To the south, General Zakharov's 2nd Belorussian Front, north of the Pripet Marshes, destroyed a force of 70,000 at Babruysk on that day.

Under the false pretenses of discussing the further fight against the Nazis, Polish resistance officers were invited to a briefing in the headquarters of the Belarusian People's Front.

The meeting was attended by Polish resistance officers Lieutenant Colonel Aleksander Krzyżanowski, nom de guerre "Wolf", and the Chief of Staff Major Teodor Cetys, codename "Fame".

On the same day in the village of Bogusze, a similar meeting was announced to brief commanders of other Polish partisan units in the presence of both Krzyżanowski and Chernyakhovsky.

His 3rd Belorussian Front drove across the Neman River, taking Kaunas on 1 August, and pressed the eastern border of East Prussia.

Prior to his death in 1945, Chernyakhovsky launched the Soviet East Prussian Offensive against stiff resistance from the 3rd Panzer Army.

Together with Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, which attacked East Prussia from the south and then headed north-westwards towards the Baltic coast around Danzig (Gdańsk), the 3rd Belorussian Front, commanded by General Chernyakhovsky was ordered to attack from the east towards Königsberg, even though this meant throwing his armies against heavy German defence works.

A monument to Chernyakhovsky, dismantled by the authorities of Vilnius, was reinstated in the Russian city of Voronezh that was defended in the fall of 1942 and liberated in January 1943 by the 60th Army under his command.

After World War II, due to the Potsdam Agreement, the Soviet Union annexed northern East Prussia and expelled the Germans, the town of Insterburg was renamed Chernyakhovsk in his honor.

In September 2015, a statue of Chernyakhovsky erected after the war in Pieniężno, Poland (former German name: Mehlsack), near where he was killed, was removed by local Polish authorities, prompting protests from the Russian government.