The offensive started out successfully, with the Red Army forces penetrating the German defenses in depth and pushing them back towards the then Polish city of Kovel, a key town declared to be a fortress (Festung) by the Germans, which was encircled by Soviet units on 18 March 1944.

[6] The German High Command, recognizing the danger to the rear of Army Group Center and the possible consequences of the fall of Kovel Garrison, took energetic measures to reinforce this sector.

[7] A Kampfgruppe of the 5th SS-Panzer-Division Wiking under SS-Obersturmführer Karl Nicolussi-Leck, which consisted of 17 panthers and a bergepanther, along with an infantry battalion from SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania,[8] set out to save Kovel.

[10] As a result of the operation, Soviet troops, in conditions of wooded and marshy terrain and muddy roads, advanced 30–40 km to the west, crossed the Stokhod and Turya rivers and advanced to the approaches of the towns of Ratno, Kovel, Turiysk.

[12] The Germans, on the contrary, managed to achieve a small, but important tactical victory, which stood out against the background of a whole series of heavy defeats suffered by Army Group South around the same time during the same Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive.