In the future, to advance in the general direction on Chortkov, in order to cut off the southern group of German forces the withdrawal paths westward in the area north of the Dniester river."

For the purpose of misinforming the Germans and misleading them regarding the true direction of the main attack, the concentration of rifle and tank forces was imitated in the 38th Army's sector and rumors about a large-scale offensive in the area were spread through the local population.

The command of Army Group South watched with great concern the situation on its left flank, in the sector west of Lutsk, Shepetivka, which it considered, not without reason, one of the most vulnerable in its defense.

The strike of the Soviet forces in this area to the south had very serious consequences- all German troops operating in Right-Bank Ukraine could have been cut off from the central regions of Germany and pressed against the Carpathian Mountains.

[47] The 15th Rifle and 4th Guards Tank Corps of the 60th Army advanced to the approaches of Ternopil and on 9 March they started fighting for the city, where the Germans brought up parts of the 68th and 359th Infantry Divisions that arrived from Germany.

[52] Starting from 7 March, the German troops, panzer divisions foremost, began to launch counterattacks, seeking, at any cost, to push back from the railway the units of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

[63] Having repelled the German counterattack, units of the Soviet 305th Rifle Division, supported by artillery fire, began to advance and soon reached the Lukashevka area (20 km west of Vinnytsia), cutting off the Vinnitsa–Khmelnytskyi highway.

Task Force Gollnick, in close contact with the south flank of Corps Group Breith, was to delay the Soviets below the Dnestr River and was to retire to and hold a bridgehead at Khotin.

The combined-arms armies, which advanced through difficult terrain and had great difficulty in towing their artillery through the deep spring mud, did not possess sufficient striking force for decisive actions to dismember the German grouping, which had a large number of panzer divisions.

The command of the 1st Ukrainian Front, which believed that the enemy would retreat south, directed the main efforts of the troops in late March to cut off the Germans from the crossings on the Dniester and capture them.

By 5 April, the advanced guards of both the northern and southern columns had reached the Strypa River, and on the 6th, near the town of Buchach, they linked up with the probing reconnaissance elements of Hausser's SS Divisions.

Due to the loss of heavy weapons, artillery prime movers and large parts of the supply facilities, as well as low combat strengths [Gefechtsstärken], the other divisions are also only operational to a very limited extent and are in urgent need of rest and refitting before decisive new tasks.The breakdown of the material and personnel condition of the 1st Panzer Army after the breakout is given below.

[91] However, since it was trapped with the 1st Panzer Army in the East at the time, the movement was delayed until mid-April 1944- the withdrawal of the remaining personnel and equipment of combat-ineffective LSSAH to the Beverloo training area in Belgium would not be complete until 19 April 1944.

[92] For this reason, as well as due to mixing of divisions (attaching parts of it to another), it was not possible to keep exact track of LSSAH’s numbers, even though its material losses were also very high, as it arrived to Belgium with just a fraction of the equipment that it was supposed to have.

Nonetheless, a comparison of its motor vehicle situation on 1 March 1944 (before the start of the Soviet offensive) and on 1 May 1944, when the refitting in Belgium was underway, provides a good indication of the scale of losses sustained by LSSAH.

As a result of outstanding maintenance and the truly excellent work of the repair echelons, so far we had always succeeded in freeing vehicles which became frozen in, mired in mud or stuck in the snowdrifts; and now they had to be blown up, not because of mechanical defects or other technical problems, but because of a lack of fuel!

Increased fuel consumption due to frost and snowstorm at night, as many drivers left their engines running, because otherwise starting problems would be the result.The subsequent activity report (Tätigkeitsbericht), prepared by the Quartermaster Department of the III Panzer Corps, added further details regarding the difficulties of crossing the bridge due to sharply deteriorating weather, which led to the loss of the greater part of the corps' motor vehicles before the bridge crossing:[100] During the night of 1–2 April, such a heavy snowstorm set in that the motor vehicles were partially snowed in up to the tarpaulin.

With regards to this, already on 12 April 1944, two days after the breakout was fully complete but the overall scale of material losses was not yet clear, the command of the 1st Panzer Army came to general conclusions, as noted in its war diary:[102] Much equipment, especially that of the supply troops, was lost or had to be destroyed.

The report noted that due to the heavy losses in motor vehicles, the loss of nearly all of the maintenance and repair facilities, their equipment, the divisional supply and support units became inoperable:[104] The following no longer exist: the entire motor park units, the administrative units, the majority of supply units, the field post office, all repair and maintenance sections, tank workshop platoons, the majority of repair units, 50% of the field kitchens, all ration supply trains, 75% of the other supply trains; in addition, the majority of the signals equipment of the troops is missing.Similarly, on 6 April 1944, the 7th Panzer Division submitted its condition report to the command of the LIX Army Corps, in which the crippling material losses and their impact are highlighted:[105] In terms of command and control equipment, the division only has a small stock of radio and telephone equipment.Within the current small battle group, the connections with these means are provisional and completely inadequate for the deployment of the full division.Since there is also a considerable shortage of messenger vehicles [Meldefahrzeugen] as a result of the significant total loss [Totalausfälle] of Volkswagens, motorcycles and half-track motorcycles, the division's command and control resources must be described as inadequate.In terms of motor vehicles, the division had to destroy the majority of its vehicles in accordance with orders.

The Tank-Destroyer-Battalion 619 has only 2 heavy anti-tank guns towed by prime movers and 4 partially operational self-propelled tank destroyers, which can only move on the roads.Armoured-Artillery-Regiment 19 can now be deployed only to some extent, since large and small equipment of all kinds was lost in such huge quantities in the recent battles that full-fledged work can no longer be done in any area.Severe shortage of communications motor vehicles and radios, especially in the Armoured-Signals-Battalion 19 and Armoured-Artillery-Regiment 19.Degree of mobility of the division:25%.Combat value and usability:Fit for limited defensive operations.The vehicle and weapon holdings of the division at the start of May were the following, as reported in the same status report.

Here are the notorious "Tigers" and "Panthers", burned and whole; and tanks of older types, and self-propelled guns, and huge armoured personnel carriers, and small transporters with one driving wheel, similar to motorcycles, and huge blunt-nosed "Renault" trucks stolen in France, and endless "Mercedes" and "Opel" trucks, staff cars, radios, field kitchens, anti-aircraft guns, disinfection trailers- in a word, everything that the Germans invented and used in their former rapid offensives.

[126][127] The breakthrough battles had tremendously eroded the personnel strength of the 1st Panzer Army divisions,[128][129] which had already been depleted before they were encircled, by nearly three weeks of heavy combat since the start of the Soviet Proskurov-Chernovtsy Operation on 4 March 1944.

In addition, the general physical and mental state of the troops had considerably deteriorated at the time of the breakout, as a result of continuous heavy combat and difficult retreats in spring mud and snowstorms.

In particular, the physical strain caused by the heaviest snowstorms, completely impassable paths and terrain, and continuous operations without the possibility of warming up, resting, or proper rations was extremely high.

Due to the severely depleted combat ranks, as well as the loss of most of the vehicles, weapons and equipment of the supply services, the command of the 1st Panzer Division was forced to use various types of rear area personnel for deployment at the front as infantry units.

It is only capable of large movements to a limited extent.The archival records for the casualties of the 1st and 4th Panzer Armies in March–April 1944 exist, which provide an overall scale of the losses suffered during the Soviet Proskurov-Chernovtsy Operation, including the Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket.

The German command called these total losses Abgänge (Departures), which is a sum of dead, missing, evacuated wounded and sick from the area of operations and sent back to Germany (Heimat) for treatment.

[183] Similarly, in the same document it is explicitly stated that only the provisionally calculated casualty figures can be reported for 11 March–10 April, which contain only a part of the losses- the losses for this period were estimated to be 3,400 killed, 13,900 wounded, 4,000 missing.

In addition to these losses, the 1st Panzer Army High Command reported that about 4,000 of its personnel departed due to sickness (lice infestation, stomach problems, trench foot, frostbite etc.)

[201] As a result, the VII Corps was routed, with its units being forced to conduct a hasty retreat south, behind the Dniester, towards Kolomyia and then to Stanislav area (now Ivano-Frankivsk) by the end of the month, where the front had finally stabilized.