The western boundary of the Front in June 1941 was 470 km (290 mi) long, from the southern border of Lithuania to the Pripyat River and the town of Włodawa.

The 1939 partition of Poland according to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact established a new western border with no permanent defense installations, and the army deployment within the Front created weak flanks.

Altogether, on 22 June the Western Special Military District fielded 671,165 men, 14,171 guns and mortars, 2,900 tanks and 1,812 combat aircraft.

[3] The Western Front was on the main axis of attack by the German Army Group Centre, commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock.

Air support was provided by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 which contained more than half the German aircraft committed to the attack on the Soviet Union.

Almost without any interference from Soviet fighters, the close support aircraft of Germany's 8th Air Corps were able to break the backbone of Western Front's counter-attack at Grodno.

Jagdgeschwader 53's Hermann Neuhoff recalled: We found the main roads in the area heavily congested with Russian vehicles of all kinds, but no fighter opposition and very little flak.

The attempted attack allowed many Soviet forces to escape from the Białystok region towards Minsk, but this brought only temporary relief.

With both the German Second and Third Panzer Groups racing towards Minsk on the Western Front's southern and northern flanks, a new encirclement threatened.

[8] In the evening of 25 June, the German 47th Panzer Corps cut between Slonim and Vawkavysk, forcing the attempted withdrawal of troops in the salient to avoid encirclement and opening the southern approaches to Minsk.

In the first 18 days of the war, the Western Front had suffered 417,790 casualties, lost 9,427 guns and mortars, 4,799 tanks and 1,777 combat aircraft, and practically ceased to exist as a military force.

Furious over the loss of Minsk on 28 June, Stalin replaced the disgraced Pavlov with Colonel General Andrey Yeryomenko as commander of the Western Front.

On 1 July, he ordered the 13th Army to fall back to the Berezina River and defend the sectors between the towns of Kholkolnitza, Borisov and Brodets.

To this end the front deployed on its northern flank the 22nd Army under Lieutenant General Filipp Yershakov to defend the sector from Sebezh southward to the Western Dvina, and then south along that river from north of Polotsk to Beshenkovichi.

He was replaced by Colonel Leonid Sandalov Finally the 16th Army, under Lieutenant General Mikhail Fedorovich Lukin, was kept in reserve in the Smolensk region.

[14] The Western Front had been given a brief respite to erect new defences while the Germans reduced the pockets created during the Białystok-Minsk battles.

Timoshenko was ordered by the Stavka (the Soviet High Command) to restore the situation with Kreizer's 1st Moscow Motor Rifle Division.

[17] On the southern flank, the remnants of the 4th Army's Rifle Divisions were only able to offer light resistance to the German XXIV Motorised Corps; instead the attackers were repeatedly halted by destroyed bridges at the Berezina, Ola, Dobosna and Drut Rivers.

[18] Kreizer launched his counter-attack against the German bridgehead at Borisov on 3 July, but the defenders had been forewarned by radio intercepts and air reconnaissance, and with their superior tactics beat back this isolated Soviet attack.

Defeated, Kreizer accordingly retreated behind the Nacha River and fought during the withdrawal towards Orsha, where his troops were aided by the arrival of the 20th Army.

Accordingly, Timoshenko ordered his 21st Army to shore up its defences along the river and help the withdrawal by sending out forces to spoil the German advance.

Newly promoted Colonel General Ivan Konev took over command in September when Timoshenko was transferred south to restore the situation in the then ongoing Battle of Kiev.

On 1 August 1943, the 70th Rifle Corps was listed on the Soviet order of battle, as a headquarters with no troops assigned, directly subordinate to the front.

Russian ground troops continue the Soviet Army's organizational arrangement of having military districts that have both a wartime territorial administration role and the capability to generate formation headquarters (HQs) to command fronts.