This is the point of Soviet offensives where they start getting dishonest, both in the press releases and in their official histories. David Glantz has made a nice career going through the archives and finding examples of failed Soviet offensives that got ignored by the official history.
We are seeing one now, where the offensive in southern Ukraine to the border of Romania is running out of gas. The Stavka is issuing orders to Konev and Malinovski to force the Dniester and drive deep into Romania, but both Fronts are spent. The tank armies have only a handful of tanks left in operating condition, and they’ve outrun the supplies. The Germans have brought up several panzer divisions, which while weak, are in better shape than the Soviet forces.
Glantz has a good book on the operations we are reading about now, “Red Storm Over the Balkans.” He notes that the Stavka would always push an offensive past it’s limits, and give the Germans an opportunity for a riposte, just like on the Donetz a year ago and at Zhitomir last November. But the Stavka is willing to make the push because the Wehrmacht’s ripostes are becoming ever more feeble.
We will see this again in battles over the Vistula bridgeheads, Army Group North will hack an escape corridor through Latvia to Courland, and finally there will be an aborted invasion of East Prussia in October. The last such offensive will be “Sonnenwende” around Stargard in Pomerania in February 1945. It will gain little ground, but disturb the Stavka enough that they don’t drive on Berlin immediately but instead take the time to clear Pomerania and Silesia first.
I would also add that Romania has some good terrain for the defense, unlike mostly billiard table flat Ukraine.