Soviet encirclement The 25 May saw the first major Soviet attempt to break the encirclement. German Major General Lanz described the attacks as gruesome, made en masse. By 26 May, the surviving Red Army soldiers were forced into crowded positions in an area of roughly fifteen square kilometers. Soviet attempts to break into the German encirclement from the east were continuously blocked using tenacious defensive manoeuvres and German air power. Groups of Soviet tanks and infantry that attempted to escape and succeeded in breaking through German lines were caught and destroyed by Ju 87s from StG 77.[7] In the face of determined German operations, Timoshenko ordered the official halt of all Soviet offensive manoeuvres on 28 May, while attacks to break out of the encirclement continued until 30 May. Nonetheless, less than one man in ten managed to break out of the "Barvenkovo mousetrap".[6] Beevor puts Soviet losses in terms of prisoners as 240,000[6] (with the bulk of their armour), while Glantz citing Krivosheev gives a total of 277,190 overall Soviet casualties.[1][5] Both tend to agree on a low German casualty count, with the most formative rounding being at 20,000 dead, wounded and missing.[4][5][6] Regardless of the casualties, Kharkov was a major Soviet setback and it would put an end to the astonishing successes of the Red Army during the Winter Counteroffensive, and the smaller offensives of the spring.
Analysis and conclusions
Many authors have attempted to pinpoint the reasons for the debacle of the Second Battle of Kharkov. Several Soviet generals have placed the blame on the inability of Stavka and Stalin to appreciate the Wehrmacht's military power on the Eastern Front after their defeats in the winter of 1941–1942 and in the spring of 1942. On the subject, Zhukov sums up in his memoirs that the failure of this operation was quite predictable, since the offensive was organized very ineptly, the risk of exposing the left flank of the Izium salient to German counterattacks being obvious on a map.[43] Still according to Zhukov, the main reason for the stinging Soviet defeat lay in the mistakes made by Stalin, who underestimated the danger coming from German armies in the southwestern sector (as opposed to the Moscow sector) and failed to take steps to concentrate any substantial strategic reserves there to meet any potential German threat. Furthermore, Stalin ignored sensible advice provided by his own General Chief of Staff, who recommended organising a strong defence in the southwestern sector in order to be able to repulse any Wehrmacht attack.[43]