There is a very good description the Soviet reaction to the beginning of the battle in Alexander Werth’s “Russia at War.” The Soviet people learn of the start of the battle today. For the past two months they have been very tense about when the front will erupt, and in the past two summers the Germans have inflicted massive defeats on the Red Army. It is now with a sense of relief that the battle has begun, there is more confidence in the armed forces, but also a sense of concern. Will we be able to stop the fascists this time?
Well, the Soviets had plenty of advanced information of German offensive and were tipped off by spy network that had connections to the German General Staff. Consequently they had plenty of time to construct eight elaborate layers of defensive belts around the Kursk Salient. Further, Hitler kept pushing back the date of the attack, waiting for his newly minted Tiger and Panther tanks to arrive off the assembly line and to the front, thus eliminating the most effective element of Blitzkrieg tactics: the element of surprise. While the Tiger and Panther were the two best tanks of WWII, their size and complex engineering made it impossible for the Germans to produce great numbers of them.
Beginning July 17 Werth will be the Times Moscow correspondent. (Maybe he already is, but the first piece to appear here is 7/17.) I don't know what happened to Ralph Parker.