The battle that allowed the Nazis to break through to Stalingrad The Red Army sought to recapture Kharkov from the Germans to begin the liberation of Ukraine. But, instead, it put them on the road to the Volga and the Caucasus. After the defeat of the German troops at Moscow in the winter of 1941-1942, the Soviet leadership was confident that the time had come to seize the initiative in the war. In several sectors along the Soviet-German front, the Red Army launched a large-scale offensive with the aim of driving back and destroying the enemy, but nowhere did it achieve the st...