The moment came when our supreme command and ought to think about how to extract value from the gained results and to begin serious preparation for the 1942 summer campaign. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and the troops, fulfilling orders, continued to advance. And the command of the front was given the task to wear down the opponent without giving him any respite. Source: Areva. That was to me incomprehensible. It's one thing to wear down the enemy's defensive operations, ensuring the alignment of forces, as we did before moving to the offensive. But in order to harass and weaken its offensive actions in the apparent correlation of forces is not in our favor, and even in severe winter conditions, I did this I could not understand.
Repeated reports of our commanders on the front of a serious condition as a result of the Army suffered losses of inadequacy of its powers and tasks set before us the front is not taken into account. Had with an effort to advance, pushing the enemy out of one, then on another site. On breaking the enemy's defense could not be considered. Our ability was exhausted to the extreme, but the enemy continued to replenish their forces with fresh forces, throwing them from the west. " With some difficulty the accumulated reserves of 9 armies in the spring of 1942 was spent in these ill-fated battle. Except addition, large losses of the Red Army often facilitated by the fact that the march consisted entirely of replenishment of poorly trained conscripts.