In northern Buru, the three armies of German Army Group A had already crossed the border and were attacking the defenses of the Russian Northwestern Front Army. The Russian Northwestern Front Army commanded the 8th, 11th, and 27th Army Corps, and its commander was General Kuznetsov.
Although the Russian Northwestern Front Army was not as strong as several of the other front armies, its defensive line was relatively short. The German military was advancing from the Baltic States, and Ulyanovsk, their target, was not far away. At the closest point, the distance was not even a hundred kilometers. To the powerful German military, such a distance was nothing at all.
For that very reason, General Kuznetsov had concentrated the Northwestern Front Army's main force along the Ulyanovsk line, leaving only the 27th Army Corps outside to hold back the German military. General Kuznetsov knew full well that if they fought the German military in the open, they had no chance of victory whatsoever. Each of the German military's three armies had an Armored Division. Together with the tanks fielded by their Mechanized Infantry Divisions and motorized infantry divisions, they had at least fifteen hundred tanks. Such armored striking power was absolutely beyond their ability to withstand.
Therefore, General Kuznetsov had in fact abandoned every defensive line except Ulyanovsk, focusing his defenses entirely within the city itself. From the very start of the German offensive, he had ordered his troops to construct defensive fortifications throughout Ulyanovsk. He had even mobilized large numbers of Ulyanovsk residents to help the military dig trenches and anti-tank ditches outside the city, preparing for the coming great battle.
The headquarters of German Army Group A was located in Narva, a small border town in eastern Estonia. Although it could already be considered the front line, after