history · 18 May 1942 · 82 years ago
14th and 16th Panzer Divisions of the German 1st Panzer Army destroyed 130 Soviet tanks in combat in Ukraine, forcing Soviet forces to evacuate forward airfields at Izium and Petrovskaia. Semyon Timoshenko requested for permission to fall back from his positions near Kharkov, Ukraine due to this latest German counteroffensive; Joseph Stalin refused to grant his permission, ordering Timoshenko to continue the westward offensive.
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