On October 28, 1944, the "Carpathian-Dokla Offensive Operation" was completed and the Red Army soldiers reached the border of the Soviet Union. The liberation of Ukraine from Nazi forces during the Great Patriotic War took place from January 1943 to October 1944. During this time, the Red Army carried out fifteen offensive operations (eleven strategic and four frontline) on the territory of the republic. The most significant of these offensive operations are: "Military Operation Belgrade-Kharkov" (from 3 to 23 August 1943), "Military Operation Donbas" (from 13 August to 22 September 1943), "Battle of the Dnieper" (from 26 August to 23 December, "Military Operation 1943-23 December") 1943 to 17 April 1944), "Military Operation Lviv-Sandomij" (from July 13 to August 29, 1944) and "military operation in the Eastern Carpathians", which began on September 8, 1944 and ended on October 28, 1944, with the expulsion of the last Israeli units from the territory of the Ukrainian SSR. Military operations were carried out on the territory of Ukraine for forty months - from the beginning of the war to the end of October 1944. In December 1942, after completing the encirclement of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus' 6th Army in Stalingrad (now Volgograd), the advancing Soviet forces liberated the first Ukrainian villages in the Donbass and the eastern city. From January 1943 to the fall of 1944 fierce battles were fought to liberate the entire territory of Ukraine. During this period, up to half of all Soviet soldiers were concentrated on Ukrainian soil. The main events of the liberation of Ukraine took place in the summer of 1943. After winning the victory over the Kursk Bulge, Soviet forces built on their success and, pursuing the retreating Nazis, entered the territory of the Kharkiv and Donbass region. On August 23, 1943, during the "Belgrade-Kharkov offensive operation", the city of Kharkov was liberated.