The principal Red Army formations of the operation were the
Northwestern Front and the
Baltic Fleet, with the major ground forces consisting of the
8th (commander General Major
Pyotr Sobennikov),
11th (commander Lieutenant General Vasily Morozov) and later
27th Armies. The operation was conducted after the forces of the
Baltic Special Military District were alerted in the morning of 22 June 1941 following a surprise attack by the German
Wehrmachts
Army Group North which consisted of the
18th,
16th Field Armies and the
4th Panzer Group, and elements of the
3rd Panzer Group, supported by the
Luftflotte 1. On 22 June, the Soviet 8th Army was positioned in northern Lithuania opposed by the German 18th Army. The Soviet 11th Army defended the rest of the Lithuanian border with
East Prussia and sought to contain the attacks of the German 16th Army and the 4th Panzer Group. , Latvia While the Soviet 8th Army retreated along the
Jelgava–
Riga–
Tartu–
Narva–
Pskov direction, the Soviet 11th Army sought to initially hold the
Kaunas and
Vilnius sector of the front, but was forced to retreat along the
Daugavpils–Pskov–
Novgorod axis. These
withdrawals, although costly in losses of personnel and materiel, avoided major
encirclements experienced by the fronts to the south, and succeeded in delaying Army Group North sufficiently to allow Soviet forces time to prepare the defense of
Leningrad. Many of the soldiers who had participated in the operation were rerouted to defend Leningrad or
Moscow. The operation was not a single continuous withdrawal, but was punctuated by short-lived
counterattacks, counterstrokes or
counteroffensives. == Subordinate Red Army formations ==