About the book: 2021 / 1943 - the year of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War. The strategic initiative captured after the Battle of Kursk was not relinquished by the Red Army until the very end of the military confrontation with Nazi Germany. But during the battle on the Kursk Bulge, the warring parties tried to tip the balance of March 1943 in the southern sector of the front. After the Stalingrad victory and a series of successful offensive operations at the beginning of the year, Soviet troops in the Donbass and near Kharkov suffered defeat, which resulted in the formation of the Kursk salient and the strategic balance that was resolved during the Battle of Kursk in Soviet favor. Why did the impressive successes of the Red Army turn into failure? What reasons led to the fact that the next battle for Kharkov again ended in the defeat of our troops? Based on documents, memoirs of direct participants in the events on both sides, and the works of modern military historians, the author provides answers to these questions..