That latter assertion that may not be justified. Kirponos was obliged to conduct hasty attacks in the first few days of the invasion, but the attack he conducted on 26 June was reasonably well prepared. When that failed Stavka approved the withdrawal to the Stalin Line on 30 June. Kirponos was an aggressively minded commander and I am unaware of any serious disagreements with Stavka in July. During the second week of July Kirponos was, perhaps understandably, preoccupied with Mackensen’s advance from Zhitomir towards Kiev. It was only on 15 July when Kempf’s corps reached Kazatin that Kirponos recognised the encirclement threat to his Front’s southern wing, and within 48 hours he had begun to prepare plans to pull the threatened armies back to the Dnepr. But by then Kempf’s forces had advanced a further 100km southeast and were less than 100km from Uman. Kirponos was authorised to conduct a partial withdrawal to the east and Second Mechanised Corps was transferred north from Southern Front on 19 July. By then, with the bulk of First Panzer Group advancing to the southeast from the Zhashkiv area north of Uman, and Seventeenth Army’s mountain corps advancing south of Vinnytsya between the Bug and Dnestr, Kirponos’ options were to either to try to break out to the east in conjunction with 26 Army attacks from the west, or to retreat to the southeast towards Pervomaysk and into the Southern Front zone. The latter would have required Stavka approval but since Sixth and Twelfth Armies were subordinated to Southern Front six days later anyway, it seems unlikely Stavka would have refused. Kirponos chose to have Podenelin try to break out to the east and on 21 July ordered 26 Army to redirect its attacks from the northwest to the southwest in the direction of Uman.TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑05 Jul 2020 07:27The early battles between Rundstedt and Kirponos were marked by the latter's need to comply with deluded demands to drive to Lublin and to launch counterattacks wily-nily, before proper assembly of forces. Absent Stavka's interference, Uman never would have happened and Southwest Front would have retreated in good order
I have seen nothing to suggest that Kirponos’ operational options in the period 15-25 July were constrained by either Stavka or Budenny’s new Southwestern Direction Command. After 25 July the fate of Ponedelin’s forces were no longer Kirponos’ operational responsibility.
