Measures to increase readiness of second-echelon forces were taken as welclass="underline" each regiment to have ready ammunition kept directly with the subunits, and half of the ammunition allocated to machine guns to be loaded into disks and belts; half of hand grenades, artillery, and mortar ammunition to be directly distributed to the units; all vehicles to be topped off and a quantity of fuel sufficient for one refuel to be kept with them in cans.
Approximately a day after Kirponos instructed small units to occupy the fortified districts, a telegram arrived from the General Staff. In no uncertain terms, Kirponos was chastised for possibly giving Germans the pretext for an armed clash. Kirponos was ordered to immediately cancel these orders and return the units to their garrisons. Kirponos and his staff later found out that his initiative was undermined by someone at the headquarters of the NKVD border guards, who had an additional task of making sure that no actions to provoke the Germans were taken. As it were, this incident completely snubbed out Kirponos’ initiative to take prudent precautionary measures. Heavily weighing on Kirponos’ mind was the understanding that Stalin personally considered Ukraine as a strategically vital area. According to Zhukov:
J. V. Stalin was convinced that during the war with the Soviet Union, the Hitlerites will be striving first to capture the Ukraine, the Donetsk basin, in order to deny our country the most important economic regions and capture the Ukrainian grain, Donetsk coal, and then—oil from Caucasus. While considering this operational plan in the spring of 1941, J. V. Stalin said: “Without these vital resources the Fascist Germany could not wage a prolonged and large-scale war.” These considerations were signed off on in February 1941, and these plans became known as MP-41. While updating the operations plans in the spring of 1941 (February to April), we did not completely correct this oversight and did not allocate sufficiently large forces for the western [Belorussian] direction.[29]
Kirponos was torn between wishing to do his best to protect the vital areas as outlined by Stalin and, at the same time, realizing that his measures were not enough, not wanting to be labeled as an alarmist.
However, some of Kirponos’ subordinate commanders were secretly making their own preparations. Around this time, commissar of the VIII Mechanized Corps, Nikolai Popel, visited his friend, commander of the Twenty-Sixth Army, Maj. Gen. Ivan N. Muzychenko, at latter’s headquarters in Drogobych. During a frank conversation, Muzychenko told his friend: “Between us, I moved infantry from garrisons into fortified districts. I’m not in a hurry to report this to my superiors. Don’t want to be labeled panic-monger.”[30] Likewise, Popel’s own commander, Lt. Gen. D. I. Ryabyshev, under his own authority and also not reporting to higher echelon, moved parts of each regiment in his corps to their staging areas.[31]
Officers from subordinate armies continued bombarding Kirponos with warnings of increased German activity and questions about when they could take up positions in the fortified districts. Kirponos, while agreeing with them, could not give them concrete answers, other than reassuring them that Moscow knows what it’s doing.
However, from senior officers down to the lower-ranking ones, few doubted what was coming. Lieutenant Arkhipenko wrote:
In the spring of 1941, German reconnaissance planes constantly violated our border and conducted reconnaissance flights over the Soviet territory and our airfield, but there were instructions not to shoot them down and not even to scare them, but only escort them to the border. Everything was done as to postpone [emphasis added] the war, prevent the development of attempted German provocation.[32]
In an attempt to allay growing concerns and fears, Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) published a statement on June 14, 1941. In this officially sanctioned statement, the Soviet government categorically denied worsening relations between Germany and the Soviet Union and reiterated wishes of both governments in maintaining peaceful coexistence. However, this statement only served to further bewilder those Soviet officers in key positions and those deployed along the border, who were well aware that what they saw daily with their eyes did not match rosy official prognostications.
In Moscow, Timoshenko and Zhukov continued to practically beg Stalin to take steps that would effectively amount to mobilization. After an especially trying meeting, Stalin blew up at his senior military advisors: “Are you suggesting that the country mobilizes, raises troops and moves them to the western borders? But this means war! Do you two understand this or not?”[33]
Finally, Stalin partially relented:
Moscow, of course, knew the situation on the other side of the border better than we did, and our supreme military command took actions. On June 15th we received orders to begin moving all five rifle corps of the second echelon closer to the border on June 17th. We had everything ready for this since beginning of May…. [Each] corps was given two to three days to get ready for the force march. Some of divisions were to set off in the evening of June 17th, the rest—a day later. They were to take with them everything needed for combat operations. As a measure of concealment, the troops were to move only at night. They would need a total of eight to twelve night stages.[34]
In order to prevent the Germans from finding out about these movements, the reserve corps were to take up positions not at the border, but several marches to the east. The XXXI Rifle Corps, leaving Korosten area, was to reach Kovel by morning of June 28. The XXXVI Rifle Corps was to arrive in Dubno-Kremenets area by morning of June 27. The other three reserve rifle corps were also given similar time tables.
On June 19, Major General Ponedelin, commanding the Twelfth Army, requested clarification in which instances he could open fire on German aircraft violating Soviet air space. General Kirponos permitted opening fire only in the following situations: “a) with special permission by the Military Council of the District, b) with announcement of mobilization, c) with activation of covering plan, unless specifically forbidden.”[35] This amounted pretty much to “when the war starts.” Kirponos also offered a pointed reminder to Ponedelin and his staff: “The Military Council of the Twelfth Army knows that we do not open antiaircraft fire on German aircraft during peacetime.”
Also on June 19, a telegram arrived from Zhukov informing them that Timoshenko ordered to redesignate peacetime Kiev Special Military District into wartime South-Western Front. Front’s command element was to move to its wartime command post in Tarnopol by June 22. Of course, neither Zhukov nor Timoshenko knew that this command post had not been established as previously ordered. The move was to be carried out in compete secrecy. In order to speed up the process and conceal it from the enemy, command element was to move in two parts—by railroad and by car. Those leaving by railroad were to depart in the evening of June 20, those in the wheeled convoy, in the morning of June 21.