The 1st-2nd of July
At midnight, German pressure on Kowel and Jelgava started to decline. Considering that the thrust towards Jelgava was a diversionary attack at most, it was only logical to cease it after the Soviet 2nd Army was no longer threatening the Axis (as there was only one german division present there at the time) positions in Siauliau. With Soviet aircraft interdicting the Axis logistics convoys, however, they could not thrust forward towards Kaunas and cut off the retreating 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Mechanized Army. For now, it seemed that Lithuania would remain safe for a while, which was all Stavka needed, as the Leningrad Front was frantically being shipped southwards. Because of this, Marshal Gorodovikov, commander of the Strategic Reserve (5 mobile cavalry divisions) was suddenly ordered to march southwards to the Ukraine.
Indeed, despite the brief cooling off in Kowel, the area was a real troublespot. Kowel had been under sporadic German attacks since the start of the war, and despite no strategic bridgehead being formed on the Bug, the Germans had managed to threaten the city itself at times. Meretskov, in a Stavka meeting on the 1st, summed up Soviet intentions for the coming month: "
... the German presence beyond the Bug is an inevitability. While we can order Zhukov to hold Kowel tooth and nail, it would be a futile gesture with German troops already marching towards Stryj, where they can nicely flank around Kowel and strike it from the south through Lvov. No, our best bet is a slow retreat throughout the month - very very slow in the Baltics, as we are already a short distance from the Stalin line there, and a bit faster in the Ukraine and Belorussia... where land is not as important. Unfortunately, given our earlier defeat at Bielsk, retreat from Kowel would also mean abandoning Brest as it would become a strategic liability. I propose we spend the week on a retreat to the Stanislavov-Grodno line, where we can reassess the situation and hope that we can counterattack the fascists when their logistics are struggling to keep up. Even if that should fail, we have a lot of room behind our backs..."
General Kirill Meretskov
However, there was another subject of discussion in Stavka at the 1st of July: Romania. After the Romanian presence in Lithuania was noticed, Stavka turned devoted some attention to the Romanian front, which had so far seen almost no combat apart from small skirmishes. Now Stavka realized they had been given an intel report on the 23rd, which detailed the Romanian formations defending the border. To Meretskovs suprise, it said that the total amount of troops on the Soviet-Romanian border was maximally 100 000 men. Compared to the total of some 400 000 men present in the 2nd Ukrainian Front, it was no force to hold out against a determined attack. As Meretskov was the nominal head of the Front, he immediately ordered an attack into Romania in the direction of Jassy. Hopes were high that a quick victory before a slow retreat would not only boost Soviet morale, but also damage Romanian.
By noon, a larger Axis offensive once again alarmed Soviet units in Lithuania and Ukraine. Starting with an ill-fated Luftwaffe attempt to establish air dominance over Lithuania that collided with well protected Soviet bomber and CAS fleets as well as a full fighter fleet, the Wehrmacht once more attempted to take Kowel, as well as pressure Soviet formations in Lithuania. The German attack in Alytus was of little importance as it did little less than skirmish with rear guards of the 1st Mechanized Army on their way to Kaunas, but Kowel was a different matter. Field Marshal von Kluge lead the German Panzergruppe on another strike over the Bug, and many Soviet units had already been retreating earlier. The 8th Army was in terrible shape, only mustering one corps (the 31st) to the defense of Kowel. All the rest was handled by Zhukov's 2nd Mechanized Army.
General Shtern, the commander of the Western Front, decided that even though Brest was to be abandoned eventually and both his 9th and 8th Armies would be out of commission for quite a while, having to rely on Zhukov's 2nd Mechanized for help, he could still do something to help Kowel. At nightfall, all artillery elements of the 9th Army around Brest opened fire upon the German formations on the other side of the Bug. This had a profound effect - German logistics supporting the Kowel thrust ran very close to the river, and it also caused panic in the OKW, believing it to be a preparatory barrage for a counterattack over the Bug.
At midnight, the situation in the Baltics once again heated up. Seeing a wide Soviet retreat and no doubt knowing what the arrival of the Leningrad Front would mean, the OKW decided their diversionary attack against Jelgava must carry on into a full scale offensive. The 12th Army would hold on for now, but waiting for the Leningrad Front to save the day seemed like a harder task than at first imagined. Luckily, the 69th Mountaineer division arrived from finland via ships to assist the situation on the afternoon of the 2nd of July, but it was summoned hastily and was little more than a gap-plugger.
Perhaps more importantly, the german thrust into Lithuania seeked to capitalize as much as possible from the retreat of the Soviets. With the route to Kaunas blocked now, the bridges over Niemen with it, the Wehrmacht seeked to conquer the bridges in Alytus itself. Knowing that losing the bridges in Alytus would mean a German attack BEHIND Kaunas itself, Konev organized a counterattack during the night. In a clever move, he covered the retreat of slower and softer units over the Alytus bridges from the north without the Germans actually knowing it. With a clear path of retreat over bridges in Prieniai and Kaunas itself, Konev could feel confident that his counterattack would throw the germans off balance as well as buy more valuable time for the Leningrad Front to arrive.
With the last troops over the Niemen at Alytus by 2 o'clock, the Germans swept in to quickly claim the bridges before the Soviets could demolish them. A heroic defense kept the bridges safe for long enough for a full german division to occupy the western bank of the Niemen in the area. Konev struck at the rear of those German formations with his 17th and 16th Tank Divisions. The german infantry there was immediately thrown into chaos, quickly disengagin the bridge defenders and struggling to present an adequate defense against the Soviet tanks until the German reinforcements could arrive at dawn. In a brutal battle, the German 46th Infantry division was pinned down by Konev, allowing the bridges over the Niemen to be destroyed and leaving the germans with only one viable route over the river in the area - Kaunas itself. Despite the 46th being relieved by the 11th Panzer by dawn, it was a great maneuver by Konev to keep the Germans on their toes and slow their advance. Alytus was occupied by the Germans soon enough, but the battles cost them another two thousand men and amounted to a strategic dead end.
At 3 o'clock, Soviet units crossed the Romanian border and immediately clashed with the divisions defendign Jassy. While the town, being very close to the border, was being sieged by soviet infantry, the spearhead unit of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, the 212th Motorized Division, led by Mj. General Vershinin, struck southwest to try to prevent assistance arriving to the outnumbered Romanians. Jassy itself was abandoned by the Romanians, however, who retreated southwards. The area itself was far from secure, however, and Meretskov decided to continue the operation throughout the week.