The Southwestern Front, under the command of General Mikhail Kirponos, had received incomplete intelligence on the size and direction of the German attack. It deployed two corps forward and advanced between Lviv and Rovno in an attempt to cut the Lviv–Kiev railway line, thus driving a wedge along junction point between the Soviet 5th and 6th Armies. The 1st Panzer Group, led by Generaloberst Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, was ordered to secure the Bug River crossings and advance to Rovno and Korosten with the strategic objective of Kiev. Poor Soviet logistics, German air supremacy and a total breakdown in Red Army command and control ensured victory for the Wehrmacht despite overwhelming Red Army numerical and technological superiority.

Although the Red Army formations inflicted heavy losses on the German forces, they were outmanoeuvred and suffered enormous losses in tanks. It is known in Soviet historiography as one of the 'border defensive battles'.

It is by far the battle with the largest number of tanks participating (incorrectly, the Battle of Prokhorovka, colloquially referred to as the 'Battle of Kursk', is seen as the biggest tank battle). It was one of the most intense armored engagements in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa, and some say that it may surpass the more famous Battle of Prokhorovka. The Battle of Brody (other names in use include Battle of Dubna, Battle of Dubno, Battle of Rovne, Battle of Rovne-Brody) was a tank battle fought between the 1st Panzer Group's III Army Corps and XLVIII Army Corps (Motorized) and five mechanized corps of the Soviet 5th Army and 6th Army in the triangle formed by the towns of Dubno, Lutsk and Brody between 23 and 30 June 1941.

Tanks in the battle or kursk