I don't liberate nations since I don't want to deal with the 5% dissent that comes with it...
How large of a Luftwaffe did you have? CAS on Interdiction are incredibly useful against just about anything on the ground. For me, I've determined that air is the way to go, having observed the crushing superiority the Allies will gain over time. So, I laid out the goals of creating air superiority over Europe, and using that to whittle down the English...who were invaded, via air, in September 1940. That's where a lot of my industry comes from, jolly old England. And they were reduced to a base industry of 47, their airforce chopped down to 7, and later, to 4.
5 November 1940
I don't have screens of the '41 air power (too lazy to go in to the game), but I'm locked with the US in a struggle. Problem is, they have mostly bombers, and the Brits can't support them with fighters.
Okay, so I went and talked about my game. But what I mean is that with air power, you could probably have reduced those Russians much quicker, and if possible, say, reduce the pocket to the point where there are several interconnected pockets that make it up, set your CAS to interdiction and move in from as many sides as possible. If they all end up disorganized, by the time your troops actually take the land, they'll have the Russians captured.
I haven't, however, matched something of the magnitude you have. I have pushed far in to the Ukraine and then swung north, but by that time I'd take a good deal of Nordukraine, and was advancing on Moscow in the Central Army Group. However, only two Panzer divisions were there for it, and they just got bogged down. Panzergruppe Manstein (not you!) took Kharkov and sought to meet up with Model and Rundstedt at Klintsy, but these attacks were repulsed. Manstein was disorganized from being on a nonstop advance, Model possessed one Panzer division and the infantry, including Heeresgruppe A under FM Rundstedt, were lagging behind. The Soviets managed to slip through and reinforce for the coming Operation Typhoon, but several divisions stayed trapped in the pocket after Klintsy was taken. They were wiped out, and that put me in position for Unternehmen Typhoon...the thrust against Moscow and my last major offensive on the Eastern Front in 1941.