Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Battle of the Dnieper took place in 1943 on the Eastern Front of the Second World War. The operation began on the 26th of August 1943 and continued for about four months, involving five Red Army fronts.
The Battle of the Dnieper involved almost four million troops at its peak, spread across a front stretching 1,400 kilometers between Smolensk and the Sea of Azov. The Soviet side alone committed 2,650,000 personnel, 51,000 guns and mortars, 2,400 tanks and 2,850 planes to the operation.
Erich von Manstein commanded German Army Group South during the battle, and Adolf Hitler ordered the retreat to the Dnieper defense line on the 15th of September 1943. On the Soviet side, fronts were led by commanders including Konstantin Rokossovsky, Nikolai Vatutin, Ivan Konev, Rodion Malinovsky and Fyodor Tolbukhin, under the overall direction of Joseph Stalin.
The Dnieper airborne operation was a Soviet assault launched on the 21st of September 1943, using the Voronezh Front's 1st, 3rd and 5th Guards Airborne Brigades. Poor planning and chaotic execution scattered the drop over 30 by 90 kilometers instead of the intended 10 by 14 kilometers, and more than sixty percent of the paratroopers never returned.
2,438 Red Army soldiers were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for their part in the Battle of the Dnieper.
The Battle of the Dnieper forced the Wehrmacht to retreat and restabilize its front further west, while Soviet gains helped give Stalin a strong negotiating position at the Tehran Conference between the 28th of November and the 1st of December 1943. The Red Army then launched the Dnieper-Carpathian Offensive on the 24th of December 1943 from a bridgehead west of Kiev, eventually splitting German Army Group South in two.