SOUTH OF TARNOPOL
Evening Post, Rōrahi CXXXVII, Putanga 72, 25 Poutūterangi 1944, Page 7
Mō tēnei niupepa
SOUTH OF TARNOPOL
Russians Strike Again
GERMAN ARMIES SPLIT
LONDON, March tt. Russian troops have gone over to the offensive south of Tarnopol' and have taken'the enemy by surprise in an advance of from 40 to 60 miles in this area! More than 400 places have been captured in four days' fighting. The Red Army offensive in south Russia is still gaining momentum, and far to the west Marshal Zhukov's forces have made a surprise attack between Tarnopol and Proskurov, the stronghold which the Germans have been trying to cling on to in an attempt to keep open some link between' their Ukrainian armies and the west. This German effort has collapsed. The Bed Army has broken right through and in the course of the operations more than 400 towns and villages have been captured. In effect this means that the German armies falling back on Poland are utterly divided from the army which Manstein used to command, and that the forces are now fleeing as best they can towards Rumania and the Balkans.
This victory was achieved by Marshal Zhukov's troops of the First Ukrainian Front.
Further down the front the Red Army is keeping up the pressure against the enemy across the Dniester, giving him no time to regroup or man any defence line in Bessarabia; To the east Marshal Koniev's troops are pressing the enemy back towards the River Bug, and the Germans are being thrown back towards Nikolaev.
Dniester in -endless streams, using not only ordinary bridges, but /sntoons and even giant ferry boats wnich the Germans built and abandoned.
Mud is still1 the dominant factor in the manoeuvres, but is 'scarcely delaying the Russians/ whose advance of 185 miles from the Dnieper to the Dniester in 50 days is likely to become a classic military operation. Reuters Moscow correspondent quotes the Russian navy journal "Red Fleet" as saying that the ice above the Gulf of Finland is melting and the fleet is preparing to break into the Baltic and win back all its brles. The fleet also expects to redder direct support to the land troops operating on the Baltic coast.
The German news agency says that the battle for the Crimea opened up with great ferocity yesterday. The Russians attacked the Perekop Isthmus and also Kerch with strong forces.
German reconnaissance had shown that the Red Army had accumulated massive forces for these operations.
