ACTIVITY BY SOVIET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 123, 6 March 1941, Page 5

ACTIVITY BY SOVIET.

DEFENCES ON GERMAN FRONTIER j t UNDISGUISED HOSTILITY. (United Press Association—Copyright.. LONDON, March 5. The Lisbon correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that a party of Catholic clergy, who arrived from Lithuania, reported that Russia, had completely cut off Lithuania’s foreign news sources. They said that Kaunas was an armed camp, full of troops occupying every important building. Russians and Germans face each oilier across the frontier with undisguised hostility. Both were rapidly completing fortifications and evacuating frontier zones. * Russian officials freely boast of tho day when the Soviet will over-run a defeated Germany. • Civilians on the Russian side have been evacuated for a distance of 15 miles from the frontier, and the Germans have evacuated a zone .a mile deep. Thousands of workers on both sides are building concrete defence works, digging trenches, and erecting barbed wire. The Soviet has ordered a. black-out in Odessa, Kishinev, and Czernowitz, and more motorised units of the Red Army have moved up to the frontier at Kiev. The general conclusion in London is that it is futile to pretend that the Soviet Note to Bulgaria means any change in Russian policy. The Turks interpret Russia’s most recent declarations as meaning that she is not disposed to go to war for Balkan interests until Germany is seri-, oUsly weakened, for which reason it is felt that should Turkey resist strongly Russia would not be displeased. The Yugoslav press gave prominence to the Russian Note, which is regarded as a Russian guarantee to Turkey that she would not stab Turkey in the back if she moved against the German's. Russia has reinforced her troops on the frontier of Rumania, where mobilisation is proceeding swiftly under the direction of members of the German staff, states the Sofia correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain. Lines of German motorised units, some 50 miles long, continue to pour southward through the three main Balkan mountain passes.