NEARING MOSCOW

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 5, 17 October 1941, Page 5

NEARING MOSCOW

ENEMY AT THE APPROACHES. INCREASING PRESSURE EXERTED NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY. (Rec. 11.5 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 16. After reading the latest Russian comnmnique the Moscow radio declared: “A serious threat to Moscow has thus arisen. The corpses of hundreds of thousands .of German officers and soldiers and many hundreds of German tanks and aeroplanes strew the battlefield, but, availing himself of his numerical superiority on the central front, the enemy has increased his pressure and is now nearing the approaches to Moscow, and not the distant approaches. The enemy hopes to disarm the Soviet people, but the Soviet people cannot be frightened. They know they are fighting for a. just cause. Moscow’s workers are forming detachments with which to fill in the ranks of the Red Army. The people of Moscow, like the citizens of Leningrad and Odessa, will defend their native town, arms in hand. The reserves at the disposal df the Soviet are enormous. The enemy has temporarily seized important regions, but we have many other centres of war industry of the greatest importance. We are stronger than, the enemy. Comrades, fight to the last drop of blood for every inch of the soil.”

The Teheran correspondent of the .Associated Press says it is authoritatively reported that the Russian Government is prepared to move to Kazan, where the British and American Embassies have maintained skeleton' staffs since July. Other nations have also sent their representatives to Kazan. It is learned that most of the foreign diplomatic colony is now leaving Moscow, fearing German encirclement of the capital. It is announced in Tokio that the Japanese Embassy left Moscow for an undisclosed destination. A Berlin communique says: “Fighting is proceeding at several points on Moscow’s outer defence line, about 62 miles from Moscow. Kaluga and Kalinin have been in our hands for several days.”