RUSSIANS MAINTAIN COUNTER-ATTACKS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 167, 17 July 1941, Page 7

RUSSIANS MAINTAIN COUNTER-ATTACKS

on north raoivrs

Immense German Pressure Towards Kiev I'nitfU I'n'ss Association. —fopj-risht. Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, July 16. Across battlefields heaped with dead, blackened ruins and countless machines, the Russians are vigorously maintaining their counterattacks on the outermost defence rings of Leningrad and Moscow. The fifth day of the Germans' second offensive brought only one specific claim to progress, the Berlin news agency declaring that a column flanking the southern end of Lake Peipus had reached a point near Byelaya, within 130 miles of Leningrad.

Otherwise German propagandists continue hourly to annihilate the Soviet, armed forces with colourful but vague stories which might almost be duplicates of those distributed last week or earlier.

' The Times" military correspondent says that so far as is know in London German propaganda has gone considerably further than the German troops. In the Kiev sector it is undeniable that the general situation is tense, and the Germans are putting in tremendous weight, employing all the artifices of their well-planned and thoroughly-tested organisation. They have made great advances, and there is no sign that their progress has yet been dfinitelv halted.

However, nothing that the Germans have yet accomplished can be described as decisive, or perhaps even as substantial, in view of the size of their effort and expenditure in men ana materials.

RUSSIAN ANTHEM Rec. 2 p.m. SYDNEY, this day. The Russian National Anthem will in future be a regular feature of the national radio programmes in the Commonwealth, it was officially announced to-day.