Only Five Miles From Kharkov

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 39, 16 February 1943, Page 3

Only Five Miles From Kharkov

ADVANCING RUSSIANS

Spectacular Break-Up Of Axis In Donetz Basin

(New Zealand Press Association.—Copyright.—Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, February 15. While the fall of Kharkov is apparently imminent, the Russians have begun a pincer movement designed to trap , the Germans eastward of the line between Stalino and Mariupol. The Russian columns which captured Krasnoarmeysk, the focal» point of the German "hedgehog" system, are advancing towards the Sea of Azov, the powerful Red armies freed from Rostov are thrusting towards Taganrog, and the captors of Voroshilovgrad are driving against Stalino. Moscow correspondents emphasise that the disintegration of the Germans in the Donetz Basin is at present more spectacular even than the struggle for Kharkov, the German armies in the south being compressed and menaced by another Stalingrad debacle. Their only way of escape is being hourly restricted. Under Red Air Force and Artillery Bombardments The German retreat in this region must be along the coast road to Taganrog or by a circuitous single-track railway via Stalino to the River Dneiper, both of which either the Red Air Force is constantly bombing or long-range artillery is bombarding. A proportion of the Germans will certainly escape, but the Nazis must abandon immense quantities of heavy equipment. The German news agency's military commentator, Captain Sertorius, broadcasting to-night, confessed that not only had Rostov and Voroshilovgrad been evacuated, but also the whole of the area between them. "The new German line is two-thirds shorter than the old one," he added. Besides the growing threat to the important Axis supply base at Kharkov, from which the Russians are only five miles distant, General GolikofFs men, after the capture of Kursk, have been steadily working westward. Furthermore, the Germans are nervous regarding the renewed Russian thrust in the central sectors.