SOVIET OFFENSIVE SMASHES FORWARD

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 207, 1 September 1943, Page 3

SOVIET OFFENSIVE SMASHES FORWARD

(N.Z.P.A Copyright. Rec. noon.) , j j LONDON, August 31. . From the Smolensk front southward to the Sea of Azov the Russian offensive is smashing forward in a series of thrusts co-ordinated under a vast master plan. This is becoming increasingly obvious from the succession of Orders of the Day 11 and communiques in which Marshal Stalin announces the capture of key points hundreds of miles apart, but correlated in the 1 j Russian objective of freeing the Ukraine. An Order of the Day by Marshal Stalin this afternoon f, | announced the capture of Yelnia, 50 miles south-east of Smolensk. In a second Order of the Day he announced that Russians in the Sevsk area had captured Glukhov and Rylsk and broken through into Northern Ukraine. j I Still later in the evening an official Moscow announcement stated that the Russians had captured Dorogobuji, 50 miles to the east of Smolensk, and Valki, 20 miles west of Kharkov. The communiques show that massive blows against strategic points along the front are timed to give the hard-pressed Germans no opportunity to move strategic reserves or transfer their forces from point to point. They also indicate that the Russians are now concentrating the strength of their air force, armoured divisions and army against the wider objective of smashing the German military power on the Eastern Front and forcing a victory.