UKRAINE ADVANCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1944, Page 5

UKRAINE ADVANCE

Nazi East Wall Will Soon Be Under Soviet Fire (N.Z.P.A.—Copyright.— Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, March 7. Marshal Zhukov's tanks and guns to-day are rolling on through a sea of mud towards Tarnopol, the biggest town before Lwow, the junction of four railways, and are pushing on at other points of the big Russian break-through in Western Ukraine, says the British United Press Moscow correspondent. Twenty miles of the Lwow-Odessa railway are already in the hands of the Russians immediately east of Tarnopol. Russian Guards, after straddling the line, swung westwards towards Tarnopol, closely followed by mobile artillery which is already shelling the town's defences. Marshal Zhukov, with the fall of Tarnopol, will be striking at the core of Germany's east wall —the right flank of the European fortress with which Hitler planned to guard the Balkans and Southern Poland.

The speed of the Russian advance has already cut off many German garrisons in Tarnopol area, which are faced with surrender or death. Von Mannstein, within a few days, if not earlier, will have to decide whether to pull his troops out of the Southern Ukraine and move back to the Carpathians or fight on. He has only three secondary railways south-west from the break-through area—one which crosses the Dniester at Tyraspol, 50 miles northwest of Odessa, tbsn runs through Rumania and Budapest! another crossing at Rybnits and a third crossing at Mohilev. These are not enough for an army of 500,000, and in any case wholly inadequate for an army retreating before a determined and wellequipped enemy.