RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE GROWS IN MOMENTUM

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 58, 9 March 1944, Page 5

RUSSIAN OFFENSIVE GROWS IN MOMENTUM

SOUTHERN SECTOR

Familiar Tactics To Take

Tarnopol

N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 12.30 p.m. LONDON, Mar. 8. The Russian offensive in the southern sector front has greatly increased in momentum since noon yesterday, says Berlin radio. Paris radio describes the battle raging in the Ukraine as on a scale so vast that all other fighting in Russia, however violent, seems purely local. Berlin radio mentions also battles south-west of Krivoi Rog, "where the Russian forces have broken into the German lines," and adds that Russian divisions are attacking on the central front between Beresina and the Dnieper, and almost uninterrupted attacks are being launched along the main artery leading from Smolensk to Orsha.

Von Mannstein, Nazi Commander, is throwing in all his available forces against Marshal Zhukov's big thrust in Tarnopol area, states the British United Press correspondent at Moscow. Unless the Germans are able to hold the Russian advance in this area, he says, the whole of their positions around .Jmerinka and Vinnitsa, which is the control point of the Odessa line, will have been outflanked. Zhukov's Tactics Marshal Zhukov's tactics in the drive for Tarnopol follow the familiar Russian pattern. One force is driving north-west around the city, while a second, which is possibly the main force, is preparing to push in from a position south of the city to deliver the knock-out blow. This is designed not only to take Tarnopol, but to cut off defenders as they flee to Lwow.

The Russians are beating the mud and weather to a great extent by improvisation. They at one point packed infantry on sledges, to which they attached a "locomotive," a form of half-track vehicle, and thus pulled the train across a swamp, making a successful attack and forcing the Germans back. The Germans are now rushing up planes, besides infantry and tank reinforcements.

On Other Sectors Concerning other sectors the only information at present available comes from German sources. Berlin radio's commentator, von Hammer, said that several Russian infantry divisions were attacking south of Bobruisk, on the River Beresina. They had succeeded, after dogged fighting, in penetrating the advanced German defence zone at several points, but were thrown back. The Russians again attacked the German lines on both sides of the SmolenskOrsha motor road a\l yesterday, but the Germans scored a defensive success.

To-night's Russian communique says that troops of the First Ukrainian Front, continuing their offensive, occupied the district centre of Kamenetzpodolsk, in the region of ChernyOstrov, which is 11 miles north-west of Proskurov, also over 100 inhabited localities. "Our troops closed in on the town of Starokonstantinov, 50 miles north-east of Voloshysk and are now fighting in the suburbs."