MOHILEV FALLS TO RUSSIANS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 152, 29 June 1944, Page 5

MOHILEV FALLS TO RUSSIANS

Osipovkhi Captured

DNIEPER RIVER FORCED OVER 70-MILE FRONT

(X.Z.P.A. and B.O.W.—Rec. 1 p.m.) _ LONDON, June 28. The fall of Mobilev, a large White Russian regional centre 311 n bastion of the German defence in the direction of Minsk, is announced in a special Order of the Day by Marshal Stalin. Mohiiev is 100 miles due east of Minsk. The Order of the Day, which is addressed to General Zakharov, says: "Troops of the Second White Russian Front have forced the Dnieper River over a 70-mile front, penetrated the Germans' second defence line on the west bank of the Dnieper and carried by assault the large regional centre of Mohiiev. The troops also captured Bykhov, 30 miles south of Mohiiev."' In a second Order of the Day, addressed to General Rokossovskv, Marshal Stalin says: "Troops of the First White Russian Front, developing a swift offensive, captured through a deep outflanking movement, the important, town and railway centre of Gsipovichi, thus completing the encirclement of the German aroun at Bobruisk." More and more battered German units, driven from their positions on the "White Russian Wall," are being headed off as the\ attempt to withdraw within the shelter of their Beresina Ri\ er switch line, says Reuters Moscow correspondent. General Rokossovsky s movement swinging up from the Pripei. Marshes sector, below the confluence of the Beresina and Dnieper Ri\ers, has turned the switch line at the southern end and got well behind Bobruisk. The five German divisions, which his brilliant outflanking stroke has surrounded, are now fighting for their li\ es in an ever-shrinking space and leaving a large sector of the Beresina River unprotected. The Germans prospects of putting up an organised defence on the Beresina line, on which they have expended over one year s labour. is dwindling hourly as its strong points are imperilled and the numbers of its potential defenders are being reduced bv being cut off. The British Lnited Press Moscow correspondent says that all the main roads and highways converging on Minsk from the east ha's e already been cut. The Red Army s rapid advance is se\ ering ah German communications, which might have been used for pulling the enemy troops out of the noose which is fast closing around them. . Hundreds of thousands of Germans are threatened with encirc;ement in the Orsha-Bobruisk-Minsk triangle, says Reuters correspondent in Moscow. The Red Army, pursuing the broken remnants of the German forces from Orsha, has reached points under _?0 miles from Borisov, their last important station before Minsk on the Moscow-Warsaw railway.