NEW DEFENCES IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22533, 15 October 1938, Page 17

NEW DEFENCES IN RUSSIA

—. —+ PLANS FOR WESTERN FRONTIER GREAT FORTIFICATIONS TO BE BUILT NEW YORK, October 13. The Washington correspondent of the Associated Press states that reliable reports that the Soviet is hastening the construction of a vast artificial "No Man's Land" across its western frontier as a first line of defence against Germany have reached diplomatic circles here. The Soviet, seeing the collapse of its efforts for an international barricade to the eastward round Germany, has virtually dropped everything else to protect the Ukrainian wheat and coal fields from an invasion. The programme, which is designed to slow down and finally halt an approaching army, is dovetailed into the natural defences of distance and lack of communication. The programme provides for the following:— (1) The deforestation of a belt ranging for several hundred miles between the Soviet and Rumania, Polaid, Latvia, and Estonia. (2) The depopulation of the area and the resettlement of part of the evacuated towns and farms with trusted Red Army men and women posing as peasants and workers while guarding the frontiers' and checking illegal entry. (3) The destruction or mining of bridges, roads, and railways. (4) The construction of a formidable "Maginot Line" on the western boundary quarantine belt. (5) The speeding up of railway arid highway building behind the line,to facilitate the transfer of supplies and troops. (6) The development behind the area of huge military concentration centres and well fortified and provisioned air bases.