BREAKING, SAYS MOSCOW

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 260, 30 July 1941, Page 7

BREAKING, SAYS MOSCOW

The Main Offensive SHARP CONTRAST TO NAZI CLAIM (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, July 29. A Moscow communique states: “The enemy offensive in the direction of Smolensk and Jitomir is breaking against the stubborness of our troops. At some points we have been energetically counter-attack-ing and inflicting heavy losses. There have been no important battles elsewhere.” Yesterday’s German communique said: “The Battle of Smolensk is nearing a successful conclusion and all attempts to prevent annihilation of the encircled Soviet forces have been frustrated. In the Ukraine we are constantly pressing the retreating enemy. German and Finnish troops have gained .further ground in face of stubborn resistance.”

The Berlin news agency stated that the destruction of the Russians in the Mohilev area proceeded rapidly yesterday, when the Germans took prisoner a further 23,000 men, making a total of 35,000. Axis claims that Finnish troops, by making a wide detour, have reached the suburbs of Leningrad are replied to by the Berlin correspondent of the Swiss “Neue Zuercher Zeitung,” who says that the German and Finnish forces are still at least 90 miles from Leningrad. He says that the Germans in the Lake Peipus (Peipsi) sector to the south have been forced to withdraw at one point.

A Russian communique stated that a Finnish battle-cruiser was bombed. Soviet pilots reported that direct hits were followed by powerful explosions. One German transport and a barge proceeding to Finland with war materials were also sunk by the air force. Moscow later officially announced: “Coastal defences and the Baltic fleet air arm sank one enemy destroyer end two patrol vessels. We lost a destroyer.” The Soviet air force again attacked concentrations of enemy troops and also planes grounded on enemy aerodromes. Moscow Shielded Again. It is announced that 150 enemy planes attempted to bomb Moscow last night, but only four or five got through. At least nine were shot down. Berlin states that the Soviet Black Sea port fof Odessa was bombed, causing fires. According to a report by Reuter from neutral sources, Germany, as a result of underestimating the problem of her losses, is already short of medical supplies. A letter from a German soldier on the Eastern Front says: “This is the worst war Germany has had to fight. It is a war to win or perish, against soldiers who fight on even in a hopeless position.”

NO CONFIRMATION OF ADVANCES

Germans And Finns LONDON, July 28.

Assessment of all reports suggests that the Russo-German war is stationary from the Arctic at least to the Ukraine, and probably to the Black Sea.

It is now nearly three weeks since the Russians mentioned any new area of operations, apart from Jitom'ir, which, is merely an extension of the Novograd-Volynsk area.

The Germans today are mentioning fighting south-east and west of Vyazma, 100 miles north-east of Smolensk, and it is pointed out in London that Smolensk, Bobruisk, and Mohilev might all be included in this phrase. They are all a long way from Vyazma, and no confirmation is forthcoming that fighting is occurring any nearer to that point than at these three towns. The Northern Sectors. German-Finnish propaganda continues to insist on the most sweeping claims in the attack against Leningrad, but there is no confirmation of this from elsewhere. The Finns, according to the Stockholm correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain, make the biggest claims, declaring that they have smashed down the southern shores of Lake Ladoga and reached the outskirts of Leningrad and have now straddled the railways running east and south-east from Leningrad to Vologda and Moscow. The Germans, according to the same source, have been reinforced by tanks and infantry in the Porkhov zone southeast of Lake Peipus, and are attacking along the iShelon River. Official Finnish claims have merely stated: “The Finns in north Karelia have successfully completed another large-scale encircling operation which yielded a large amount of war material. The offensive is proceeding satisfactorily, according to plan, on all fronts.” There is also no confirmation of these claims. Far North Failure. Murmansk, according to the Stockholm correspondent of “The Times,” is safer now than it was at the outbreak of the war, and the main defences are being engaged only by air. The terrain, including bogs which are infested by mosquitoes, apparently has held the invaders at the Russian outposts here and in the Kandalaksha sector.

The Murmansk-Leningrad railway is ritill intact, but occasionally suffers damage which is soon repaired. The most serious threat to this railway is the attack toward Lake Onega, northeast of Lake Ladoga. The fighting in this sector in the past fortnight has resulted in heavy losses to both sides, and great numbers of Finnish wounded are intensifying the gloom inside Finland.

The Finns have captured a stretch along the north Shore of Lake Ladoga, but the Russians apparently hold a strip on the western shore south of Sortavala. The Finns captured Pitkaranta and Salmi (which they occupied by a surprise landing from the lake), and crossed the old frontier near the coast, but they have not advanced more than a few miles toward Olonets, on the eastern shore of the lake. The Finns’ progress toward Petrozavodsk is also slow, though this is apparently their most determined thrust. In Central Estonia. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that the Russians apparently hold the greater part of the eastern shore of Lake Peipus, and possibly the northern half of the western shore. The Russians certainly yesterday held the central regions of Estonia, and apparently the northern coast, including Baltiski, Tallinn, an'd Narua. Thus the encirclement of Leningrad

has not made much progress since the middle of July, and any talk of its capture in the near future is sheer nonsense. v

A Russian dispatch from the front line said that a battle on the Finnish front which lasted for 13 days resulted in half of a German infantry division being wipe'd out,. and the other half routed.

The German radio today contradicted other German contentions of a continuous and rapid advance, and also the statement that the Russians have thrown in their last reserves. “The Russians are fighting with fanatical fatalism,” it was stated, “constantly throwing in enormous reserves of men and material.”

The German news agency has again mentioned ba'd weather, and other German accounts mention swampy ground and the battle against Nature as difficulties mot with by the German soldiers.