GROWING POWER OF OFFENSIVE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 111, 4 February 1943, Page 5

GROWING POWER OF OFFENSIVE

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, February 2.

With Rostov coming witbin range of heavy guns and the Red armies menacing many key points of the German communications, Russia’s gigantic winter offensive looks more formidable than at any time since it started In the middle of November. The Russians are now fast approaching the'lines from which the Germans launched the campaign which Hitler declared would be decisive. Moscow correspondents say that the Voronezh offensive threatens to break through behind the Germans on the upper Donetz. The Russians at Gremyache and Yastrebovka, which are 50 miles apart west of Voronezh, arc within tIO miles of Kursk, and are still advancing, destroying German ski troops drawn from the reserves.

To the south the Russians are hourly compressing the are before Rostov. Their armies are still advancing irresistibly, increasingly imperilling. 24 Axis divisions which are lighting with their backs to the sea. The enemy are struggling desperately to keep open the railway from Krasnodar (or Krasnograd) to Rostov, but parts of it are of single track, and incapable of rapidly evacuating so many thousands with their equipment. Fresh menaces are arising for the Germans in the Caucasian foothills around Tuapse, endangering Novorossisk, while four Russian columns are converging on Krasnodar and collecting considerable booty which the Germans have abandoned.