Ukraine Battle Rages Fiercely

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 31, 5 August 1941, Page 7

Ukraine Battle Rages Fiercely

NO NOTEWORTHY ENEMY ADVANCE

LONDON, August 4.

The main scene of the fighting on the far-flung Eastern Front continues to be in the Ukraine, where a fierce new battle has been raging for the past two days. The Germans, in their attempt to carry out a pincers movement on Kiev, are meeting with stubborn Russian resistance.

According to the latest dispatches from the front, intense encounters are still being fought near Iskorost (Korosten) and Byelaya-Tserkov.

It is believed in London that the Germans have made a small advance along both prongs of the pincers threatening Kiev but that the city is hardly in immediate danger.

The Berlin correspondent of a Swiss paper says ~ there is no sign that the Russian resistance is weakening, or any evidence of a noteworthy German advance.

Berlin admits tonight that the Russian troops are attacking the German columns attempting' to encircle Kiev.

There is no confirmation in Moscow of a Berlin claim that Ererman and Hungarian mobile troops have cut off vital Russian railway communications in the Ukraine. The Germans claim that the two convergingl columns are threatening the Russian Black Sea port of Odessa. Here again the Berlin claim is not confirmed in Moscow.

North of the Ukraine, on the great Smolensk battlefront, there is no evidence that the Germans have made any substantial progress in their* drive towards Moscow. The German High Command today refrains from giving any details, but claims that most of the Russian forces have now been annihilated.

Referring to the Smolensk battle, a German commentator assured the German people that the battle was extending in extermination. Further north, where the German offensive is directed towards Leningrad, fighting continued throughout last night.

A Helsinki dispatch quoted by Rome says that the Germans have launched what they describe as an attack of great violence east of Lake Peipus. On the Finnish front, the Finns said today that they had beaten off a series of Russian counter-attacks.

Moscow gives further examples of Russian tactics. A large German tank formation attacked some Russian fortifications near a town in the northwestern part of the front. When the enemy appeared to have exhausted themselves Russian tanks launched a counter-attack. A big battle was fought in which about tanks and armoured vehicles on each side took part. The Moscow communique says that enemy tank columns were routed and that four German batteries were destroyed. Russian tanks manoeuvred to the enemy's rear, and their advance units destroyed a large number of German ;tanks and other war material. The Germans are said to have lost more than a hundred tanks and armoured vehicles, 45 guns, and over a hundred lorries, 'and many German soldiers were killed in this one encounter.

DIFFICULTIES IN SWAMPY GROUND.

German propagandists continue to emphasise the difficult conditions faced by their troops in the eastern campaign. The German radio said that the terrain was simply dreadful, and that it was practically impossible to make one's way ahead. Soldiers sank kneedeep in the swampy ground, and it was impossible to see whether or not there was a Soviet soldier in the thick undergrowth one step ahead. Another German report complained of the number of bridges blown up by the Russians, and described how the Russians laid minefields and made huge craters in the middle of the roads.

The Russian resistance is affecting the German military machine, and one report estimates that the Germans are using 300 tons of petrol a day to supply their war machine on the Eastern Front. Much of the petrol has to be consumed before it actually reaches the front, as every drop has to be transported by road. Two out of every five lorry-loads of petrol have to be used on the way to the front, and it is stated that this is causing an immense drain of Germany's fuel reserves.

A writer in the Moscow newspaper "Pravda" says that the failure of the German air raids on Russian cities is due to the inner ring of defences. Attempts against Leningrad have been less successful than those against Moscow. The German air force made 17 attempts to raid Leningrad during the week ended July 26, but not one bomb was dropped on the city.