THE DRIVE ON KIEV

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

THE DRIVE ON KIEV

IMPORTANCE REALISED

COMING CRITICAL MONTH

RUSSIAN CONFIDENCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

LONDON, August 4.

After the six' weeks of fighting the Russian morale is high, and the leaders and the people are confidently looking forward to the coming critical month.

The authorities in Moscow realise the importance of the renewed German thrust in the Ukraine, and recognise that the Germans are attempting a pincers movement which is aimed at the encirclement of Kiev. This would result m cutting the railway running parallel with the Dnieper between central Russia and the Ukrainian mining areas, as .. well as the Nikolayev granary. The thrust, if successful, would also cut off the Black Sea port of Odessa.

Reuters Zurich correspondent quotes a report from Berlin that the Germans are attempting a diversion towards Odessa. German and Rumanian forces, it Is stated, have crossed the Dniester at several points near the mouth, on the Black Sea, and other troops which crossed the river near Kishinev are stated to be wheeling south-eastwards to join the thrust.

Soviet troops are reported in Berlin to be counter-attacking fiercely

west of Kiev, in an effort to relieve units which have been encircled. The Germans are flinging in a powerful air force in this sector. RUSSIANS NOT SURPRISED. The Russian High Command was not taken by surprise by the new pincers drive against Kiev. The dual thrust is stated to be made by strong panzer units, while the Red army still holds the mass of the German infantry 80 miles west of Kiev, around Jitomir. I Apparently the Germans, finding the direct approach to Kiev too firmly defended, opened their converging lines to advance north and south of the main road. Moscow, however, is confident that Marshal Budenny can cope with the new columns. Reports from the front state that the Nazi general commanding the 16th Motorised Division was killed in action in an unstated locality while resisting a Russian counter-attack in which half of the Nazi effectives were destroyed. The "Soviet War News," published by the Embassy in London, states that at least 11 U-boats, nine destroyers, 12 transports, three tankers, three patroJ ships, several monitors and barges, and one munition ship have so far been sunk in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea by Soviet warships and planes. STRAIN ON ENEMY FORCES. The correspondent of "The Times" on the German frontier says that the Germans, recognising that the completion of Russian mooilisation has made a long war almost a certainty, are confronted with the necessity of modernising the entire Russian transport system within that section of Russia which they have now occupied. The task of driving without pause across wretched frontier roads while being harassed by snipers and saboteurs is imposing a terrific physical and nervous strain, and is resulting in an enormous wastage of drivers and vehicles.

Solution of the transport problem depends substantially on rebuilding the roads, for which hundreds of thousands of pioneers have recently gone eastward. The Germans are also tackling the task of adapting the Russian oroad railway gauge to the German rolling-stock.