WESTERN UKRAINE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 44, 20 August 1941, Page 8

WESTERN UKRAINE

CLAIMS OF THE NAZIS

NOT CONFIRMED IN LONDON

(Rec. 2 p.m.) LONDON, August 19. The sweeping German claims that they control the whole of the Western Ukraine are not confirmed either in Moscow or in London and there is still no suggestion that Marshal Budenny's withdrawal behind the Dnieper bastion is not continuing in orderly

fashion. Despite: the speed of the German thrust it is believed in London that the retreating Russians are still fighting and the effective rearguard action would continue to exact a heavy toll from the advanced German forces. A Berlin radio war commentator asserted that a successful advance of the southern German wing up the Black, Sea and the Dnieper Estuary had brought a decisive change in the Ukraine situation. It was admitted, however, that small bridgeheads on the lower Dnieper are still strongly held by Soviet forces, and also that fighting in the Kiev and Korosten areas is-pro- " ceedingly slowly because the Russians are defending themselves behind modern fortifications.

LANDING ATTEMPTS FOILED. According to dispatches to Moscow. Russia's Black Sea fleet smashed German attempts to land forces on the Russian coast as part of the Ukraine campaign. No details ire given. The latest Russian dispatches from the front describe the rout of two German battalions of the 88th Regiment of the 15th Division, which played a prominent part in the fighting in Belgium, France,- and Greece. Dispatches claim that the division was "heavily drained of effectives in a three-day battle for the strategic heights on the outskirts of an unnamed town. The Russians advanced several miles, took the heights, killed over 400 Germans, wounded over 1000, and captured prisoners and guns.