WEEKEND POSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1941, Page 7

WEEKEND POSITION

FURIOUS FIGHTING

NAZI ADVANCES STUBBORNLY

CONTESTED

(Rec. .11.40 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 7,

The situation on the Russian: frontier at the weekend seems to be that furious fighting continues along the whole front. The Russians are stubbornly contesting Smolensk, the German advances west and south of Leningrad and between Gomel and Briansk, attempts to cross the lower Dnieper, and assaults on the bastions of Kiev and Odessa. The Russians, moreover, are not confining themselves to : stationary defence but are continually making strong counter-attacks.

Both sides must be suffering seriously in men, tanks, and aircraft, but though it is still impossible to say whether the-Germans are on the, way to gaining decisive successes in the present offensives they are apparently still continuing to press the Russians Jback in the important sectors.

Not only are the great ~ industrial area and port of Leningrad and the Russian naval position in the Baltic threatened by the furious offensive in the north, but the main Russian industrial regions in the eastern Ukraine and south of Moscow are in danger through the German thrusts eastwards from Gomel.

A Russian communique issued overnight states: "On Saturday our troops engaged the enemy along the. entire front. Our aircraft dealt concentrated blows at the enemy's motorised and mechanised units, infantry, and artillery in the field, and destroyed aircraft on the ground. The verified number of German aircraft destroyed last Wednesday is not 33, as previously stated, but 56. On Thursday 61 German aircraft were destroyed in air fights and on their aerodromes. Our losses were seven."—B.O.W.