NO SWEEPING ADVANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1942, Page 5

NO SWEEPING ADVANCE

LIMITED MOBILITY

LONDON, February 17.

Recent unofficial reports incline to, attach importance to the Russian progress on the Leningrad, central, and Ukraine fronts, but it is impossible, pending substantiation, to judge the real value of these reports.

The Stockholm correspondent of "The Times" says that loose talk of Operations in White Russia and the approach to the old Polish frontier may give a false impression of rapid, sweeping, large-scale operations, which are obviodsly impossible while winter restricts mobility except for the lightest arms.

Apart from extensive patrolling and infiltration, accompanied by guerrilla activities, enabling the recapture of hundreds of Russian villages, the fact must be recognised that the general outline of the fighting zone is the same today as at the end of January. Vyazma, Rzhev, and half a dozen other towns which the Russians had practically within range, in January are still apparently in German hands.

Russian activity this year, is necessarily chiefly by lighter patrols., Sappers, and particularly cavalry, are raiding the German flanks and rear, often hundreds Of miles behind the most advanced positions. This has restored to the Russians much ground, but it cannot yet be seen whether the cumulative effect is likely to cause a further German withdrawal on any really important scale.

Even if nothing further is achieved, the winter offensive has given the Russians valuable information of the strength, disposition, and morale of the German forces—knowledge that the Germans have not gained about the Russian armies.