TIRELESS BLOWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 42, 19 February 1942, Page 7

TIRELESS BLOWS

RED ARMY ATTACK

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 10 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 18.

Advanced Russian cavalry units yesterday cut the Pskov-Vitebsk railway near the Drissa River. They destroyed six.miles of the line and are now within 30 miles of the old Latvian frontier, says a "Daily Express" correspondent. Several cavalry divisions which carried out this thrust pierced the German lines about 30 miles southwest of Veliki Luki.

Reports from Vichy say that the Russians have entered Novgorod, 100 miles south-east of Leningrad. The Russians on the central front captured the town of Stiar, 36 miles north-east of Bryansk, capturing 71 guns and over 1000 trucks and lorries.

According to the Stockholm correspondent of "The Times," the Russians are hammering and hacking at the German arc around Leningrad, and appear to be making real progress. They are now in'the process of relieving Leningrad by means of a corridor they have hewn through the deeply and densely strengthened German zone.

Authorised spokesmen in Berlin reveal anxiety about the effect of these tireless Russian blows, which appear to be wearing down the German resistance, notwithstanding reinforcements from Estonia.

The phrase in the Russian communiques that the advance continues gains significance as unofficial reports come in of striking successes on the central front. On the Kalinin front the vigour and weight of the Russian advance show no signs of slackening. The Russians are waging war against the main lines of communication, and the possession of large intervening areas is left in doubt because they are practically inaccessible: J This explains why the Germans still hold important towns around which the Russians are poised. The Germans, with their supply lines gravely menaced if not interrupted, and with little opportunity of replenishing themselves locally from the sullen peasantry, do not constitute a serious threat to the Russian positions.