CRIMEA OFFENSIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 44, 21 February 1942, Page 7

CRIMEA OFFENSIVE

Germans Admit Soviet

Break-Through

LONDON, February 20. A new offensive has been launched by the Russians in the Crimea. In this sector Berlin has admitted a Russian break-through to the Tongue of Arabat, a strip of land running from the Kerch Peninsula parallel with the north-east coast of the Crimea. On the Leningrad front Russian troops are reported to be pouring- through the gaps made in the first and second lines of the enemy defences. They are now battering at the last line.

Moscow radio stated today that the Red army on the south-west or Kharkov front had penetrated to the suburbs of a large town and that street fighting was in progress. The Germans were suffering severe losses md were being driven out of the town at the point of the bayonet. At the same time they were being pounded by Russian artillery and divebombers.

A "Pravda" correspondent reports !iihat Latvian troops north of Smolensk have joined up with the headquarters of the advancing Red army. A week ago Russian units were unoffically reported to have crossed the border into White Russia, part of which adjoins

Latvia. The correspondent adds that the Latvians brought with them important information.

An agency message says that tiie People's Commissar for-Railways has been made a member of the State Defence Committee, Russia's War Cabinet, over which M. Stalin * presides.

COMING NAZI OFFENSIVE