VICTORIOUS RED ARMY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 19, 23 January 1943, Page 6

VICTORIOUS RED ARMY

RACING FOR ROSTOV

ROAD ACROSS OPEN COUNTRY

(Rec. 2 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 22. Salsk, the important German communication centre 85 miles south-east of Rostov, was captured by the Red Army after determined fighting. The special Russian communique which announced this also reports the capture of Mikoyanshakhar, 100 miles south-west of Pyatigorsk. The Soviet forces continue to develop menacing drives against the German communications on various sectors of the 600-mile front from Voronezh to the Caucasus. Moscow - correspondents report that the Russians' northernmost wing, driving hard against the Voronezh-Kursk railway, is Hearing the Kastornoie junction where the Voronezh-Kursk line cuts the Yelets-Valuiki railway. The Russians northward of Rostov, after crossing the Donets at several points, are approaching Likhaya junction of the Stalin-grad-Kharkov and Voronezh-Rostov fines a little over 50 miles from Rostov. Other columns are converging on Lugansk, constituting another peril to the Axis position on the lower Don. NEW PHASE OPENED. A new phase of the Battle of Rostov opened after the Russians crossed the Manych River and Manych Canal. Both are unfrozen as the result of an exceptionally mild winter. They had been regarded as a natural defence Ifor Rostov. ■ _ ■ . The capture of Salsk greatly increases the threat to the Germans, in the Caucasus because the Russians will be able to strike across the open country between the Manych. and Salsk to Rostov. The Red Armies in the Caucasus are so imminently threatening the Germans with encirclement that correspondents envisage a race between the Russians and Germans for the mouth of the sack which *he Russians are trying to close and file Germans to keep open. The Soviet forces thrusting down the Stalingrad-Krasnador railway , have reached Takhta, 50 miles south Uf Salsk. Another Russian column fc closing in on Armavir, which the Occupation of Mikoyanshakhar further jnenaces. ;