SOVIET OFFENSIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1943, Page 5

SOVIET OFFENSIVE

WEATHER STOPS PROGRESS

LONDON, October 6. In Russia the weather has brought large-scale fighting to a standstill along the whole front, but the initiative is with the Red Army all along- the line. What Moscow refers to as intense patrol activity is reported by the Germans to be vigorous attacks. The Germans speak of a good deal of activity up in the north, in the country around Leningrad, the tip of the vast German salient that runs up from Vitebsk.

It was east of Vitebsk that the Red Army made most progress yesterday. In a series of local operations Soviet troops fought their way through difficult country to close within 30 miles of this base. The Germans also refer nervously to savage fighting against Russian troops west of the Dnieper, midway between Gomel and Kiev, at the mouth of the Pripet River, hinge of the whole German position in Russia.

There has been no news of the fighting from Moscow, but Russian messages speak of a vast area in White Russia covering some 600 villages being completely in the control of Soviet guerrilla troops.