SOVIET PINCERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1944, Page 3

SOVIET PINCERS

CHARACTERISTIC ATTACK

Bee. 1.5 p.m. RUGBY, Jan. 20. The Russians are using a characteristic double pincers movement in the north. In the first place Novgorod was enveloped from both sides, its railways having been cut north and south. Simultaneously the Russians broke out of the Leningrad ring and out of Oranienbaum, which has been an isolated foothold on the shore opposite Kronstadt. These two movements in the Leningrad sector joined solidly from the sea near Peterhof to the Krasny area, a dozen- miles inland. There are still about 70 miles between the Leningrad Novgorod offensives, but they are obviously part of the same movement to clear the Germans from the whole Leningrad region. So far the Russians have expelled the Germans from the south-western, but not the southern or south-eastern approaches to Leningrad. One blow came from the Pulkovo neighbourhood 12 miles south of the heart of Leningrad, in a south-easterly direction, and captured Krasny, about 17 miles from the centre of the city. The other blow, from Oranienbaum, struck east along the shore to Peterhof, thus linking with the main Leningrad defence and also south to a point over 10 miles southward of Peterhof and seven westward of Krasny. A swift advance avoided the sacking of Krasny by the Germans. Full winter conditions presumably have set in on this front, tout on the Ukraine- front the ground is not in the grip of the real iron frost which generally reigns in winter. The winter, so far, is very mild with heavy snow and rapid thaws, making the going difficult. —8.0. W. ____________