HEAVY LOSSES BY ENEMY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 87, 13 April 1944, Page 5

HEAVY LOSSES BY ENEMY

LONDON, April 12. '. The Russians tonight announce a string' of great new victories along- the whole southern front.

In the west, between April 1 and 10, Marshal Zhukov's First Ukrainian Army killed more than 26.0Q0 Germans in the pocket west of Skala. More than 6000 prisoners have been taken, and hundreds of tanks and guns, and thousands of lorries destroyed or captured.

There were only 10,000 enemy troops left in the Skala pocket yesterday when it-was announced that the Germans had managed to break through south-west of Tarnopol and link up with the remnants of the 15 encircled Axis divisions.

In today's fighting Red Army troops have occupied several more places west of Skala and beaten off enemy counter-attacks.

1 In Rumania, General Koniev's troops have captured the town of Falticheni and several other places in the eastern foothills of the Carpathians. Falticheni is 23 miles north-west of the important railway junction of Pascani, which was captured yesterday.

Further east, Soviet troops have kept up their advance on the railway junction-of Kichinev, the capital of Bessarabia. One of the 30 places captured in this sector today is only 11 miles north-west of the town.

Still further east an important town has fallen after a night ■ assault by General Malinovsky's units. Moscow announced last night that street fighting, had begun in the town, which was a major German strong-point on the east bank of the Dneister nearly 10 miles north-west of Odessa.

The most spectacular advances have been made today in the Crimea. Russian forces have broken through the strongly fortified Axis positions in the north and have swept through more than 150 towns and villages, one only 11 miles north of Simferopol, which is less than 40 miles from Sebastopol. "

In the eastern Crimea, the Kerch Peninsula has been entirely cleared of the enemy, who have been driven out of more than 140 places. In the fighting here, more than 3000 enemy troops have been killed and more than 2000 taken prisoner.

Moscow radio announced that Soviet planes last night attacked the big Rumanian port of Constanta. They left a large part of the harbour blazing.