GERMAN HOLD ON UKRAINE LOOSENING

Evening Star, Issue 25067, 7 January 1944, Page 3

GERMAN HOLD ON UKRAINE LOOSENING

Vatutin Disrupting Communications

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright (Rec. noon.) LONDON, January 6. Red army forces which crossed the old Polish border on Tuesday have advanced nearly 35 miles inside Poland, says one report from Moscow. However, with Moscow still silent officially regarding any lied army movements west of Olevsk and Novograd Volynsk, across the border, Moscow correspondents dwell on General Vatutin's concentration On the disrupting of the Ukrainian railway network stretching from Kovrto to Jmerinka. The British United Press says some of General Vatutin'b columns are thrusting to the west along the railway from Berdichev to Shepetovka with a view to cutting the north-south line there, while farther south the Red army is beating the Germans back along the railway from Berdichev to the important junction'of Vinnitsa, where the Germans are likely to make their next stand. German forces, on an arc between Vinnitsa and Shepetovka, are-pouring back to the south-west over dirt roads designed to, bear nothing bigger than farmers' carts. -Enemy resistance south of Berdichev is intense. German tommy-gunners stayed behind and held every house near the Vinnitsa highway in an effort to check the advance. The British United Press points out that each successive step backwards loosens the Germans' hold on the Ukrainian railways and lessens the enemy's ability to manoeuvre his troops to meet Russian rail thrusts. The Red army, on the other hand, depends much less on rail communication. The Russians are accustomed to using other methods of transport.