RUSSIANS PRESS ON

Kaikoura Star, Volume LXII, Issue 23, 23 March 1942, Page 3

RUSSIANS PRESS ON

BIG BATTLE RAGING. LONDON, March 19. The latest Moscow communique says there was no change on the Russian front during the night, but a supplementary communique says that Red Army units operating between Smolensk and Staraya Russa have captured an important German stronghold. It also says that in the Smolensk area Marshal Zhukov’s forces have captured two more towns. Unofficial reports suggest that a titantic struggle is raging round Smolensk and one dispatch suggests that the Russians have surrounded Gzhatzk, 100 miles west of Moscow and the nearest point to the capital still held by the Germans. It is believed that the Germans retired to strongly fortified positions at Gzhatzk after they were dislodged from Mozhaisk and Borodino. It is possible that the overnight supplementary communique refers to this operation, for it says that in five days’ fighting on the central front dozens of blockhouses and pillboxes were wiped out and 3000 Germans were killed. The Tass News Agency, describing the operations of a Russian Guards unit on this front in a similar period, says that 35 villages were liberated and more than 1500 Germans were killed.