RUSSIANS RAPID DRIVES

Kaikoura Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 59, 31 July 1944, Page 3

RUSSIANS RAPID DRIVES

DEBUN AND NARVA FALL. LONDON, July 26. ‘‘North and west of Lublin all German attempts to hold their ground have failed, and our troops are rapidly forging ahead,’ 1 says a Moscow supplementary communique. Main Russian forces are within seven of the Vistula River, and, according to unofficial reports, spearheads of Marshal Rokossovsky’s army have reached the river. The Russians are now fighting in the immediate approaches to Bitlystok, where the Germans are resisting vercely, and north of Bialystok Red Army forces are only 28 miles from the frontier of East Prussia. No important changes are reported at Brest Litovsk. At Llow the Russians have completed the encirclement of the enemy area in the city and are engaging the enemy on the outskirts. Further south the Rus-

sians are within two miles of the oil centre of Stanislawow.

More progress is reported on the Bal tic front, where the Russians, advancing toward Riga, .capital of Latvia, have cut the Dvinsk-Riga railway. An important railway’ bridge over the Nyeman River at Tilsit, in East Prussia, has been destroyed by' the Red Air Force.

Advancing through the valley, of the Vistula towards Warsaw, troops of Marshal Rokossovsky’s army have captured the railway centre of Deblin, north-west of Lublin, and are now well beyond the town and within 50 miles of the former Polish capital.

Progress is reported in various seetore all along the 1000-mile front from the Gulf of Finland to the Carpathian foothills. In the far north Russian forces of Marshal Govorov’s armjr have captured Narva, on the Narva River, ten miles from the Gulf of Finland, and have advanced into Estonia. They are now astride the main road leading west to Eallinn. Progress has also been made in Lithuania. At Brest Litovsk the Germans are still holding out, but are almost surrounded. Further south, at Lwow, the Russians are reported to be “steadily wiping out the German garrison. ’ ’ In the Stanislawow sector the Russians have captured four district centres and about 100 other places. Further raids have been made by the Red Air Force on Tilsit, in East Prus- ■ sia, and on Warsaw. Four German troop trains were hit at Tilsit. » Reuter’s Moscow’ correspondent reports that Russian infantry to-day are crossing the Vistula in thousands in amphibious trucks under cover of artillery and fire. Another Moscow correspondent reports that Soviet spearheads are now 45 miles from Warsaw. The city itself has been clouded in smoke since Tuesday, when Russian bombers pounded the railway yards. They did particularly heavy damage to the railway tracks in the eastern suburbs. ‘ ‘ The Germans ’ Baltic escape gap is rapidly shrinking after further Russian gains in the Paneveziso sector north of Kaunas,” says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. “The latest Red Army' advances here have reduced the land corridor between the Russians and Riga to barely 70 miles.”