ADVANCE STILL BARRED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 191, 15 July 1941, Page 5

ADVANCE STILL BARRED.

HEAVY FIGHTING IN CENTRE. LONDON, July 14. The Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Telegraph states that yesterday's German communique was for internal consumption to banish the anxiety which has settled_ over Germany. Very clear evidence exists that the Germans have not yet. begun their general offensive, although it certainly can be expected within a few days. The German communique, in any case, merely says that the German armies in the north are still fighting along the old Russian border. General von Branejiitsch's crack divisions in the centre are held at Vitebsk and are still facing the powerful Stalin Line fortifications barring the road to Moscow. / The Axis forces on the southern front are now coming up against the modern defence system guarding Kiev, which the Germans expected to occupy within a fortnight of the commencement of tho invasion.

Reliable reports indicate that the damage the German mechanised forces have sustained is so severe that the maintenance of a full-pres-

sure offensive is impossible. A Moscow communique states: "There was large-scale heavy fighting .yesterday in tho direction of Pskov, Vitebsk, and Novograd-Volynsk. German motorised forces and mechanised troops in the north-western sector attempted a large-sealc offensive eastward, but our stubborn resistance held it up everywhere. In some places the enemy -was repulsed and suffered heavy losses. Jn the western sector we reocjcupied the towns of Jlobin and Rogachev. Heavy fighting is occurring between infantry and tanks.

"Our troops in the south-western sector continued their operations against mechanised units, preventing their advance eastward. Heavy and continuous fighting occurred in this sector with the enemy suffering heavy losses from our artillery, planes, and counter-attacking tank formations. "In the other sectors there were no large-scale operations and no important changes in our positions. Our air force again attacked German motorised forces and aerodromes. LOSSES COMPARED. "The Russian losses so far are less than 250,000 killed, wounded and missing. The German losses are over a million men and ;>OOO tanks. The Russian air force destroyed 2300 German planes. The Soviet air force will continue systematically to destroy enemy planes and mechanised motorised units and bomb enemy aerodromes and military objectives." A later Moscow communique stated : "The first three weeks of the lighting testify to the undoubted collapse of Hitler's blitzkrieg. The best German divisions*have been broken up. We have lost so far 1900 planes and 2200 tanks. Germany's enormous losses in troops explain the fact that Germany haL. recalled almost all her troops from Occupied France, and the Swiss border, and from several other places, replacing them with old men. Hitler's Guard divisions have also been transferred to the Eastern Front."

According to a Vichy message a Rumanian communique says the Russian air raid on Ploetsi on Sunday set fire to three oil tanks and caused civilian and military damage. Russia has refused recognition of hospital ships which the Germans proposed to station in the Baltic and Arctic. M. Molotov said: "We have every reason to suspect Germany of the use of the ships for military purposes."