MILLION RUSSIANS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 49, 26 January 1944, Page 5

MILLION RUSSIANS

GERMAN ESTIMATE. LONDON, Jan. 25. A million Russian troops are engaged in the great battles on the Leningrad front, according to a German military, spokesman’s estimate quoted . by the Scandinavian Telegraph Bureau. The spokesman said that the Germans were forced before heavy Russian pressure to make new retreats. It was impossible to prevent Russian tanks breaching the German lines, but the enemy was losing 100 tanks at each onslaught. The struggle in the Leningrad marshes is developing into a battle of encirclement, wherein the Germans are in danger of another Stalingrad catastrophe, says Reuter’s Stockholm correspondent. The Germans received their biggest reverse since the original Russian breakthrough with the cutting of the Krasnogvardeisk-Narva railway, their escape route to the west. Unless the Germans reply quickly and decisively to the Russian grip on their lifeline, the big group south-eastwards will soon face its grimmest hour, with the choice of being steadily smashed where it stands or making a forced retreat across the desolate, roadless marshes. The Russians are fighting fiercely to extend their hold on the railway line. The troops who crossed the line have formed a. Ann hedgehog position, from which they are now pushing out to shell the German fortifications. The Germans are throwing jn reinforcements on the largest possible scale, since the des- [ perate nature of their position has become evident.

A Russian supplementary communique states: West and south-west of Novgorod Soviet units pierced the enemy’s defences on the River * Veronda and also cleared the enemy from the peninsula between Lake Ilmen and the River Veryazha. The enemy is retreating in disorder north-west of Tosno.

The communique also announces the capture of Borok, 15 miles south-west of Novgorod, and 15 miles from Shinskaya, the capture of which would outflank tho great enemy base of Staraya Russa.