ANOTHER GREAT VICTORY FOR RUSSIANS

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 66, 21 March 1944, Page 5

ANOTHER GREAT VICTORY FOR RUSSIANS

VINNITSA ABANDONED BY GERMANS Red Army’s Sweep Into Bessarabia United Press Assn. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Tuesday, 1 a.m. LONDON, March 20. The Russians have won another startling success in their drive into the heart of the Ukraine. To-day's German communique said that von Mannstein’s forces have withdrawn from the fortified stronghold of Vinnitsa, one of the last German positions on the River Bug. Last Moscow reports said the Russians were fighting in the outskirts of the town. Marshal Koniev is pushing men, tanks and guns through the 30-mile gap in the Dniester defences for his drive towards the River Prut on the border of Rumania proper, says Reuter's Moscow correspondent. The Red Army’s plunge across the Dniester almost within a matter of hours after reaching the riverbank in force is acknowledged in Moscow as one of the major feats of the whole war. It is generally believed that Koniev will not waste time in following up his latest success. There are no natural obstacles in Bessarabia. The country generally is undulating and by mid-March the ground is nearly always dry. The Russians north of the Bessarabian front are closing the Vinnitsa sack with under 20 miles remaining between the two Russian armies moving from the northwest and southwest against the city. Other Moscow dispatches emphasise the growing Russian menace to Lwow, Hitler’s main supply base in South Poland. The Moscow correspondent of the British United Press reports that Zhukov’s troops are now fighting in the hills guarding the approaches to Lwow. The capture of Krcmenets, 75 miles from Lwow, may be part of the move to dislodge the Germans from the Tarnopol area further south by a turning movement as well as the swift widening of the Russian wedge in the west. The Berlin radio admits that the Russians are exerting extremely heavy pressure on the Dniester line. It also states that the Red Army has increased its pressure on the southern edge of the Pripet Marshes in East Poland.