WIDE SWEEP TO DNIEPER BEND

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24785, 7 January 1944, Page 3

WIDE SWEEP TO DNIEPER BEND

BERDITCHEV BASTION FALLS WAY CLEARED FOR HARDER PRESSURE By telegraph Presis Association—Copyright (Received January 6, 7.30 p.m.) ' LONDON, January (i The Russian drive southward from the old Kiev bulge is now ro ling toward the rear of the Dnieper bend along a front nearly 00 miles wide. On the left wing the capture of Byelaya TserKov has paved the way for a rapid sweep forward, and one Russian colunrn is already pushing steadily along a first-class motor road. On the right wing the Russians have captured Berditchev, where strong German tank and infantry forces had been holding up the advance.

i i a " , .J^ e addressed to General Vatutin, Marshal Stalin said. Troops of the First Ukrainian Front, after five days of fierce fighting, have carried by assault the large railway junction and key centie of Berditchev. The feat will be recognised in Moscow with 20 salvoes from 124 guns." The capture of Berditchev and 60 other places, including Tarashtcha, 25 miles south-east of Byelaya Tserkov, is announced also in a Soviet communique. Now that General Vatutin has smashed the hard core of German lesistance at Berditchev, he will be able to bring increased pressure to bear on his drive toward the railway junction of Jmerinka, which controls nearly all German supply movements between the Dnieper bend and the west. Russian patrols are constantly probing the German frontal defences in the east of the bend. The German news agency says ice is beginning to form along the lower reaches of the Dnieper, and this is another ill-omen for the enemy. One of the biggest obstacles in. the way of a Russian drive against the southern flank of the bend will have been removed when the river is frozen. Referring to the drive to the 1939 Polish border, Reuter's Moscow correspondent says that late last night the Russian military commentator Colonel Amikov said the Russians had taken the Sluch River line and penetrated deeply in the direction of Sarny, which is 35 miles west of the border. The Berlin radio military commentator Captain Sertorius tacitly admitted that Russian forces had reached the border area when he said the Germans were preparing a defence line behind the Russo-Polish border. He said: "Vatutin's army group, advancing beyond Olevsk and Novograd Volynsk, will be faced with the new defence line which is now being constructed."