MASS ATTACKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25303, 13 August 1943, Page 5

MASS ATTACKS

RUSSIAN ADVANCES EIGHT MILES FROM KHARKOV .-■■■. LONDON, Aug. 11. The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph give prominence to a Berlin radio statement to-night that the Red Army is attacking violently 40 miles from Smolensk (presumably in the area south-west of Vyazma), and that! a Russian offensive is developing on a 400-mile front. The British United Press correspondent in Moscow says the German iorces around Kharkov, may be trapped unless the main forces have started pulling out. The country is ideal for Russian operations with swift mobile units. The German tactics appear to be to leave .a series of small units to fight rearguard actions at all strategic points. ■The -Russians ;are roaring across ; the Ukrainian steppes, cutting up these unit’s, which are being methodically wiped out. . i There are several main features in the latest news from the eastern front. Russian forces have cut the KharkovPoltava railway due west of Kharkov, leaving the Germans in that city with only one line, that running to the

south. The Russians themselves are within eight miles of Kharkov to the north-east. Other units are, only 40 miles from Poltava, and are now closer than they were during the offensive last winter.

On the Bryansk front, Soviet troops have made substantial advances, and are now 12 miles from the : German bastion of Karachev.

Heavy fighting, in which the Russians are clearly gaining grpund and inflicting heavy casualties, continues in the Kharkov and Bryansk- ardas, which are still the most active of-the Russian front.

The Germans, in a series :of admissions that the battle is not going well for them in Russia, have permitted the German News Agency’s military commentator to broadcast: “Big Russian attacks continue with a violence which has hardly been surpassed. ; The Russians’ intention to force a decision this year is becoming more evident. They are trying to force a break-through with masses of material of a magnitude quite unknown hitherto.” Although Russian sources do not mention the area, the Germans continue to refer to heavy Russian blows to the south-west of Vyazma, approximately 50 miles from the BryanskSmolensk railway. The German News Agency correspondent, describing the struggle south-west of' Vyazma, claimed that the Russians had concentrated most modern military equipment on a scale not previously witnessed on the eastern front.

To-night’s Soviet "communique reports that the Russians in the Bryansk area advanced three to six miles and occuDied over 70 inhabited localities. In the direction of .Kharkov Russian troops advanced 10 to 12 rriilSs, occupying over 50 inhabited Idealities, including the towns of Akhtyrka and Krasnokutsk. The Russians also captured several railway stations.