MAJOR THREAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25305, 16 August 1943, Page 3

MAJOR THREAT

GERMAN FORCES IN DANGER FALL OF KHARKOV NEAR (Rec. 1 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 14. The British United Press Moscow correspondent says that the Russians have pushed along the Orel-Bryansk railway within 23 miles of Bryansk. The Russians .are also within 18 miles of the railway linking Bryansk and Kiev. Mr Morley Richards, the Daily Express military writer, says that, unless the Germans check the Russian advance quickly, they face a major

disaster. The Russians now have three bridgeheads across the Donetz, and can fight their way towards possession of the Western Ukraine and the Don Basin. Moscow radio asserted that 43,000 Axis planes have been destroyed in Russia in two years. The majority were destroyed in combat. Correspondents cabling from Moscow this evening all agree in saying that the fall of Kharkov is expected hourly. Russian forces around Kharkov at present are concentrating on cutting off the last two remaining railways to Dnepropetrovsk and the Crimea via Losavaya. Reuter’s Stockholm correspondent says that, according to the latest Moscow reports, Russian forces which captured Kovyagi, 25 miles west of Kharkov, on the railway to Poltava, are now approaching the station of Valki, on the secondary line southwards. The Russian force from Valki is expected to strike eastwards towards Merefa, on the south-bound railway, in order to join other Russian forces advancing towards Merefa from Chuguyev. The encirclement of Kharkov will then be complete. Moscow radio declares that the defeat of large German forces on the Kharkov front has led to the envelopment from the north-west and the south-east of a group of picked German troops whose most important lines of communication have been cut.

Front-line despatches to Izvestia say German resistance is increasing as the Russians press towards Kharkov. The heaviest battles have been fought near the Kharkov-Poltava railway, to which the Germans have been bringing up big reserves, including several tank units, in an effort to check the Russian progress.