RUSSIANS CAPTURE MOZDOK

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22471, 5 January 1943, Page 3

RUSSIANS CAPTURE MOZDOK

Gateway to Grozny Oilfields

Northward Thrust from Caucasus

By Telegraph—New Zealand Press Association —Copyright (Received 8.30 p.m.) LONDON, January 3.

A SPECIAL Soviet broadcast announcing that Mozdok 4* town and railway station has been captured in a surprise attack to-day was followed by the playing of the Internationale. This is the first time the Internationale has accompanied a victory announcement, showing the importance the Russians attach to the reoccupation of the ‘'gateway” to the Grozny oilfields.

The capture of Mozdok is the biggest success the Russians have yet scored in their northward thrust from the Caucasus. Mozdok is the pivotal town for the German campaign in the central Caucasus and is one of the main points in the trans-Caucasian railway. It was captured by the right flank of the Red Army, the other flank of which, after crossing the Terek River, is forging northwards, via Nalchik.

The rail service between Velikiye Luki and Moscow has restarted, according to a Moscow message. The direct line passes through Rzhev, which is still in enemy hands, but another line, which is the one presumably referred to in the Moscow message, runs north-east from Velikiye Luki to join the main Moscow-Leningrad line. Besides being a railway junction Velikiye Luki is the intersection of 10 important roads.

The German garrison wiped out there is reported to have been several thousand strong. The Eighth Panzer Division, with fresh infantry and an additional detachment of 70 tanks, tried vainly to break through to relieve the doomed men.

Meanwhile the official Soviet report says that a strongly-fortified centre of resistance north of Velikiye Luki has been captured by the Russians.

The Germans have been forced to supply their half-starved troops by air, but they have been paying a heavy price, 98 big transport planes having been shot down in the past few days.

On the outskirts of Stalingrad the encircled Germans are being driven from more and more buildings and strongpoints.

There is little news of fighting on the middle Don. though a number of localities are officially reported to have been captured. Although the Germans continually assert that they are successfully counter-attacking on most fronts, dispatches from Moscow indicate that the Soviet offensives are sweeping the Germans back from the vicinity of Velikiye Luki to the blizzard-swept Caucasus. The Germans certainly are fighting a stiff rearguard action in an effort to retrieve the situation but the Russians are brushing aside the covering troops.

Possibility of Split Tire important Russian thrust is down the Kotelnikovo-Tikhoretsk railway. which the Russians have cleared to Dubovskaya, which is 30 miles south-west of Kotelnikovo and 100 miles from Salysk. Possession of the communication centre of Salysk will enable the Russians to sever Germans in the Caucasus from their base at Rostov. Moreover, the occupation of Elokotovo suggests that the development of the offensive toward Prokhladnaya may split the Axis armies in the Caucasus. The Russians hold Nizhnekurmoyarskaya, on the north bank of the Don. 22 miles east of Tsymlyanskaya. They have also taken Maloluchnaya, on the south bank of the Don, 17 miles from Tsymlyanskaya, and Zhukovskaya, 13 miles south-east of Tsymlyanskaya. Tire Germans have been forced back 40 miles between Nalchik and Vladiskavkaz. Tire Russians are now about 20 miles south-east of Nalchik, after bypassing and then capturing the strongly-held town of Elkhotovo. The Russians, advancing north-east, Crossed the Terek river at at least two points and are now threatening a section of the railway between Grozny! and Prokhladnaya. Fight For Railways Reuter's correspondent ' at Moscow

says that the Russians, pressing on from Velikiye Luki toward Sokolniki, gained control of almost the whole section of the Moscow-Riga railway between two towns. They are fighting north of Velikiye Luki, where four railways and 10 motor roads meet. Moscow announced that the railway service between Moscow and Velikiye Luki had again started on two main lines. The Russians previously cut the Leningrad-Kiev railway southwest of Nevel, a big junction on one of the main European lateral lines. Loss of Sokolniki would be a more bitter blow for the Germans than the loss of Velikiye Luki, because it would cut the main north and south rail communications between the central front and the troops in the Lake Ilmen and Leningrad sectors. This strategy emphasises that the Russians aim at separating the Axis armies by cutting the lines of communications, which is doubly important in winter.

Notable Achievement

The correspondent of "The Times” says the capture of Velikiye Luki is the most notable recent Russian achievement on the middle front, but it does not end the battle on that, front. Nothing resembling a German landslide is expected. The Germans’ prevarication concerning the loss of Velikiye Luki was apparently based on their regarding Velikiye Luki, Neve! and Sokolniki, at angles of the railway lines, as a single fortress area, of which one angle only had been lopped off and the lines shortened to defend Nevel and Sokoliniki. These are not likely to fall without a hard battle. They are backed by the ramified Baltic railways by which reinforcements can be rapidly obtained.

The Russians are approaching the Valdai Hills and the frozen Kholm marshes, which last winter proved an impassable barrier. If this barrier is now broken anywhere it will be a noteworthy fact in the Russian offensive, but both westward and southward the German rear communications are amongst the best in Russia. Below the Sokolniki fortress the Germans possess similar larger and stronger in the Smolensk-Acha-Vitebsk railway triangle, The offensive against Rzhev and Velikiye Luki threatens this line, but Smolensk cannot be menaced until the Russians move to Kaluga.