Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1943. ANOTHER GREAT SOVIET BLOW.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1943. ANOTHER GREAT SOVIET BLOW.

the Germans fought at least temporarily to a standstill in their counter-offensive west of Kiev, the Russians, are not only continuing their drive on Kirovograd, now one 01. the main centres of communications leading into the Dnieper bend, but are making good headway in a powerful offensive on a fifty mile front south of Nevel, at the northern end of the \X Inte Russia front. This thrust, in which the Russians have penetrated deeply into the enemy defences, dangerously threatens the Geiman northern armies, on the front extending to Leningrad, 2/0 mi es north of Nevel. It is at the same time important as outflanking Vitebsk and the German line running south by way of Orsha and Mogilev to the northern fringe of the Pripet marshes, and must also affect the position on the front still further south, m the region of Kiev, which stands 400 miles south of Nevel, and in the Dnieper bend. Having smashed through the formidable German defences on a broad front south of Nevel. the Russians are on their way to the junction of Polotsk, about 80 miles west ol Novel, wlieie five major railways meet and from ■which highways lead into Poland,' Lal via and Lithuania. By pressing westwards, with the River Dvina on their left flank and with the great lake region on their right, the military correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald” wrote recently, the Russians could drive a wedge across Latvia, and thus threaten all the enemy forces on the Leningrad front. Polotsk is about 50 miles from Dvinsk, the crucial junction on the main railway from Warsaw to Leningrad. Without the rail and road systems based on Dvinsk, it is difficult to see how the northern German armies could be kept supplied, especially in winter. If the Russians’ advance westward continues, the Germans must soon consider the problem of extricating their northern armies before the gap closes. At the stage it has meantime reached, the Red Army break through south of Nevel looks like a good beginning in a formidable and well-considered offensive aiming at the results just outlined. In the initial success of this great thrust and in the prospects it opens up, additional and impressive evidence is afforded of the extent to which the Germans are now outclassed and are being outfought on the Eastern front. There is every indication that enemy hopes of recovering Kiev are vanishing, if they have not already vanished. How far Von Mannstein’s heavy expenditure of lives and material in the region west of Kiev has failed to serve even a diversionary purpose was already being demonstrated in the vigorous continuation of the Russian drive across the communications of the Dnieper bend. It is demonstrated still more convincingly in the great and. menacing Red Army offensive south of Nevel. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that as the winter hardening of the front extends southward, the Russian offensive will be further intensified and enlarged on a great scale. The prospect opened is as heartening for Russia and her Allies' as it must be staggering and discouraging to the Germans, the more so since it may be supposed that the present course of events in Russia has its very definite bearing on the position and outlook in southern and western Europe as well as on the Eastern front.