SWINGING SOUTH AND SOUTH WEST OF KIEV

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1944, Page 3

SWINGING SOUTH AND SOUTH WEST OF KIEV

Railway Junction of Berdichev Almost in Soviet Grasp

GERMANS ADMIT PARTIAL EVACUATION OF TOWN ENEMY- CLINGING DESPERATELY TO VITEBSK ON NORTHERN FRONT LONDON, January 5. There are indications that General Vatutin has switched the main weight of his great offensive to the south and southwest of Kiev, as he now has the important railway town of Berdichev almost within his grasp. Several Red Army-columns are rapidly converging on Berdichev, and the German Big Command admits that the garrison has abandoned the eastern part of the town under the mounting weight of the Soviet ' In the area west of Kiev, the Germans have counterattacked strongly in the last 24 hours, but they have been thro,wn back every time and the Soviet forces have puJi forward at several points. - r + wr,, p»,,i Heavy fighting continues on the northern front. Mi. lau Winterton, Moscow correspondent of the Lonaon NewsChronicle, ” says the Germans are putting up a tooth anc nail fight to hold Vitebsk. They still hold several defence lines round the town. Further north, the Russian drive m the Nevel area, is gaining momentum. Reports that Soviet troops had crossed the 1939 Polish frontier have been followed by a statement from the Polishi Government in London, which expresses a desire for a I ohsh-Soviet agreement and the earliest possible re-establishment of Polish administration in the liberated territories.