FURTHER STAGE TOWARDS CONCLUSION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1944, Page 4

FURTHER STAGE TOWARDS CONCLUSION

Critical Position of Germans

THROUGH LATEST SOVIET VICTORY

(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) RU'GBY, January 5. The Dnieper battle has reached a stage further towards its conclusion, and the battle for the River Bug came into closer perspective by the capture of Belaya Tserkov, states a Moscow message. This Soviet victory made the position of the Germans who had been holding the right bank of the Dnieper from the southern environs of Kiev to a small Soviet bridgehead south of Persyaslavl, more critical. » Belaya Tserkov was the centre of a fortified zone with permanent ferro-concrete defences and steel pillboxes of a portable type. The Germans had built up similar areas at Kanev and Rzhishehev on the right bank of the Dnieper, but their military value slumped after the loss of Belaya Tserkov. South-west of this sector the Russians have accelerated their advance towards the River Bug after the capture of Pliskov had disorganised the German defences.

RUSSIAN FORCES AT POLISH BORDER

German Writer’s Admission

NEW ENEMY DEFENCE LINE (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 12.10 p.m.) LONDON, January 5. Although Moscow has not yet officially announced that the Red Army has crossed the Polish border, the Berlin radio’s military commentator, Captain Sertorius, tonight practically admitted that the Russian forces had reached the border area where, he declared, the Germans were preparing a defence line behind the Russian-Polish border. He said: ‘ ‘ General Vatutin’s army group, advancing beyond Olevsk and Novograd Volynsk, will be faced by a new defence line now being constructed.” General von Mannstein in the past twenty-four hours has started determined counter-attacks from bases in the Novograd Volynsk area, says Reuter’s Moscow correspondent. The Red Army, however, has beaten back all counterblows and is again advancing north and south of Novograd Volynsk. The Red Army is approaching the Odessa-Cracow-Berlin railway at the rate of ten miles daily, and it is difficult to see even now how the Germans will be able to move any great proportion of the Dnieper Bend armies except through the Bessarabian mountains into Rumania, The Red Army is rapidly sweeping on in all sectors in a south-westerly drive towards the River Bug. According to the ‘‘Red Star,” the capture of Pliska and deep Red Army tank thrusts into the German positions are outflanking the railway junction of Vinnitsa from the east.

The German Command, after the fall of Byelaya, Tserkov, is in a precarions position at Smyela and Nikopol, report Moscow correspondents. Quoting’ last-minute front-line despatches they state that the Red Army has bitten deeply into the German defence system in the Ukraine, with its target the railway network on which the safety of the Germans in the Dnieper bend depends.

The latest reports indicate that General Vatutin has decided to consolidate his positions in the Novograd Volynsk area and secure his rear between Byelaya Tserkov and the west bank of the Dnieper before pushing on towards Rovno, says the British United Press correspondent. Most of thp German “colonists” settled around Rovno have already moved back to the Reich. The German Commissioner, Koch, used Rovno as his headquarters from which he organised the pillage of the Ukraine. All the original Russian inhabitants of the town were expelled and the town completely turned over to Nazi settlers. Russians and Czechs, side by side, fought their way through a quagmire to seize Byelaya Tserkov after a furious Red Army barrage had disrupted the first line defences. The Russians and Czechs, when the Germans had regrouped their second defence line, change! their dispositions and launched a surprise attack from another quarter. They swept the Germans out of the town.

Tonight’s Soviet communique announces the capture of Berdicrev and sixty other places in the Kiev region, including Tarascha. It adds that the Red Army north of Nevel has continued its offensive and captured over ninety inhabited places.

EXCELLENT PROGRESS

Drive Southward From Kiev Salient

CAPTURE OF VINNITSA ANNOUNCED

LONDON, January 5. The Red Army has again made excellent progress in its drive from the Kiev salient towards the German life-line into the Ukraine. A special order of the day by Marshal Stalin announces the capture by the Russians of Vinnitsa, after five days of violent fighting.