WIDER FRONT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 59, 10 March 1944, Page 5

WIDER FRONT

RUSSIAN DRIVE IN WEST UKRAINE FIERCE BATTLES IN MUD LWOW-ODESSA KAILWAY (11 p.m.) London, March 9. Marshal Zhitkov, commanding the Russians in West Ukraine, has widened his front and is extending his grip on the Odessa-Lwow railway. German reinforcements, in tanks and infantry, were rushed up and attempted to stop lite Russian drive. They Jost heavily. Retreating Germans are leaving behind vast quantities of gnus and vehicles, bogged down in the heavy mud. The Soviet operation is an extension of the tremendous struggle which is raging across a water-logged countryside more than 100 miles in depth. The Russian forces are moving down the trunk railway and their main objective is the junction of Proskurov. commanding a loop line of the trunk railway back to the west and useful roads and a railway already running down through the enemy’s lines. Proskurov is threatened from the west by the Russian force, which has broken across tire trunk railway, and other Russian forces fire advancing on it from the north. On the right flank the junction of Tarnopol. another key point on the railway, is proving a tough proposition, but though the Russian advance is being steadily disputed. Soviet forces are now within six miles of it.

Between these two junctions the Russian push has apparently not gone beyond the trunk railway as yet.

Apart from the mud. the Russians are having to deal with counter-at-tacks of considerable strength as the Germans try to cancel out the Soviet gains and re-establish their own communications along the roads. The latest Soviet communique puts the Russians six miles west of Proskurov, and says that more than 100 places have been occupied.