NEW SOVIET BLOWS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 19, 18 October 1943, Page 5

NEW SOVIET BLOWS

Reported Attack In Ukraine (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received October 17, 8.10 p.m.) LONDON, October 16. The Russians have launched a great attack north-west of Dnepropetrovsk, says Berlin radio. Infantry attacked after a particularly violent drumfire barrage. The radio claimed that German positions were "on the whole maintained. It added: "Powerful Russian forces are trying to effect a new break-through west of Smolensk. Fierce fighting flared up on this sector on Friday, the Russians flinging in many tanks and divebombers. The Luftwaffe is busily engaged in covering German troops in a heavy defensive struggle."

Moscow radio says that the number of German aircraft in some areas on the west bank of the Dnieper has increased tenfold to fifteenfold. The Germans are concentrating aircraft over the battle area where they are at-, tempting to hold their positions regardless of cost, but the Russians are steadily expanding their bridgeheads. The Germans’ increased aerial activity is not seriously affecting the Russian operations. “The Russians repulsed enemy tank and infantry counter-attacks and. continued the battle in the streets of Melitopol. The enemy is suffering huge losses in manpower aud material,” says the Moscow communique. “In the south-west section of Melitopol, we destroyed more than 40 tanks. “South, of Zaporozhe we advanced three to seven miles and occupied several inhabited localities. South-east of Kremenchug, we resumed fighting for an extension of bridgeheads on the right bank of. the Dnieper. We broke down fierce enemy resistance, advanced, some miles and occupied several inhabited localities. “We fought engagements on the right bank of the Dnieper north of Kiev to extend our bridgeheads. Our positions have been improved. We have forged ahead and improved our positions south of Gomel.”

Battle for Melitopol. Referring to Melitopol, Moscow radio stilted that the Russians are rapidly breaking up German resistance in street fighting, in spite of a German High Command order threatening to shoot Germans abandoning their positions._ The “Red Star” says that the fighting at Melitopol is steadily growing in intensity. The paper stresses that this town is the last big German stronghold protecting the steppes adjoining the Sea of Azov, adding that every blow deait by the Red Army in this area will have a great influence on the entire Ukrainian front. , , The battle for Melitopol will rank amongst the fiercest of the war. lhe Russians in the centre of Melitopol are infiltrating the German . lines by “mouse-holing”' from house to house and fighting their way across the roofs. "9 Reuter said yesterday : ‘ The Germans in the Kiev area are lighting like madmen. The German High Command is throwing in large numbers of men, regardless of cost. The battlefields'north and south of Kiev are soaked in blood. It is not a risky forecast to say that the German defence of Kiev is well-nigh hopeless. There is hardly a chance in a hundred that they will be able to do more than delay defeat.” The Russian forces which crossed the Dnieper north and south of Kiev are steadily crushing the main German lines guarding Kiev from the rear. The Russian bridgeheads on the west bank of the Dnieper are now miles deep. The Russians have cauturefi .so large an area that the Russian generals,'with their staffs, have estaolished their headquarters there.

In- the Barents Sea, according to a supplementary Russian communique, two German transports totalling 16,(100 tons and one escorting vessel were sunk, and two other enemy transports . heavily damaged. Soviet pilots shot down 16 planes protecting the convoy. In the Baltic, an enemy tanker of 5000 tons was sunk.