NEW RED ARMY THRUSTS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 228, 23 June 1944, Page 5

NEW RED ARMY THRUSTS

Pressure On Finns (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, June 21. The Russians have launched more blows at several points. North of Lake Onega, which lies 70 miles north-east of Lake Ladoga, th e Russians penetrated the enemy’s defences ettst of Medvezhegorsk, where fighting is in progress on the outskirts, says the Soviet night communique. (Medvezhegorsk, on the north-west tip of Lake Onega, lies on the Murmansk-Helsinki railway.) Between Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga, an important Finnish bridgehead on the south bank of the Svir River* has been wiped out, and more than 200 places captured. The Russians have crossed the river and established a bridgehead on the, north bank.

On the Karelian Isthmus, the Russians have captured more than 50 inhabited places, including Sorcali, on Linosaan Island, in Viborg Bay, half a mile northwest of Viborg. The “(Daily Herald’s” Moscow correspondent says it seems that the bulk of the Finnish forces in south Finland have been shattered. The Finnish Command staked everything on the impregnability of its three fortified lines across the peninsula. The Finns threw in all their available reserves when the Russians began to breach. the lines, and this mad-e their eventual losses worse.

FINNISH CABINET GIVEN WIDE POWERS?

(Received June 22, 8 p.m.) LONDON, June. 21. According to Paris radio, the Finnish Parliament carried unanimously a resolution giving the Finnish Government “extraordinary powers.”