SOVIET COUNTER-BLOWS

Evening Star, Issue 24285, 28 August 1942, Page 3

SOVIET COUNTER-BLOWS

SUCCESSES ON MOSCOW SECTOR STUBBORN DEFENCE OF STALINGRAD (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, August 26. A special announcement from Moscow says that 15 days ago the Soviet ■troops assumed the offensive in the region of Rjev and Vyazma, and also at ‘Kalinin. In the first two days of an (attack on a front of 200 miles the Germans were forced back between 25 Sind 30 miles over a 90-rai!o front. The Germans lost 45,000 killed, and the booty included 250 tanks. Since the offensive started a fortnight ago the Russians have recaptured 620 inhabited localities. Heavy counter-attacks have also been launched by the Soviet forces in the Kaluga area, and on the Leningrad front the Russians have broken into the German lines.

The Russians’ counter-stroke north--west and west of Moscow recalls the perfect timing with which M. Stalin launched the winter offensive last December in order to save Moscow. The Russians then held their blow" until danger swept up to the very ramparts of Moscow. Now General Zhukov’s armies have moved a week after the Germans broke through to the northeast 1 of the Tsymlyanskaya bridgehead on the Lower Don and began a fierce drive through Kotelnikovo to the outer defences of Stalingrad. It is still too early to forecast the effect of General Zhukov’s attack upon the crucial battles within a day’s march of Stalingrad, but the figures contained in the special Moscow communique clearly indicate the weight of the Russian attack along a 70-mile front. Gorman official reports during the past fortnight have indicated' a strong Russian attack in the Rjev and Vyazma areas. A Moscow communique indicates that these attacks have been ou It considerably more substantial scale .than the continuous probing activity throughout the earlier part of the summer. Ejev, Gjatsk, and Vyazma—all strongly-defended “ hedgehogs ” to which the Germans clung when tho Russian winter offensive forced them to the west—comprise a formidable triangle of great strategic importance covering Smolensk, which is the pivot of the German front in Russia.

M. Stalin has ordered Marshal Timoshenko to hold Stalingrad at all costs, with the result that the full weight of the Russian armoured reserves was first moved up to the front to-day. The Germans replied with more divebombers and fighter-bombers, which are swooping in continuously against •strongly-fortified Russian positions. The carnage on both sides is appalling. The battle is still moving in favour of the Germans in spite of the Russians’ valiant efforts.

■,The Moscow correspondent of the * “Daily Telegraph ’ reports that the Russians are still retreating from the Kuban, in the Caucasus, where the Germans have established tank and air superiority. The Tiohy radio declared that the Germans in the North Caucasus have reached Krasnaya pa the Rostov-Baku Ntooib ■ ■ -•