NO EASY OPTIMISM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1941, Page 5

NO EASY OPTIMISM

ENTERTAINED IN LONDON

REGARDING BATTLES NOW IN PROGRESS.

BUT RUSSIANS FIGHTING EXTREMELY WELL. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 30. Study of the latest Russian and German communiques leads military observers in London to the opinion that there are no grounds for easy optimism regarding the outcome of the fighting of the next two or three days. While there is not the slightest evidence of a German break-through in the classic sense either in the Minsk area or cast of the River Dvina (since it is inconceivable that the Russians have not organised defence in depth), there is no reason to doubt the German claims to have put considerable Russian forces in danger of encirclement 'vest of Minsk, and also to have crossed the Dvina at four points.

As regards the former claim, a counter-claim by the Russians to be holding up the German infantry and to have cut off German mechanised units must, however, also be considered, and only the next two or three days of fighting will reveal which claim is correct.

Regarding the other fronts, it appears that from Przemysl southward to the Black Sea no serious operation has taken place, while no confirmation is available of a Russian statement that fighting has flared up on. the whole Finnish frontier from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland, and comment on this latter statement is therefore withheld. It is felt that generally the Russians are fighting extremely well, that their morale is excellent, and that they have inflicted very heavy losses on the advancing Germans. Press comment, meanwhile, is sceptical in the extreme of the vast German claims. “In fact, they are too eigantic, however imposing may be the truth itself,” says “The Times.” “It cannot be denied that the Red Army has been dealt heavy blows, or that the German advance, both north and south of the Pripet marshes,, has been rapid, however much that fact may be disguised by small-scale maps. ADD Critical Battles s