OF BATTLES IN RUSSIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1941, Page 6

OF BATTLES IN RUSSIA

Heavy and Persistent Counter-Attacks MAINTAINED BY THE SOVIET ARMIES SOME UNSUBSTANTIATED GERMAN CLAIMS (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, ’lnly 7. Fighting' along ths vast Eastern front is reaching a new pitch of intensity as the Red Army is throwing more tanks into the battle and continuing the counter-attacks which were begun at several points on Saturday. The purpose of the Russian counter-attacks is believed to be to disturb and harass the Germans during the period of reduced German activity in which Hitler’s generals had hoped to refit and consolidate then territorial gains outside Russia proper. The Moscow radio announced tonight that Rusisan tanks counter-attacking on the Ukraine front had won a big victory against German tanks, 300 German tanks being destroyed. The series of counter-attacks to which the Russian communique refers are apparently the first on a major scale since the outbreak of war. There is no support for the German claim that broken Soviet armies are retreating along the whole front-. The German thrust towards Moscow remains the most picturesque feature of the campaign? but the immediately most important is the move against Leningrad, the capture of which by the Germans would place the Russian fleet in an untenable position. A passage in the Moscow communique, indicating that the Germans have been forced to the defensive in the Ostrov sector, is therefore inost significant. The Russians also took the offensive in the Lepel and Borisov sectors, and launched an attack against German mechanised forces in the NovogradVclynsk sector. Red Army circles in Moscow indicated on July 6 that they were taking the initiative. Berlin yesterday refrained from any geographical details and it remains a mystery what has happened to the Panzer forces which were stated six days ago to be “racing along the road from Minsk to Moscow.’’