RUSSIAN REPLY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1941, Page 5

RUSSIAN REPLY

TO NAZI “BEAUTIFUL CERTAINTY” ATTACKS STEMMED & BROKEN. ENORMOUS GERMAN LOSSES REPORTED. ( B v Telegraph—Press Associat ion—Copyright) LONDON, July 14. Against the enemy’s claim to have broken through the Stalin defences and achieved the “beautiful certainty” of victory, a Moscow communique at midnight last night referred to the same main sectors as on July 12—Pskov, Vitebsk and Novograd-Volynsk—and said that enemy attacks were stemmed and repulsed in heavy fighting. A further communique at midday today states: “No large-scale operations took place during the night and there are no important alterations in the military position.” The Stockholm correspondent of the I "Daily Telegraph” states that yesteri day’s German communique claiming to I have broken through the Stalin Line I at all important points was issued for I internal consumption in order to banish the anxiety which had settled over [Germany. Very clear evidence exists i that the Germans ’have not yet begun I a general offensive, though it certainly I can be expected within a few days. The German communique in any case merely says that the German armies in the north are still fighting along the old Russian border. General Brauchitsch’s crack divisions in the centre are held at Vitebsk and are still facing the powerful Stalin Line fortifications barring the road to Moscow. The Axis forces on the southern front are now coming up against the modern defence system guarding Kiev, which the Germans had expected to occupy within a fortnight of the start of the invasion. Reliable reports indicate that the damage the German mechanised forces have sustained is so severe that maintenance of their full pressure in an offensive is impossible. It is officially announced in Moscow: “The Russian losses so far are less than a quarter of a million killed, wounded and missing. The German losses are over one million men and 3COO tanks. ‘ The Russian air force has destroyed 2300 German planes. The Soviet air force will continue systematically Lo destroy the enemy planes, mechanised and motorised units, and bomb the enemy aerodromes and military objectives. "We have lost so far 1900 planes, and 2200 tanks. “The first three weeks of fighting testify to undoubted collapses in Hitler’s blitzkrieg. The best German divisions have been broken up. “Germany's enormous losses of troops explain the fact that Germany has recalled almost all the troops from occupied France, from the Swiss border, and from several other places, replacing them with old men. Hitlerguard divisions have also been transferred to the Eastern Front.”