SERIOUS DOUBTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1941, Page 6

SERIOUS DOUBTS

CAST ON GERMAN CLAIMS

POSITION IN UKRAINE.

NO EVIDENCE OF APPROACH TO ODESSA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, August 13. Soviet military circles, replying to German claims of a sweeping advance in the Ukraine, say that nothing important has occurred on the war fronts throughout the day. Reuter’s Moscow correspondent advances the opinion that it would be absurd for the Russians to use such a phrase if something very important had happened, and the absence of new place names in today’s Soviet communique is a clear indication that the main German forces have not advanced. This does not mean that German advance units may not again have ventured to push ahead, possibly towards Nikolaev, whose gigantic silos doubtlessly conjure up visions of vast grain stocks for the Germans. There is every reason to suppose that the Russians would move the grain inland if Nikolaev were seriously threatened, which it is not.

“The Times” correspondent on the German frontier says the mere fact that no exact particulars can be obtained of what is happening around Odessa justifies doubting German Claims that Odessa has been isolated ■and also that the Germans control the lower Dnieper, southward of A Kiev. The correspondent refers to Moscow's mention of a great battle 40 miles from Nikolaev, where the Axis forces are numerically superior to Marshal Budenny’s, but points out that the German statement on August 10 that 25 of Marshal Budenny’s divisions had been annihilated is still unconfirmed. As against this, an onslaught by Marshal Budenny’s Cossacks in many places has released encircled Russians.

Desperate fighting continues around Smolensk. Russians encircled westward of Smolensk are far from having been annihilated or even checkmated and constitute the heaviest encumbrance to the German advance.