CAPTURE OF MEDYN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 January 1942, Page 3

CAPTURE OF MEDYN

SUCCESSFUL OPERATIONS ON MOSCOW FRONT PART OF GREAT OFFENSIVE. OTHER IMPORTANT GAINS. LONDON, January 14. The Russians have scored another success on the left wing of the pincer movement on the Moscow front. Tonight’s communique announces the recapture of Medyn, 25 miles due west of Malo Yaroslavets. This is part of the great Russian offensive launched against the 100,000 German troops encircled in the Mojaisk area. General Zhukov, after driving deep wedges into the enemy, is now battering at the German positions beside the Smolensk-Moscow highway. With the recapture of a town miles east of Mojaisk, Soviet correspondents claim that the last link in the winter line which Hitler planned to maintain before Moscow has begun to break. The capture by the Russians of Kirov, south-east of Smolensk, is regarded in London as important, as it not only shows that the southern drive on the central front has breadth, but also contains a threat to the important railway from Smolensk to Bryansk, from which the Russians are 30 miles distant. For the relief of Leningrad the Russians appear to be carrying out not only a strong pinching movement against the immediate besiegers, but a more ambitious thrust in the Lake Ilmen region, with the object of severing the railway from Vitebsk to Leningrad to cut this route supplying the German armies around Leningrad from the south, says the Stockholm correspondent of “The Times.” This thrust will apparently involve the recapture of Novgorod. The Russians operating in the Valdai Hills are already within 100 miles of this railway. They are pressing hard from th Ostachkov region, apparently with a view to crossing the now frozen Kholm marshes. SECRET WEAPON? RUSSIAN ARMOURED SLEDGES. APPEARANCE ON EASTERN FRONT. LONDON, January 14. According to “The Times” Stockholm correspondent, the Germans report that Russian armoured sledges have appeared on the Eastern front. This is possibly the secret weapon the Russians were stated to be manufacturing in great numbers.