RUSSIAN DRIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 January 1942, Page 3

RUSSIAN DRIVE

FURTHER LOSSES INFLICTED ON ENEMY THREAT TO SMOLENSK. TRANSPORT SUNK IN BARENTS SEA. LONDON, January 28. Russian troops on the southern front have scored new successes against the Germans. The “Izvestia” states that heavy losses were inflicted on the enemy by Marshal Timoshenko’s forces. The German commanders are reported to have taken stern measures to make the Nazi army hold their defence lines. An order states that soldiers who retired will be considered as not wishing to fight for the Fuehrer and will be shot. All German efforts to hold the Rus-' sians on the seventy-mile wedge have failed. The victorious Russian forces north-west of Moscow are now swinging to the south and threatening the German stronghold of Smolensk. Further progress on the central front is shown in the midday Soviet communique which says that another village has been captured with heavy losses to the enemy in men and material. A further report stresses the heavy losses which the Germans have sustained in their counter-attacks. In the Ukraine Russian cavalry are taking a big toll of the enemy. The midday communique also records the sinking of a German transport in the Barents Sea, this being the fortieth ship which the Russians have sunk in these waters without loss to themselves. Despite the persistence of gruelling weather, the Russians continue tneir

remarkably strong pressure from the region of the Valdai Hills. The drive westward has necessitated bringing up German reinforcements from winter quarters in the Baltic States to prevent the severance of the important VitebskLeningrad railway and, even if the Russians do not persist immediately in the drive to the railway, these forces must be maintained.