SOVIET CLAIM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1942, Page 3

SOVIET CLAIM

ENEMY BLOW FORESTALLED & PREVENTED AND DISPROPORTIONATE LOSSES INFLICTED. GERMAN TALK OF VICTORY DERIDED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 30. A special announcement by the Soviet Information Bureau states: “Some time ago it became known to the Soviet Supreme Command that the German High Command was planning a large offensive in one sector of the Rostov front. The German army had concentrated there 30 infantry divisions, six tank divisions and large quantities of guns and planes. “To forestall this German blow and prevent it, the Soviet High Command inaugurated an offensive against Kharkov—the occupation of Kharkov itself not being provided for in the operation as planned. For two weeks, violent fighting raged in this sector. Now, when this fighting has come to an end, it can be ascertained that the main task—to forestall the blow of the Fascist German troops and prevent it — has been accomplished.” “In these operations the Germans lost not fewer than 90,000 officers and men in killed and prisoners. Five hundred and forty tanks, 1511 guns, and more than 200 planes destroyed. Our losses were about 5000 killed, 70,000 missing, and 300 tanks, 832 guns, and 124 planes destroyed. “The German High Command describes the fighting round Kharkov as a big victory for the Fascist army, and gives a fantastic figure of the alleged Soviet officers and soldiers taken prisoner and technical equipment destroyed. In reply to this invention, we can only say that a few more of such German ‘victories’ and the Fascist German army will finally be bled, to death.”

The midnight Russian communique states: “Our troops today continued to repulse enemy tank and infantry attacks in the Isyum-Barvenkova sector. It is now known that 62 German planes and not 53 were destroyed on Thursday. On Friday 94 German planes were destroyed. Our losses were 25 planes. A Soviet naval unit sank an enemy U-boat in the Barents Sea.”