PACE INCREASING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 January 1943, Page 3

PACE INCREASING

POWERFUL SOVIET DRIVE ON ROSTOV VIGOROUS NEW BLOWS. 4 ON DEFENCES AT JUNCTION OF DON & DONETZ. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, January 11. Russian troops are now storming powerful German fortifications at the junction of the Don and the Donetz rivers, 60 miles north-east of Rostov. These vigorous new blows were announced late last night by Moscow radio, which added that the Russians had bypassed Konstantinovsk, a Germanheld stronghold 10 miles east of the river barrier. The Moscow correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says this is a most important Russian thrust toward Rostov, because it narrows the corridor through which the Germans are supplying their southern armies, but the Russians are even nearer Rostov. They are advancing toward Ruadorskaya, and somewhere in this area are reported to be within 40 miles of Rostov. Emphasising the power with which the Russians are exploiting the initiative on the southern front, the Moscow correspondent of “The Times” said yesterday that the Germans were fighting tenaciously, but the pace of the Russian drive, led by great tank forces, appeared to be increasing. An earlier message reported that the Russians north of the Don have advanced to the Donetz on a 40-mile front. The Russians at some points are only 10 miles from the waterline where the Germans are expected stubbornly to resist, but this cannot effectively shield Rostov, which is now gravely threatened after the Russian advance south from the Don. The German news agency partially broke a week’s silence regarding the Russian victories by admitting “the withdrawal of some German advanced bases east of the Caucasus.” The agency claimed that the moves were made without the Russians’ knowledge in order to shorten the line. Moscow says the Germans did not sink a single well or get a drop of oil from the Malgobek wells in the Caucasus during their three months’ occupation. The Russian authorities have already started to restore the oilfields liberated from the Germans.