IN DONETZ AREA AND CAUCASUS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 January 1943, Page 3

IN DONETZ AREA AND CAUCASUS

Taken By the Russian Armies ENEMY’S LATERAL COMMUNICATIONS CUT DETAILS OF GREAT BLOW STRUCK IN LENINGRAD AREA LONDON, January 19. Moscow announces the capture of Valuiki, a key railway centre 200 miles north-west of Rostov and 70 miles east of Kharkov. Its capture means that the Russians have cut the vital north-south railway connecting the enemy forces in the Donetz basin with those further north. The Russians have also captured Kamensk, on the Donetz, and in the Caucasus, Petrovskoe, less than 50 miles north-east of Voroshilovsk. The Germans are still held on the defensive along the whole length of the Russian front. German military commentators speak of hard and bitter fighting. . • Today’s news from Russia is of continuing advances by the Soviet armies in all seven main offensives. The last of these, at Leningrad, is developing. • ; 7 END OF LONG SIEGE Mr Paul Winterton, the London “News-Chronicle’s” representative in Moscow, tells how the long siege of the great city was raised yesterday, when troops from the Volkhov front joined hands with the Leningrad garrison. The Germans had retained a ten-mile wide corridor to the southern shores of Lake Ladoga, with Shlusselburg as its northern buttress. They had made every conceivable type of defensive work, including tremendous underground buildings three or four stories deep. Last Tuesday morning the garrison forces of Leningrad opened a devastating artillery barrage across the River Neva. It lasted for 12 hours 20 minutes. In this hail of fire a great part of the German infantry division opposite was broken up. As the barrage lifted, Soviet infantry moved across the frozen lake and hauled guns across the ice and up the bank opposite, Many of the enemy’s wire defences were cut by the Soviet artillery and Russian sappers dealt with minefields. The Russians soon consolidated their positions across the Neva River and began to advance into the depth of the enemy’s defences. Counterattacks were crushed. Meanwhile, troops from the Volkhov front had pushed forward and eventually the two forces met. Ships of the Baltic Fleet, frozen in on Lake Ladoga, also joined in the great barrage. LINK WITH FINLAND SEVERED The Russian High Command maintained the same silence over the Leningrad offensive as over the other mighty blows till the outcome was certain, and the Germans for days had been referring to the Russian offensive on the Neva. The breach which has now been driven into the German lines will not merely relieve the heroic garrison and the citizens, who have tenaciously resisted in spite of their many shortages, but will also sever the direct land link between Germany and Finland.