THREAT TO ROSTOV

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 January 1943, Page 4

THREAT TO ROSTOV

HEAVILY INTENSIFIED SOVIET ADVANCE ON VITAL RAILWAY. CENTRES. MORE OF STALINGRAD REMNANT WIPED OUT. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) LONDON, January 21. The capture cf Voroshilovsk (otherwise Stavropol), an important collective farming centre in the Kuban area, is announced in a special Russian communique. The tcwn was occupied after a stubborn battle, in which the Russians captured prisoners and booty. Mighty Russian armies now threaten the most important German communication centres in Southern Russia — Kharkov, Kursk, Lugansk, Rostov Salsk and Armavir.

Kharkov is a strategically vital junction of six railways. Kursk is an intersection cf four lines. Rostov is the key town to the Caucasus. Salsk and the other towns are scarcely less important rail centres.

Reuter’s Moscow correspondent says the threat to Rostov is increased with the Russians closing in on Likhaya, Lugansk and Salsk. Front line dispatches from the Salsk sector tonight say fighting is raging on the eastern outskirts of a “large populated place,” which may be Salsk itself. The capture of Proletarskaya yesterday was achieved by an attack from three sides. The Russians finally drove the Germans out after fierce street fighting. The defenders included an S.S. regiment and the remnants of several divisions which had been severely handled in earlier fighting on this front.

The Russians on the Donetz front are advancing against Likhaya junction from two directions —one column from Kamenskaya and the other westward along the Stalingrad-Krasnodar Railway. A number of villages have been captured on this front in the past 24 hours. Three Russian columns are closing in on Lugansk, one of which is only twenty miles away from the town. Farther north a column which took Byelovodsk yesterday, is now threatening the big town and railway station of Starobyelsk. The Russian advance in the Caucasus is continuing with clock-like precision. Nevinomyskaya was taken yesterday by a double thrust. Attacks against the encircled Germans before Stalingrad continue, says “The Times” Moscow correspondent. It is estimated that 5,000 have. been killed and nearly a thousand captured since the announcement on January 16 that the trapped forces had been reduced to about 50,000. On the northern front, the combined Leningrad and Volkhov armies are reported to be advancing ' southward. The Russians report a battle for an important point which is the pivot of the German defences over a wide area. The place is being attacked from three sides and the Germans are rushing reinforcements thither. ENEMY LOSSES TWO RUSSIAN ESTIMATES. FOR PERIOD OF OFFENSIVE. • (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) RUGBY, January 21. The Germans and their allies have lost 600,457 killed and captured on all sectors of the Russian front since the Stalingrad drive began on November 19. This total comprises 334,000 killed and 266,457 captured. A Moscow message giving these figures adds that the number of wounded is believed to be about 900,000, making a total loss of effectives of about one and a half millions. It is stated that the exhaustion of Axis manpower has particularly shown. itself on the Donetz front, where two , generals, Oppel and Hofman, comman-‘ ded only 3,500 combatants. These figures compare with those given by the chief of the propaganda department of the Central Committee of -the Soviet Union, who said,, at Moscow, that the enemy during the same period lost 6,000 tanks, 12,000 guns, and 3,500 planes. He put the number of killed, however, at ovei’ half a million.