SOVIET DRIVE ON VORONEZH FRONT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 January 1943, Page 3

SOVIET DRIVE ON VORONEZH FRONT

Substantial Additional Gains Made by Attacking Forces LATEST HAUL OF PRISONERS INCLUDES GERMAN GENERALS CONTINUOUS HEAVY FIGHTING IN LENINGRAD AREA LONDON, -January 29. - The Russians continue to make headway in all the main fighting zones. The centre of the fighting is still the Voronezh front. . x j• • A Soviet communique states that Russian troops driving westward from Voronezh captured 33 towns and villages and advanced 12 miles. Cavalry encircled and wiped out 3,000 enemy troops. Among 6,000 who were taken prisoner were "three In the Caucasus the Russians have trapped a large German mechanised column, and a battle of annihilation is being fought out. Another place was captured last night after a brief tussle. The Russians have now only a few miles to go to cut the railway running northward to Rostov. On the lower Don, Germans are throwing down their arms singly and in groups. Reuter’s correspondent in Moscow says the Russians on the Voronezh front have broadened their drive towards the vital railway line between Kursk and Kharkov. The two wings of the Russian offensive north and south of Voronezh have now made contact and are sweeping forward. The fall of Kastornoye, announced 1 last night, is especially important as it strengthens the Russian grip on the lateral railway line running to Valuiki. , . „ x . In the Kuban country the .enemy’s line of retreat is increasingly' threatened as the Russians, striking from Salsk, are pressing forward. The Maikop oil centre is now threatened by the Russians on three sides. Far behind; the Russian line the . remnants of the German forces trapped at Stalingrad are still’ facing the Soviet guns. The hopelessness of the fighting is admitted by the German official commentator, General Dietmar. Mr Paul.Winterton, the London “News-Chronicle” Moscow correspondent, says the Germans in the Stalingrad area no longer exert any appreciable military influence. Their importance is a thing of the past and the enemy forces there cannot be of any use to the Germans in keeping Russian first-line troops arid material in that area. In Northern Russia, heavy fighting has been raging for ten days south-east of Leningrad, ever since the German siege of. the city was broken.