Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, APRIL 5, 1943. RUSSIA’S EXPANDING EFFORT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, APRIL 5, 1943. RUSSIA’S EXPANDING EFFORT.

TN itself, and as its results are summed up in the facts and figures given in a special communique issued in, Moscow at the end of last week, the Russian winter offensive is a tremendously impressive achievement. During last summer, as in that of the preceding year, much Soviet territory had to be conceded to the enemy, though not without hard fighting, in which the invaders, as Well as the defending forces, suffered heavy losses. In months of battle up to last November, Russia lost for the time being the wheat lands of the Don and Kuban territories, the rich mining and industrial areas of the Donetz Basin, a great deal of North Caucasian territory, including the Maikop oilfield, together with Rostov and main railway and other communications extending north and east to the immediate vicinity of Stalingrad—this last development involving the reduction to a dangerous minimum of contact between the Caucasus and the rest of the Soviet Union.

By far the greater part of these losses have been recovered by the Red Army in the course of its winter offensive and although the great Ukrainian city of Kharkov and other important territory in the Donetz region were recovered only to be lost again, the net balance of results in the months of winter fighting, territorially and in other respects, is enormously against the Germans. Apart from the recovery of 200,000 square miles of territory and an advance in places of more than 400 miles, the Red Army, according to the special Soviet communique, killed in these months 850,000 of the enemy, took nearly 350,000 prisoners and captured or destroyed over 5000 aircraft, more than 9000 tanks and 20,000 guns.

It is claimed by the Germans that in their counter-offensive in the course of which they again took Kharkov they have established a line from which they will be able to open a new southern offensive in the summer. How far they are likely to succeed in.that undertaking is another question.

The Russians, as well as their enemies, of course have suffered enormous losses in the long series of battles fought, on a scale unprecedented in the history of warfare, since Hitler opened his treacherous attack in June, 1941. As a whole, however, the war on the Eastern front, now in its twenty-second month, has. witnessed a succession of failures on the part of the Germans to reach the decisive results at which they (aimed and which they counted confidently on attaining, and, relatively, the German effort has shrunk, while that of the Russians has continued to expand. Certainly in the latest months of fighting the Red Army has offered convincing evidence that it is more powerful, in relation to its enemy, than at any earlier stage.

While the .situation on the Eastern front, in itself, is becoming' more and more encouraging from the standpoint of Russia and her Allies, the outlook is further improved by the assurance that Germany and her satellites, during the coming northern summer, will be attacked far more powerfully than has hitherto been practicable on their southern and western fronts. A great deal must depend on the progress made in the Tunisian campaign, in the war against the U-boats and in the rapidly mounting air offensive against Germany and enemyoccupied territories. There are good prospects, however, of such a developing tempest of attack on Germany and her vassals during the next few months as should greatly assist the Russians in building upon the results of their long defensive struggle and those of the magnificent winter offensive, along a great part of the Eastern front, which has now been halted, much less by the enemy than by the onset of the spring thaw.