VITAL RAILWAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1943, Page 3

VITAL RAILWAY

WITHIN EASY RANGE OF SOVIET GUNS ATTACKERS CLOSING IN ON OREL FROM NORTH-WEST AND EAST. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) RUGBY, July 22. The Russians are evidently closing in on Orel along the railways leading to the city from the north-west, where they are eight miles away, and from, the east, where they are a dozen miles away. To the north-west of Orel they are reported to have the Bryansk railway within easy range of their artillery. , Operations on the Donetz, around Izyum, and on the Mius, south-west of Voroshilovgrad, do not appear to be on a large scale yet. SOVIET CAUTION IN DESCRIBING SOUTHERN 1 • OPERATIONS. MAY BE FIRST STEP IN DRIVE TO DNIEPER. LONDON, July 22. The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says that Moscow is cautious in describing the incipient great battle at Izyum, Lisichansk, south-west of Voroshilovgrad, and along the River Mius as “local battles, which tend to become of serious scope.” The present operations in this sector, says the correspondent, must be a continuation of the Russians’ uncompleted winter offensive. The Russians then initiated twin drives south, of the Izyum-Lisichansk sector and west across the Mius between the Sea of Azov and Voroshilovgrad, with the objective of clasping hands somewhere east of the Dnieper, preparatory to squeezing the German armies in the Donetz Basin. This objective is just as attractive today.