INITIATIVE REGAINED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1943, Page 3

INITIATIVE REGAINED

GERMAN COUNTER=ATTACKS FAIL RAILWAY LINE TO KHARKOV THREATENED. RUSSIAN FORCES ON THE MOVE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 19. The Russians have now regained the initiative in the Kharkov area in the face of the strong German counterattacks which began some days ago. A Russian communique reported that Soviet troops yesterday occupied more than 50 places, the town of Zmiev, 22 miles south-east of Kharkov and on the main line connecting the city with Izyum, further down the Donetz River. Messages state that following on the capture of Zmiev the Red Army now stands nine miles from Kharkov and 10 miles from the last railway leading out of Kharkov. To the west of Kharkov the forces which bypassed the city and cut the railway to the west are again on the move. Commenting on the fighting on the Bryansk front, Reuter’s correspondent says that the offensive is developing satisfactorily. The Russians are now at&cking along the whole of a sickleshaped front 150 miles long, stretching from Spas Demensk in the north to Sievsk, which is at the upper corner of the original Kursk salient. In the south the Russians’ giant sickle is moving steadily forward, cutting its way through great tracts of forest. The centre is only 12 miles from Bryansk. At both tips of the sickle the Russians are splitting up and developing secondary threats at the network of communications radiating from Bryansk. In the north, Russian forces which are converging from Spas Demensk and Zhizdra ■ are now threatening Lyudinovo, 45 miles north of Bryansk. The Russians in the south are developing a double threat to the BryanskKharkov railway. One Red Army force is within five miles of Nablya, at the junction of the Kharkov and Konotop lines, and the second, further south, threatens to cut the railway at a second point. The correspondent concludes that the Red Army’s vast offensive has resolved itself into two huge battles —one for Kharkov and toward the Dnieper, and the other for Bryansk and toward the Dnieper. The whole operatioh involves nearly 750,000 men on both sides. Moscow’s mood is resolutely confident, but it is recognised that the ■ issue is far from decided.