SIGNS OF SLACKENING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 August 1943, Page 4

SIGNS OF SLACKENING

IN RUSSIAN SUMMER OFFENSIVE ACCORDING TO REUTER CORRESPONDENT. KHARKOV A HARDER NUT THAN WAS EXPECTED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, August 22. "After fifty days of continual fighting, the Russians’ mighty summer offensive, from the Smolensk front to the Kharkov front, is showing signs of slackening in some sectors,” declares Reuter's Moscow correspondent. “The most difficult stage of the offensive has now been reached along the whole front .with the Russians' efforts becoming a race against time. There is no longer any clearly defined front line, it is added, but only a scries of bulges which the Red Army is trying to fill in order to avoid the danger of exposing its flanks to coun-ter-attacks. The offensive is now being waged under these complicated conditions against the obstinate resistance of German reserves and reformed divisions.” The-Reuter correspondent continues that Kharkov is proving a harder nut than was at first believed. The Red Army has gained some fresh vantage points in the steel arc compressing the city, but the German resistance is still tremendous. The enemy is still getting reinforcements through to Kharkov by the only remaining railway lines from Losovaya and Dnepropetrovsk. Correspondents 1 agree that the same story applies to struggles in the Bryansk and Demensk sectors, where the German resistance in the past few days has appreciately stiffened. “The Times” Stockholm correspondent says the Russians in the Kharkov area have gained a little more ground here and there, but not on such an impressive scale as before the German counter-ac-tion began. The fiercest continual struggle is still located between Kharkov and the Donetz Basin, where the Russians are ploughing slowly ahead from Smiyev to cut the main railway south-westward, ’near Merefa Junction. Moscow has now disclosed that fighting is going on south-west of Voroshilovgrad, also 90 miles north of Rostov, on a tributary of the Donetz River. Reuter concludes that this refers to the Mius River area, where the Berlin radio last night admitted that the Red Army had broken into German positions. MASS CONCENTRATIONS OF RUSSIAN TROOPS. REPORTED BY PARIS RADIO. (Received This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, August 22. The Paris radio’s military commentator stated that, as all .operations on the Eastern front will soon be bogged down by mud, M. Stalin has apparently marshalled the last of his forces and is about to order - a final assault. Mass concentrations of Russian troops and tanks have been observed behind the whole front. ‘