MORE SUCCESSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 September 1943, Page 3

MORE SUCCESSES

GAINED BY THE RUSSIAN ARMIES BREAK THROUGH NAZI DEFENCES EAST OF SMOLENSK. IMPORTANT PROGRESS IN OTHER AREAS. LONDON, September 19. The Red Army has broken through the German defence line 30 miles from Smolensk, after four days of violent fighting. Among the places captured are two important towns, one being on the trunk road and railway from Moscow and an important centre of German resistance on the way to Smolensk. Smolensk has long been the main German base in Russia. This latest Russian success means that the main German defence line is now broken in a new sector. The Russian summer offensive has smashed up this line from the Smolensk area to the Sea of Azov. In an order of the day, Marshal Stalin that on the Bryansk front the Red Army has crossed to the west bank of the Desna River, 50 miles below Bryansk, on a broad front. This success establishes a third Soviet bridgehead over the Desna River. Fuither gains west of Bryansk are reported. In the Ukraine, further Russian progress is recorded. The Russians have captured Prituki and Krasnograd, midway .between Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. In the Kuban region the Russians have captured an important mountain pass. NEW GAINS ON ALL SECTORS OF 600 MILE FRONT. POLTAVA-KIEV RAILWAY CUT. LONDON, September 19. The Russians have made important new gains on all sectors of the 600-mile central-southern front in the last forward surge, in which they freed 100 square miles of territory. The Red Army in two swift strokes has cut the Poltava-Kiev railway at several points, which was the enemy’s last supply line to his forces east of Kiev, and has seized the key junction of PaVlO4.U Other forces surging across the Dnieper steppe captured Pologi, centre of a railway network east of the Dnieper bend. Supplies to the German forces east of Kiev must now take a tortuous route by secondary railways. The Germans have lost communication with their forces east of the Dnieper bend as Poltava was cut off from the rear. With Pologi in their hands the Russians have reached the last German defence line 50 miles from the Crimea railway. The capture of Pavlograd has reduced the Dnieper'escape-gap foi the Germans in the Donetz salient and the Crimea and the Kuban to 30 miles. The “Sunday Times” Moscow correspondent says there is every prospect that the Germans in the main will be pushed back to the Dnieper line before the winter except possibly in the north and the extreme south. The Germans will probably put up a determined resistance to save the Crimea, but their prospects of holding a large bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper are worsening daily.