ATTACK ON SMOLENSK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1943, Page 4

ATTACK ON SMOLENSK

GREAT OUTFLANKING MOVE BY RUSSIANS TWELVE COUNTER-ATTACKS REPELLED. RAPID ADVANCE ALSO ON KIEV. * LONDON, September 22. The most important operation on the entire Russian front at the moment is a great outflanking movement by the Russians northwest of Smolensk. The move threatens to envelop Smolensk, the enemy’s biggest base. The Russians have captured a town 40 miles north-west of Smolensk. The Germans launched 12 counter-attacks, but they failed to keep the town. The enemy lost 8,000 men in one sector alone. Soviet forces are 24 miles from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, and are only five miles from the middle reaches of the Dnieper. They have captured a big town 15 miles north-east of Dnepropetrovsk. SPIRES OF KIEV SEEN BY ADVANCING RUSSIANS. MORE GERMAN ADMISSIONS OF RETREAT. (Received This Day. 1.35 p.m.) ■ LONDON, September 22. The “Izvestia” says: “Through the crystal clear autumn air of the Ukraine, Russian troops can already see the gilt domes of the churches of Kiev glistening in the sunshine.” The paper adds that the Russians beyond Chernigov are forcing the Germans back under., great., pressure towards the Upper Dnieper, 80 miles above Kiev. The Russians farther north are advancing across the last five miles separating them from Roslovl. Implying new retreats in the Roslovl area, Captain Sertorious (Berlin radio commentator) said the enemy had considerably increased the pressure in the Roslovl sector, and that the Germans were meeting the pressure with elastic dfence tactics.

The Russians are attacking with very powerful forces in the Smolensk sector, where a pincer movement is taking shape. A Russian communique records that a total of 80 inhabited places were captured during the day, and says that the port of Anapa, north-west of Novorossisk, was captured after fierce fighting. The “Izvestia” says the Russians in the Kuban bridgehead are less than ten miles from Temryuk, the largest port remaining in German hands.