FRONT THRUST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1943, Page 3

FRONT THRUST

i/ FROM DNIEPER BEND TO SEA OF AZOV POSSIBLE GERMAN HOPES. AND RUSSIAN BATTLE PLANS. (British Official Wireles_s.) (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) RUGBY, October 27. The front between Krivoi Rog and the Sea of Azov is in a .fluid condition. It is possible that the Germans hope to stabilise it on some position running north and south across the Dnieper bend, through Krivoi Rog or further back, covering Kirovograd, Nikolayev and Kherson. The Russians, however, seem to be in a position to thwart such an intention by attacking westwards before the German retirement is completed. Any tendency of the Germans to counter that by taking reinforcements from the Kiev area would expose them to still greater disasters. Along most of the Eastern front there is a temporary halt in the Russian progress. How far this is due to the autumn weather, how far to German efforts to check deployments from the Middle Dnieper bridgeheads, and how far to a deliberate Russian pause, is difficult to estimate. It seems likely,

however, that the Germahs have flung all their available reserves into filling the breaches made in their vital main positions round Kiev, and in so doing have sacrificed the defence of the lower Dnieper bend.