TAKING SHAPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1943, Page 3

TAKING SHAPE

PATTERN OF RUSSIAN WINTER CAMPAIGN RIGA AND LVOV SEEN AS OBJECTIVES VIEWS OF MILITARY OBSERVERS IN LONDON (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, December 28. The pattern of the Russian winter campaign is now emerging and, according to military observers in London, the genera! direction of the attacks will be seen to be towards the great German bases of Riga and Lvov, which might well be the ultimate Soviet objectives. Vitebsk is now three-quarters encircled, the Russians being within ten miles to the north and 15 miles to the west, where the Vitebsk-Polotsk railway line is now cut. At the Kiev bulge, the weight of the attack can be judged from the fact that the Russians have retaken, in only four days, half the territory the Germans took in six weeks. The Russians’ main thrust seems to be south-west rather than west. This is in the direction of the important railway centres of Berdichev and Karatin. If these centres are taken by the Russians then the German position in the Dnieper pocket will be even more hazardous, owing to the loss of another important line of communication.

THREAT TO RUMANIA

IN SOVIET SOUTHWESTERN ADVANCE MUCH MORE ‘IN PROSPECT THAN RECOVERY OF LOST GROUND (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, December 28. The Russian advance on the Kiev front has • developed into much more than a counterblow to regain lost ground. Pushing along the main railway running from Kiev, via Fastov and Vinnitsa, to Northern Rumania, the Russians by last night were only 15 miles from the junction of Kazatin and 20 from the equally important junction of Berdichev. Their right flank was about 15 miles from Jitomir and their left flank has pushed south between Byelayatsekov and Kazatin. They are thus already 75 miles south-west of Kiev and have progressed some dozen miles beyond their previous furthest line. The middle reaches of the Dniester, which formed the Rumanian frontier till 1940, lie not much more than 100 miles away. In the north a noose is being rapidly drawn round Vitebsk and the railway has been cut exactly half-way betwceii Vitebsk and Polotsk.