Evening star., 1943-12-21
Soviet Armies
Gain 15Mi|es
In Neve|Area
Plunge to Within
20 Miles of Vitebsk
On Railway Line
~ the Associated Press.

Z by me Associated Press.
LONDON, Dec. 21.-The Rus
sian Baltic Army, steadily ex-
panding its breach in the heavily
fortified German line, has
plunged down the east side of
the Newell -Vitebsk Railway to
within 20 miles of Vitebsk, Reu-
ters News Agency reported today
from Moscow.
This represented an advance OF
some Is miles for Gen. Ivan C. Bag
ramian's forces from their last re-
ported position. His troops stand
barely so miles from the old Polish
and Latvian frontiers.
The nearest approach to Vitebsk
was the railway station of Gorodok
20 miles north on the railway from
Newell.
The German communique said So
Wet pressure was increasing in the
Vitebsk area and that northwest
of Newell. the Soviets launched un-
successful attacks"
Reds Dispersed, Nazis Say.
In the Dnleper bend area the
Germans said the Russians had bro
ken through southeast of Kirovo-
grad, but had been dispersed or
wiped out. Two days of Russian at
tempts to break through on the
Nikopol bridgehead on the lower
Dnieper and southwest of Dnepro-
petrovsk were said by Berlin to have
failed.
Gen. Bagramian's success in
Northern Russia, threatening to dis
rupt the entire Nazi defense system
south OF Leningrad, had immediate
repercussions on other sectors OF
the long Eastern Front. Dispatches
indicated the huge reinforcements
the Germans are throwing into the
Newell battle were possibly being
drawn from the Zhitomir- -Korosten
front west Of Kiev, if not farther
south.
Troops Of the lst Ukraine Army
who successfully baked Nazi Mar
shall Fritz Won Mannstein's powerful
tank drive in the Kiev bulge last
week, were back in the Korosten
sector yesterday, front dispatches
said, and had repulsed a series OF
sharp enemy assaults.
600 Germans Eliminated.
Previous reports said fighting in
the bulge was centered in the area
below Malin. Yesterdays action
cost The Germans 900 men and q
tanks in one sector alone, the Mos
COW war bulletin said.
Dispatches also revealed that the
Russians were now exerting strong
pressure from the southeast on XII.
rovograd, Dnieper bend enemy base
in an apparent drive to isolate tha,
industrial conter The Russian com.
munique said the Germans LOST
l 200 men killed and So tanks de.
stroyed in futile counterattack.
there yesterday.
A German military spokesman was
quoted by the Stockholm newspaper
Dagens Nyheter as saying the Ger.
mans had withdrawn troops from
the Kiev bulge southwark toware
klrovograd, suggesting Marshal vor
Mannstein may have abandoned hi.
drive on Kiev.
Nazis Evacuate Bridgehead.
A Berlin broadcast, meanwhile
announced the Germans had evacu.
ated their bridgehead on the cas-
bank of the icebound Dnieper River
opposite the city of Kherson, far te
the south, and said an early assault
against Kherson itself was antici.
pated by the German garrison. Mos.
COW did not mention any activity
IN the Kherson salient.
(CBS recorded another Berlin
broadcast today in which the an
nouncer evidently was preparing
his listeners for the possibility of
sudden changes of the situa-
ton on the eastern front" He
added that "at Kherson there
are German movements in prog
ress which remind one of the de-
velopments at Cherkasy." Cher
&C..