Evening star., 1943-01-24
Reds Take Important Rail Junction
And Key to Maikop Oil Fields;
British Push on After Tripo|i Falls
1900 Additional
Prisoners Seized
Near Voronezh ,
BY EDDY GILMORE.

hbO
army mas recaptured Armavir
winch controls the Maikop oil
neios in the Caucasus, and on the
Voronezh front to the north has
occupied Volokonovka, railway
junction 78 miles northeast of
harKov and so miles east of Bel
gorod, two highly important Nazi
pases, special communique an
nounced tonight.
On the Voronezh front $4,000
more prisoners were taken, boosting
Sne total Axis captives to $4,000. and
III nine days since the offensive
began the Russians said they had
routed II Axis divisions, nine of
them Hungarian.
The seizure of Armavir was the
biggest Red Army victory yet in the
caucasus. From that city runs the
only railway to the Maikop oil
helds and to Tuapse on the Black
Sea coast. The latter is still in
Russian hands, and Axis troops in
between these points are now i'm
perilled.
Uondon sources estimated
100000 Axis troops were threat
ened with encirclement in the
Caucasus just as an equal num-
ber was trapped before Stalin-
grad)
Nearing Voroshilovgrad.
In taking Volokonovka on the
fast-moving Voronezh front the
troops of 1t. Gen. F. I. Golikov
again cut the Yelets-Kupyansk
railway in the sweep toward the
main Kursk- k-Kharkov line beyond.
Volokonovka is about % miles above
Valuiki, which was taken several
days ago.
Voroshilovgrad, industrial center
OF the Donets basin to the south,
also Is threatened with imminent
seizure by Russian troops who yes
terday captured Kondrashevskaya
10 miles to the east and Stanichno-
Luganskoye, only IL miles away.
These troops driving into the
Ukraine may wheel southwark to-
ward the sea Of Azov in an effort
TO completely encircle the Caucasian
gateway city of Rostov.
(The midnight Soviet COM
nunique recorded by the Soviet
monitor in London said Gigant,
only rs miles from Rostov, had
fallen to the Russian troops that
had seized Salsk, railway juno
tion 100 miles southeast of Rostov.
The Red Army also took Razvil-
noye, 20 miles southwest of Salsk
on the railway to Tikhoretsk.
NEARLY 1000 enemy trucks, an
entire trainload of supplies, and
other important equipment were
captured yesterday, this COM
munique said, and hundreds of
Axis troops were killed Or cap
tured)
Rostov in Growing Peril.
Rostov itself was in growing peril
from other Red armies less than 60
miles to the East on the lower Don
beyond Salsk, the recaptured rail
junction and air base 100 miles to
the Southeast; by forces on the
railway to voronezh, rs miles to the
North. and by the Caucasus armies
driving up the Baku railway less
than 200 miles away.
(The German communique
spoke of the Nazi retreat in the
North Caucasus as a disengage-
ment movement proceeding ac-
cording to plan" 1t said the
Russian breach In the Stain
grad pocket was halted by the
utmost exertion." Soviet at
tacks in the Don area, South Of
Lake Ladoga and in the Western
Caucasus were said to have
failed)
On the voronezh front the Rus
dams declared they dislodged the
enemy from number of populated
places overnight, encroaching closer
On Kharkov, ancient capital OF the
TJkraine. only 79 miles from the
nearest Russian column. Benlno
the lines trapped Axis division was
slowly being liquidated.
Further north, Gen. GonkoV
troops pressed deeper INTO hursf '
nrovince, less than 30 miles iron
the capital of the same name. =,
The most rapid advance was II
,be North Caucasus, where the RUS
@ s;ars were paced by the supert
aassoct e cavalry, laundering hom'
=. last To their plundered villages