Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-03-28
BY the Associated Press.

OF Rumanla.
BY the Associated Press.
MOSCOW, Mar. 28.-RuSsian
troops inside Bucovina appeared
today to be strangling the COM
munications of CzernoWitz Ger
nautD from positions in that
provincial capitals outskirts
while Soviet artillery along 90
miles of the Prut River poured
shells into enemy ranks.
There was no positive indication
that the Russians had crossed the
Prut, which divides Bessarabia and
Rumanla proper. Nor was there
any report of answering fire from
German and Rumanian guns, indi-
eating the foe was in flight toward
1asi Classy, headquarters of Mar
shall Won Mannsteins retreating
army of the south. The Russians
were 10 miles from Iasi on the Prut
at Skulyany.
Street Fighting in Nikolaev.
Street fighting was reported in
Nikolaev, Black Sea port on the Bug
estuary, 215 miles to the east of
Iasi. Nikolaev was reported ripe for
Imminent capture.
Forty miles northeast of Czerno-
WITT, the capture of the strong
Dnieper River base of Kamenets-
Podolsk and the town of Bozovitsy
was swiftly fashioning a death pock-
ct around Germans in 1,400-
square-mile salient to the northeast.
Main escape routes were snapped;
the Germans could retreat only
through muddy corridor being
closed from the north by the 1st
Ukrainian Army and from the south
by the End Ukrainian Army.
1zvestia said the ominious thun-
der of Russian artillery already was
audible in Iasi and that "the Ger
man command cannot halt our
troops" -.
Nazis Driven Into Stream.
Red Star declared in dispatch
from the Prut that Marshal Ivan
konev's I'd Ukrainian Army tanks
and tommy gunners were driving
Germans and Rumanians to death
in the narrow stream.
Czernowitz has 10000 popula-
ton and was the third largest city
of prewar Rumania.
Capture of Sadagura, just across
the Upper Prut from Czernowitz,
climaXed 23-mile drive into Buco-
VIVA from the Dniester River by
Marshal Gregory K. Zhukov's LIST
Ukranian Army, in which an entire
regiment of Hungarian troops was
annihilated, A Russian communicate
announced.
Skulyany was stormed by troops
of the I'd Ukranian Army, the bull
letin said. Soviet armies along the
north bank of the Upper Prut for a
distance of 80 miles.
Zhukov'S invasion of Bucovina
was preceded by a new crossing of
the Dniester, and front dispatches
said this thrust apparently had eff
fectively split the German defense
line east of the Carpathian Noun
tains-a defense based on the Blu
charest-Czernowitz-Lwow railroad.
The drive brought Red Army van
guards to within % miles of Ru-
manla's northern frontier, thus in
creaslng Russian pressure on that
sorely beset Axis satellite.
In the drive on CzernoWitz, Mar
shall Zhukov's forces famed west
ward to capture Koropets, 20 miles
east OF the big functions of Stani-
SlavoW and Gorodenko, just across
the Dniester in Stanislavsky Prov
lnce, the communique said. This ad-
vance placed the Russians close to
the foothills of the Carpathians and
broadened the threat to the left
flank of the enemy's Prut River line
Heavy Casualties Claimed.
The Soviet war bulletin said Red
Army troops were inflicting terrific
casualties on German formations in
the Kamentets-Podolsk fighting
The capture of one town alone, Var
molintsky, resulted in 5000 Nazis
being killed and 100 enemy tanks be-
ing destroyed, the bulletin declared
The German garrison in Kamenets-
Podolsk fought to the last man, il
was added, and was completely
wiped out"
Other zhukov troops were ham,
mering at the German defenders OF
encircled Tarnopol on the trunk line
70 miles east of Lwow and SO miles
. northwest of Czernowitz. Here the
Nazi garrison still was holding out
inside the Red Army ring of steel
but its situation appeared to be
hopeless, dispatches from the front
said.
Of the 221 towns and villages
officially reported captured in yes
terday's fighting 81 fell to Marshal
Zhukov's forces in their drive into
Bucovina. Thirty-one were swept
up in Lower Russia on a 6O-mile
front between besieged Balta and
Pervomaisk in Lower Russia, the
communique said. The rest were
foJoy, hwy tho Kopoy opd NHol;>,oprlrx,