Word: crimea
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...gain for the Russians and the greatest loss to the Germans would be Kharkov, fulcrum of the entire Axis line lying between the Red armies in the south and the outer defenses of the Reich itself. Second in importance was Rostov-a vital gate to the Caucasus and the Crimea and a point which the Germans seized and lost once before...
...north and south toward the German's pinion position at Rostov. The fall of Salsk and Armavir gave the Red Army a tighter hold upon the railways of the Caucasus, increased the prospect that the retiring Axis forces there can only retreat across the Black Sea into the Crimea. Ever nearer was a Russian thrust into the Germans' Kharkov line...
...could be added, because other fronts were in distress. Yet here was potentially the greatest threat of all to the integrity of the German front. The one way the Red Army can decisively smash the German position in Russia is to crash through the great lateral Smolensk-Kursk-Kharkov-Crimea railway system into relatively ill-defended positions behind it. This week the drive was still young, the results unclear. In any case it kept thousands of Germans pinned down...
...Volga area; 2) bar the Germans' way of retreat to their last summer's line (Taganrog-Kharkov-Kursk-Orel) ; 3) finally doom the halting German drive in the Caucasus, perhaps cut off the Caucasian armies' last line of supply and retreat through the Crimea; 4) force the Germans to draw further on their dwindling reserves...
...victory for Soviet arms," Moscow called the siege, on the theory that keeping some 300,000 men, 900 planes, 400 tanks and many guns occupied for so long was in itself a strategical triumph. But the Germans, with Sevastopol, now had the whole Crimea, the Red Navy's last important base on the Black Sea and a southern road to the Caucasus...