Sunday, 8 August

Yesterday the Soviet newspapers published a very long article, illustrating it is not satisfied that the British and Americans have not opened a second war zone. It also said Britain and the United States had promised Molotov that no matter what, the war zone would be opened this year. In the January conference in Casablanca it was clearly promised the zone would be open in nine months. This has now expired, and if they use the landing in the Sicilian islands as an excuse, they definitely can not claim that it is a second war zone. The so-called second war zone must be able to sap a large part of the German army’s strength, shifting from the East to the West, or at least be able to make the German army send 60 divisions, and 20 more from Axis country armies. (That would be about a quarter to a third of its strength.) Only then it could it be called a second war zone. Now there are only two divisions of Germans fighting in Sicily. Compared with 210 divisions in the eastern lines, there is no way it can be called a second war zone. They were more or less saying that Britain and the United States do not keep their promises. I am deeply worried about the future of our Allies. I abstracted the main points and reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.