Your message of February 19 received. Thank you for the communications. I must at the same time point out that so far I have had no reply on the eight British and U.S. destroyers and other ships, which were to be put at Soviet disposal temporarily in exchange for Italian warships and merchant vessels, as agreed in Tehran by you, the President and myself. I cannot understand the long delay.

I await a reply to my message of January 29.

February 21, 1944