LONDON--Germany, extending its now offensive operations on the northern front to the Leningrad area, attacked throughout Tuesday with tanks and infantry but was thrown back with heavy losses, Russia's midnight communique said today.

The Germans attacked repeatedly, the communique said, but failed to gain and lost many men and three tanks destroyed.

To the south, along the Velkhov River, where Germans had lost more than 2,000 men in a savage attack in one sector Monday, Russian artillery blasted the German lines and smashed 17 pill boxes and block houses, the midnight communique said as recorded here from Moscow radio.