Russo-Ukrainian War: Russian mercenaries claim to occupy the Eastern town

The founder of the Russian mercenary force that spearheaded Moscow’s assault on the eastern Ukraine town of Soledar announced late Tuesday that his troops had taken control of the town, something international officials have said. Ukraine room denied.

The claim that Soledar fell into the hands of soldiers employed by the Wagner Corporation cannot be verified, and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine said on Twitter just before midnight local time that Russia was still trying to take the town. At nearly 1 a.m. Wednesday, Robert Magyar, the commander of a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group, said in a statement on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were still holding the town.

“Yes – it was hell” he Writtenadded that the claims were “psychological pressure and propaganda.”

The attack was part of a broader Russian effort in the area around the city Bakhmut which Moscow considers important to achieving its goal of capturing the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. If so, the fall of Soledar, a relatively small metropolis, would be Russia’s first major victory in months, after a string of humiliating defeats. Ukraine changed the course of the war with the capture Kharkiv region in September and then the city Kherson in November, successes are of much greater importance.

Military experts say that, although capturing Soledar is important, it does not signal that Bakhmut is about to fall to Russia. Ukraine has heavily fortified its positions in and around Bakhmut, posing a formidable obstacle to Moscow’s further progress.

The entrepreneur who founded the Wagner Group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, maintained in a post on telegraphy messaging app that his army had control of all of Soledar, though he added that fighting continued.

“A cauldron has been formed in the city center in which urban battles are taking place,” said Mr. Prigozhin.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, speak claims that Russia has taken all of Soledar is false, citing another comment from Mr. Prigozhin on Tuesday earlier on telegraphy: “The Ukrainian army bravely fought for Bakhmut and Soledar. In the western suburbs of Soledar there are heavy bloody battles going on.”

In my night Address on Tuesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine thanked the troops defending Soledar. “Today, I want to express my special gratitude to the warriors of the 46th separate Mechanized Airborne Brigade for their bravery and steadfastness in defending Soledar!” he say.

How a tiny salt-mining town with a pre-war population of 10,000 came to be the focus of such a constant assault by Wagner’s forces is an open question. In his overnight speech Monday, Mr. Zelensky asked, “What does Russia want to achieve there?”

The most important factor is probably what Mr. Prigozhin and his mercenaries fought there must achieve in terms of reputation. In Bakhmut, Wagner Corporationa private military contracting company that has Prisoners are recruited into its ranks, became the main force leading the assault on Russia, and the fighting turned bloody.

Before the appearance of the Wagner Group statement on Tuesday, the UK Ministry of Defense said in its report. Daily intelligence update that Russian forces and the Wagner Group are now capable of controlling much of Soledar after intense fighting over the past four days. The update said the capture of the city, about six miles north of Bakhmut, could have been part of “an attempt to encircle Bakhmut from the north and disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication.”

Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesman for eastern Ukraine’s military forces, said on state television on Tuesday that Russian artillery had hit Soledar 86 times in the past day. He described the situation as “very difficult.”

The tactics employed by the Wagner Corporation resulted in a large number of casualties. Recently, The New York Times reporters are embedded with a Ukrainian drone crew on the front lines saw the remains of Russian warplanes scattered on the open ground in the area around Bakhmut. Photos and videos on Ukrainian social media in recent days also appear to come from these aerial reconnaissance missions and show similar scenes.