KYIV, Ukraine — Fierce fighting continued in the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar on Wednesday, despite claims by the founder of the mercenary force leading the Russian offensive there that his army was he took control of the town.
Wednesday morning’s update from the Ukrainian Army General Staff showed no sign that the battle for the salt mining town of Soledar was over. And the Russian Defense Ministry and the Kremlin have not confirmed the claim by the mercenary, the Wagner Corporation, that Soledar has fallen, saying the town is only under blockade at the moment.
During the ministry’s daily briefing on Wednesday, they said that their paratroopers “barred Soledar from the north and south” and that their assault units were “fighting in the city”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov urged reporters to wait for an official announcement on whether the city has been captured, adding that “tactical successes are certainly very important.” important because they have to pay a pretty hefty price.”
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. In and around Bakhmut, Wagner Corporation, including Prisoners are recruited into its ranks, became the main force there, and the fighting was brutal.
The businessman who founded the Wagner Group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, is a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin but has since was also publicly criticized of the Russian Ministry of Defense and is becoming more and more frank after admitted in September that he was the founder of a shady organization. The group’s fighters have also been deployed to support the Kremlin’s military operations in Africa and Middle East.
Even as the Kremlin expressed caution, Russia’s Channel One – one of the two main state television networks – announced in a news release on Wednesday that Russian forces had achieved “an important victory”. strategically in the Donbas”, stating that “Soledar is being controlled.”
The report, which did not mention the Wagner Group, said that Russian forces had crossed a “labyrinth of underground strongholds” to capture Soledar. The presenter said: “The road is now open to other important towns.
At almost 1 a.m. Wednesday, Robert Magyar, the commander of a Ukrainian aerial reconnaissance group, said in a statement on the messaging app Telegram that Ukrainian forces were still holding the town, although he admitted that the battle was brutal. “Yes – it was hell,” he Writtenadded that claims that Russia had taken Soledar were “psychological pressure and propaganda.”
Should Soledar fall, capturing this relatively small town would be Russia’s first notable 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 while capturing Soledar will be significant, it does not signal that Bakhmut is about to fall to Russia. Ukraine has heavily fortified its positions in and around Bakhmut, about 10 miles away, creating a formidable obstacle to Moscow’s further progress.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, concluded in an analysis Tuesday that even if Russia captured Soledar, Ukraine would still be able to defend and resupply troops in Bakhmut.
The analysis states: “The reality of regional terrain control in Soledar is obscured by the dynamics of urban combat,” although it notes that “Russian forces have largely had to struggled to achieve significant tactical victories in the Soledar area for many months. .”
Mr. Prigozhin affirmed in a post on telegram that his troops had control of all of Soledar, although he added that fighting was still ongoing. “A cauldron has been formed in the heart of the city, in which urban battles are taking place,” he said.
How a small salt mining town with a pre-war population of 10,000 came to be the focus of such a constant onslaught by Wagner forces is an open question. The most important factor is probably what Mr. Prigozhin and his mercenaries fought there must achieve in terms of reputation.
