Russia’s Wagner Group chief says troops have taken Soledar
The head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group has claimed to have secured manipulate of the salt mining metropolis of Soledar in Ukraine’s east, however uncertainty stays amid persisted battles withinside the town centre.
Soledar has been the point of interest of days of excessive preventing as Russia has considered it as key to its marketing campaign for the close by strategic town of Bakhmut and Ukraine’s large jap Donbas region. It turned into now no longer feasible to confirm the situations at the floor and Ukrainian officers have now no longer commented at the situation.
“Wagner gadgets took manipulate of the complete territory of Soledar. A cauldron has been fashioned withinside the centre of the town wherein city preventing goes on,” Russian information corporations suggested Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin, a near best friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as announcing overdue on Tuesday.
“The variety of prisoners might be introduced tomorrow,” Prigozhin added. The encircled Ukrainian infantrymen were given an ultimatum to give up with the aid of using midnight (22:00 GMT), the organization stated on Telegram. Soledar is set 15km (nine miles) from Bakhmut, and its seize could have symbolic, army and business cost for Russia.
The Russian country RIA information business enterprise later issued a file announcing the Wagner Group had taken over Soledar’s salt mines following “fierce preventing”, even as Prigozhin shared a image of himself surrounded with the aid of using his mercenaries in what he stated turned into one of the mines. Still, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-primarily based totally suppose tank, expressed warning approximately the Russian claims.
“Russian forces have now no longer captured the whole thing of #Soledar no matter fake Russian claims that the town has fallen and that #Bakhmut dangers drawing close encirclement,” it stated in a Twitter thread, noting that Prigozhin himself had mentioned city conflict turned into continuing.
Heavy cost
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did now no longer point out manipulate of Soledar in his everyday video cope with on Tuesday nighttime whilst he repeated his name for greater Western weapons, announcing Russia turned into trying to accentuate its army marketing campaign. He did now no longer offer details.
But Ukraine’s Defence Ministry tweeted overdue on Tuesday: “Even after struggling large losses, Russia continues to be maniacally seeking to capture Soledar – domestic to the biggest salt mine in Europe.”
Ukraine stated in advance its forces had been nonetheless preserving onto positions in Soledar, withstanding attacks with the aid of using wave after wave of Russian forces in search of their first battlefield victory in months.
Seizing Soledar could be Russia’s maximum considerable advantage considering that August, after a chain of humiliating retreats withinside the northeast and south withinside the 2d 1/2 of of 2022.
But any victory in Bakhmut could come at an extensive cost, with troops from each aspects having taken heavy losses in a number of the maximum excessive preventing considering that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 final year. Kyiv has launched pix in latest days displaying what it says are many Russian infantrymen strewn useless in muddy fields.
Moscow says taking pictures Bakhmut could be a essential step closer to taking complete manipulate of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, certainly considered one among 4 provinces it claimed to have annexed months ago.
