RUSSIA’S WAGNER GROUP CHIEF SAYS TROOPS HAVE TAKEN STRATEGIC TOWN SOLEDAR

Wed 11 January 2023:

Although the leader of the Russian mercenary Wagner Group claims to have gained control of the salt mining town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, there is still ambiguity due to ongoing clashes in the city center.

Days of ferocious combat have been concentrated around Soledar as Russia has seen it as essential to its push for the surrounding important city of Bakhmut and the greater eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.

Soledar is about 15km (9 miles) from Bakhmut, and its capture would have symbolic, military and commercial value for Russia.

“Wagner units took control of the entire territory of Soledar. A cauldron has been formed in the centre of the city in which urban fighting is going on,” Russian news agencies reported Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as saying late on Tuesday.

“The number of prisoners will be announced tomorrow,” Prigozhin added. The encircled Ukrainian soldiers had been given an ultimatum to surrender by midnight (22:00 GMT), the group said on Telegram.

Later, the Russian state news agency RIA reported that the Wagner Group had taken over Soledar’s salt mines after “fierce fighting,” while Prigozhin shared a photo of himself surrounded by his mercenaries in one of the mines.

Nonetheless, the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, DC, expressed skepticism about Russia’s claims.

“Russian forces have not captured the entirety of #Soledar despite false Russian claims that the city has fallen and that #Bakhmut risks imminent encirclement,” it said in a Twitter thread, noting that Prigozhin himself had acknowledged urban warfare was

Seizing Soledar would be Russia’s most substantial gain since August, after a series of humiliating retreats in the northeast and south in the second half of 2022.

However, any conquest in Bakhmut would be costly because of the fiercest fighting that has taken place since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 of last year, which resulted in significant casualties for forces on both sides.

Kyiv has released pictures in recent days showing what it says are many Russian soldiers strewn dead in muddy fields.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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