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Russia has struggled to advance in the area for months, with both sides suffering huge losses as it became a focal point of the conflict after Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in the south. But the Kremlin’s forces appeared to have made progress in Soledar in recent days.
Russian soldiers and fighters from the Wagner mercenary group were likely in control of most of Soledar, 6 miles northeast of Bakhmut, the British Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing on the war Tuesday. The move to take Soledar was, it said, “highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the soldiers who were resisting Russian advances in a statement late Monday.
“It is extremely difficult — there are almost no whole walls left,” he said. “Due to the resilience of our warriors there, in Soledar, we have gained additional time and additional power for Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy said that in the area around Soledar and Bakhmut, “everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left.”
“The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” he added. “This is what madness looks like.”
On some days. both sides have exchanged several thousand artillery rounds in the area, in trench fighting described as “savage” and compared to the carnage of World War I by a U.S. military official in a background briefing to journalists Monday.
Ukraine’s military said Monday that Russia made a “desperate attempt to storm the city of Soledar from different directions and threw the most professional units of the Wagnerites into battle.”
Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern forces, told Ukrainian TV that Soledar was hit by 86 shells Tuesday alone.
“There are fierce battles now, and the enemy has concentrated there the best units of the organized criminal group ‘Wagner,’ which are supported by the regular armed forces of the Russian Federation,” he said.
The Moscow-backed leader of the occupied areas of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, told Russian state TV on Tuesday that Russian forces were “very close” to taking Soledar, but that the gains were coming at a high price. Taking the town would create “good prospects” to then take Bakhmut, he said.
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