Russia close to capturing key strategic town
Wagner mercenaries said to be on brink of taking Soledar, close to their main target of Bakhmut
UKRAINIAN troops are battling “waves” of Russians for control of a key town as the Kremlin seeks its first battlefield breakthrough in six months.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said yesterday that Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries were already “likely in control of most” of Soledar amid the fiercest Russian offensive since last summer.
A video shared on social media yesterday appeared to show Russian troops in the centre of the town. Yevgenny Prigozhin, the Wagner head, said yesterday “heavy, bloody” fighting continued in central and western districts.
Soledar, about seven miles north-east of contested Bakhmut and famed for a sprawling, disused salt mine with more than 125 miles of tunnels, has been on the front line since July last year, but Russia began a concentrated assault against it just before the new year.
Taking Soledar would position the Russians to attempt an encirclement of Bakhmut, which they have been unsuccessfully assaulting since August, and also threaten the Ukrainian front further north in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
That in turn would breach Ukraine’s main line of defence in Donbas and open the way for a Russian advance on the key towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
“The occupiers have now concentrated their greatest efforts on Soledar,” Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said in an address to the nation on Monday night.
He praised the troops in the town for buying time for the rest of the country. However, there were signs it could be close to falling.
Yuri Butusov, a Ukrainian journalist embedded with Ukraine’s 46th air mobile brigade inside the town, reported on Monday night that the town was in “a dangerous situation” and that the Russians had achieved fire control over the only supply route to the Ukrainian garrison inside the town.
“This is not a complete encirclement, but normal supply along the route is impossible,” he said.
Yesterday, he said that the Russians were attacking from “three sides” and “assault groups are fighting at distances of 20-30 metres”.
“Everyone moves from house to house with weapons at the ready because the enemy is constantly trying to find gaps and wedge in,” he wrote.
One drone video showed a Ukrainian tank engaging Russian forces at close range next to the main shaft of the famed salt mines.
Another published yesterday showed Ukrainian soldiers taking cover from
‘Everyone moves from house to house with weapons at the ready because the enemy is constantly trying to wedge in’
incoming rifle and machine gun fire while an armoured vehicle fired back from its high-calibre weapon.
Other footage released by pro-russian social media channels shows armed men, purportedly Wagner mercenaries, carefully picking their way through a ruined landscape and taking cover behind gutted buildings.
Losses on both sides are believed to be heavy. On Friday, two British aid workers went missing in the town. Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said he expected the town to be “liberated” shortly.
In an apparent swipe at the regular Russian army, Mr Prigozhin yesterday claimed the assault was being carried out exclusively by Wagner fighters and said anyone spreading “fake” news to the contrary was welcome to visit the battlefield to check. His claim was contradicted by Ukrainian sources, who said that Russian army paratroopers had been thrown into the offensive to achieve a breakthrough.
Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for the Ukrainian army’s eastern group of forces, told Ukrainian television that “the enemy have brought in all of their best forces, including Wagner commanders supported by regular Russian troops” near Bakhmut and Soledar. The Russian progress is likely to intensify the debate about supplying Ukraine with advanced Western armour.
France, Germany and the US said last week they would supply Ukraine with infantry fighting vehicles and tank destroyers, but have so far ignored Kyiv’s requests for main battle tanks.
Defence sources told The Daily Telegraph this week that Britain was considering sending a small number of Challenger II tanks, which would make it the first country to do so.
A Western official said tanks would be essential to breaking the stalemate.
“Someone needs to break the deadlock. Ukraine won’t be able to reclaim lost territory without changes to force posture, they’re too finely balanced [with the Russians],” the official said.
“Main battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers are part of that mix. Ukraine will look to all partners and won’t be worried where they come from. Ukraine needs new capabilities to help give them an advantage.”