Fighting is still raging in the salt mining town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, despite Russia’s claims that it has taken control of the area.
If Russian forces do capture the town, it would be Moscow’s first win in Donbass in months and provide welcome news to President Vladimir Putin after a string of battlefield defeats since last summer. there’s a possibility that.
The military significance of the Soledar is minimal. However, its capture allows Russian forces, particularly the Wagner Mercenary Group, to focus on nearby Bakhmut, which has been a target since the summer.
The town of Soledar in Donetsk has been targeted by Russian forces since May last year. With a pre-war population of about 10,000, it is of little strategic value in itself, but a transit point for the attrition of Russian forces to the West. Moscow has struggled for months to attack Bakhmut from the east, but if Soledar can be captured, Moscow will at least be able to approach the city from another route.
Since early July, Russian troops have had nothing to celebrate and had to withdraw from both Kharkov in the north and Kherson in southern Ukraine.
Thus, despite its current state of disrepair, Soledar captures are rare. But it will be symbolic, not material. The War Research Institute said that Soledar’s control “does not necessarily allow the Russian military to control critical Ukrainian land lines in Bakhmut.”
“Even if the claims of the most lenient Russia were taken at face value, the capture of Soledar would not portend an immediate siege of Bahmut,” the think tank added.
But Soledar is very important to Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch and leader of Wagner’s mercenary group. His Wagner fighters, many of them ex-prison inmates, in wave after wave of ground attack across what became a battlefield of trenches and mud reminiscent of World War I. suffered great casualties. By only retreating, Prigogine wants to show that his men are paying off.
Read more about Sorader here.
