Russia has stepped up a powerful assault on Soledar in eastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said, forcing Ukrainian troops to repel waves of attacks led by the Wagner contract militia around the salt mining town and nearby fronts.
Soledar, in the industrial Donbas region, lies a few kilometers from Bakhmut, where troops from both sides have been taking heavy losses in some of the most intense trench warfare since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.
Ukrainian forces repelled an earlier attempt to take the town, but a large number of Wagner Group units quickly returned, deploying new tactics and more troops under heavy artillery cover, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Malyar said on Monday on the Telegram messaging app.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“The enemy literally step over the corpses of their own soldiers, using massed artillery, MLRS [multiple launch rocket] systems and mortars,” Malyar wrote.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not mention either Soledar or Bakhmut in a regular media briefing on Monday, a day after facing criticism for an apparently false claim of a missile strike on a temporary Ukrainian barracks.
Wagner was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Drawing some recruits from Russia’s prisons and known for uncompromising violence, it is active in conflicts in Africa and has taken a prominent role in Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
Prigozhin has been trying to capture Bakhmut and Soledar for months at the cost of many lives on both sides. He on Saturday said that its significance lay in a network of cavernous mining tunnels below the ground, which can hold big groups of people, as well as tanks and other military vehicles.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said fighting in Bahkmut and Soledar is “the most intense on the entire front line,” with little advancement by either side in the freezing conditions.
“So many [pro-Russian fighters] remain on the battlefield ... either dead or wounded,” he said on YouTube. “They attack our positions in waves, but the wounded as a rule die where they lie, either from exposure as it is very cold or from blood loss. No one is coming to help them or to collect the dead from the battlefield.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in nightly video remarks on Monday said that Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on, despite widespread destruction.
He cited new and fiercer attacks in Soledar, where he said no walls have been left standing and the land is covered with Russian corpses.
“Thanks to the resilience of our soldiers in Soledar, we have won for Ukraine additional time and additional strength,” Zelenskiy said.
He did not spell out what he meant by gaining time or strength, but Ukrainian officials, led by commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy, have said that Russia is preparing fresh troops for a new, major offensive on Ukraine, possibly on the capital, Kyiv.
Zelenskiy also appears to be banking on securing more, sophisticated weapons from Ukraine’s Western partners to beat off attacks and eventually expel Russian troops.
He pressed on with diplomatic efforts, on Monday speaking to Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, whose nation is the current chair of the 27-member EU.
“I am certain that our soldiers at the front will get these weapons and equipment. Very soon,” he said.
France, Germany and the US all pledged last week to send armored fighting vehicles, fulfilling a long-standing Ukrainian request. Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time, Sky News reported, citing a Western source. The British Ministry of Defence did not comment.
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