The head of the private Russian military firm Wagner Group said Tuesday that the mercenaries have taken control of the town of Soledar in the eastern Ukrainian oblast of Donetsk.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said that fighting was still ongoing in the center of the town but said the Ukrainian forces were surrounded. “Units of the Wagner private military company have taken the entire territory of Soledar under their control,” he said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
“The city center has been surrounded, and urban warfare is underway. The number of captives will be announced tomorrow,” Prigozhin added.
The Wagner Group is doing much of the fighting in eastern Ukraine for Moscow. According to RT, Prigozhin said that only Wagner forces and “no other units” took part in the storming of Soledar.
Soledar is a small town known for its salt mines with a pre-war population of 10,000. Wagner’s capture of Soledar could help Russian forces encircle the city of Bakhmut, where Russian and Ukrainian forces have been locked in heavy fighting for months.
Russia has been reinforcing its positions in eastern Ukraine with regular soldiers after mobilizing 300,000 fresh troops, signaling that a big offensive could be coming. But at this point, it’s not clear what Russia’s military plans are for the near future.
It will be curious to see what Russia’s response will be… I’ll clarify, what will they do next?…. “Big Offensive”……………………………
Russia’s response to what?
They took Soledar. That’s the response.
The response to an unofficial response
lol.
🙂
And apparently Bakmut, a major defensive hub, is about a week away. We are back to Russia grinding out small victories one town at a time. I wonder if Lyman will be considered as important this year as it was last year
Nothing wrong with cheering for your boys after 10 long months of trying to take that town. No need to hide it. It’s a day for all Putin supporters to celebrate.
You are very acerbic.
It’s not a matter of cheering or jeering. It’s a matter of dealing with reality.
The reality is that Russia is winning. And we are talking about sending tanks to a static artillery duel. This just wastes money and essentially murders the people inside the tanks.
If the pro-US position is to believe fake news and do counter productive things based on this fake news, then let’s find another way.
And at your insistence I continue to fact check the daily Russian MODs, and it persists in being more factual and honest than what our information war produces.
As usual Zelensky demanded that every square meter be defended, so the conscripts weren’t allowed to withdraw from a hopeless position. Just like in Mariupol where Azov were surrounded and all either captured or killed. These conscripts could have withdrawn to Bakhmut. Soledar is essential for holding northern Bakhmut, now Russia can approach from south, east and north. They took the crucial southern road a week or so ago. Alexis Mercouris, and The New Atlas, have made excellent videos about this on YouTube.
And in Bakhmut, Zelensky demands that more and more troops be sent in to be destroyed in what the media call a “meatgrinder”. Where the Russians have a 6-to-1 advantage in artillery. No withdrawal allowed from Bakhmut either, the lynchpin in Kiev’s occupation of western Donbass, the communication hub and transportation hub for their “Zelensky Line”. Instead just keep serving up conscripts to die in cold, water-filled trenches. The Ukrainians have as usual resorted to throwing out thousands of small anti-personnel mines in the streets, which will stay there for years and maim civilians. They have completely destroyed forest areas this way as well.
The journos keep repeating “Ukraine took Kherson!” That’s what is needed for the paycheck. But Russia moved those troops to take Bakhmut, where most of the fighting is going on. There was no battle where they were defeated, they were massacring oncoming Ukrainians. The Ukrainians were just bombing the civilians in Kherson and threatened to blow up the dam and flood the city. And it made no sense to keep the best Russian forces in Kherson instead of in Donbass. What the media won’t say is that Kiev has STILL failed to establish civilian rule or life in Kherson. It is “hell” there according to Ukrainian conscripts. They are shelled by the Russians who are safely ensconced just a kilometer away across the river. The Ukrainians don’t even go out to collect their dead. In fact, they let the dead lie in Soledar and Bakhmut as well – there are videos of their NATO-supplied armored vehicles running over bodies over and over again. They often leave their dead so they can write them up as “missing,” so they don’t have to give compensation to their families or include them in casualty figures.
When Trump debated Hillary,he said he wanted to talk to Putin about peace and ending killing,The MSM said he was soft on Russia. Now look at what we’ve got.
Trump was not strong enough to follow through as President. As President, after 2014 happened with Biden as Vice President, Trump built upon the 2014 coup, and Biden is continuing Trump’s successes in leading the US to third world status.
To be fair, as President, Trump did make several attempts to fight for peace. Whether it was just for show we will never know.
https://russian.rt.com/ussr/news/1096082-video-shahta-soledar
The first video of PMC “Wagner” from the salt mine in Soledar has been published