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Russian paramilitaries are thought to have captured a big swath of the salt-mining city of Soledar, Tuesday, following months of bloody combating within the space surrounding the jap metropolis of Bakhmut.
“Within the final 4 days, Russian and Wagner forces have made tactical advances into the small Donbas city of Soledar and are doubtless in charge of most of settlement,” the UK Ministry of Protection stated.
The city sits 5 miles northeast of Bakhmut, a metropolis within the Donetsk province the place bloody combating has raged for months, at the same time as Russian forces have pulled again elsewhere alongside the frontline.
Bakhmut has been the main focus of Russian efforts for months, led by the Wagner Group — a quasi-state paramilitary group financed by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Whereas town controls a small variety of regional provide strains, US intelligence believes that Prigozhin’s actual intention could be the salt and gypsum mines within the surrounding space, lots of which sit beneath Soledar.
The oligarch has ties to a number of mining issues on the African continent in international locations the place Wagner paramilitaries function.
Moscow’s puppet chief in Donetsk indicated that Russian forces would quickly have management of the small city, however warned the victory could also be pyrrhic.
Russia’s forces are “very shut” to taking up Soledar, Denis Pushilin stated on Russian State TV Tuesday, however the territory was gained “at a really excessive value.”
Wagner paramilitaries had not captured the Artemsol salt mine on the north finish of city as of Tuesday, based on Russian unbiased information outlet Meduza.
Prigozhin acknowledged that heavy combating continued on Soledar’s west aspect.
“The Ukrainian military bravely fights for Bakhmut and Soledar,” Prigozhin stated on the messaging app Telegram. “On the western outskirts of Soledar there are heavy bloody battles.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once more referred to as the state of affairs in Soledar “troublesome” on Tuesday.
In his nightly handle, he questioned Russia’s motivation for advancing on the small city.
“What did Russia need to achieve there? All the pieces is totally destroyed, there may be virtually no life left,” he stated.
“And hundreds of their folks had been misplaced: the entire land close to Soledar is roofed with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” he added.
“That is what insanity appears like.”
With Submit wires
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