Has Soledar fallen to the Russians?

Moscow this morning hailed the ‘liberation’ of Soledar, a strategic point in the battle for control of the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Wednesday that his mercenaries – who are spearheading the offensive – were in control of the salt-mining town (or what remains of it). It was denied at the time, but the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said it believes Russian forces have taken ‘most, if not all’ of the town.

Ukraine insists that the fighting is ongoing and that its soldiers ‘are bravely trying to hold the defence’, but the institute says this probably refers to positions around Soledar and that it now seems that Moscow has ‘pushed Ukrainian forces out of the western outskirts of the settlement’. The British Ministry of Defence also says Russia probably has control of ‘most of the settlement’. But in a video, a Ukrainian soldier asks people not to believe ‘Russian propaganda’ and says that ‘fierce battles’ for Soledar are still taking place.

Russia switched its main attacking efforts to Soledar at the end of December after months of failing to take Bakhmut, a city some 20 km to the south-east, which has been half-destroyed by the fighting.