The head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigojin, said on Wednesday that mercenaries had taken Soledar, a town near Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
“Wagner units have taken control of all Soledar territory. Fighting continues in the city center, where urban battles are being fought. The number of prisoners will be announced tomorrow [quinta-feira]”, said Prigozhin on the Telegram platform.
Wagner’s founder assured that no unit, except the paramilitary organization, took part in the attack on Soledar.
Hours earlier, the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, had already assured that Soledar was under the control of Wagner group mercenaries.
The same source mentioned that some Russian troops have already taken up positions in Soledar, while others are moving “quite efficiently” around the city while conducting “a clean-up operation” in the western part of the city.
During the usual video night speech released on social networks, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky had paid a “special tribute” to the fighters of the 46th Airmobile Brigade for “the courage and determination in the defense of Soledar”.
Zelensky had said that this was a city where “there was almost no life left”.
If confirmed, the capture of Soledar would represent the first symbolic victory for Russian forces after months of triumph for the Ukrainian army.
The fighting in the small town, with a pre-war population of just over 10,000, was credited by various sources as part of the Russian attempt to capture Bakhmut, about ten kilometers away.
Bakhmut is a city of dubious strategic importance, but has gained symbolic value as both sides have fought for control for months. Located in Donetsk, Donbass (eastern Ukraine), it is one of four regions Russia said it annexed in late September last year, along with Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporijia, after doing the same with Crimea in 2014.
These annexations are not recognized by Ukraine, nor by the international community in general.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24 has so far led to the flight of more than 14 million people, 6.5 million internally displaced people and more than 7.9 million to European countries, according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Currently, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The UN presented 6,952 civilian casualties and 11,144 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are far below the real ones.
Source: DN
