The Ukrainian army was facing a “high intensity offensive” by Russia on Friday in Soledar, in the east of the country, announced the Ukrainian deputy defense minister, who admitted that it was a “difficult phase of the war”.
“The enemy has thrown almost all its main forces towards Donetsk and is maintaining a high-intensity offensive,” Ganna Maliar said on the Telegram social network.
Donetsk is the region of eastern Ukraine to which the small town of Soledar belongs, which had around 10,000 inhabitants before the war started by Russia on February 24 last year.
Maliar said that “the night in Soledar was hot”, that fighting was continuing and that Ukrainian troops were “valiantly trying” to repel the Russian offensive.
“This is a difficult phase of the war, but we are going to win it,” he said, adding that “the fight continues,” according to the French news agency AFP.
Known for its salt mines, Soledar has been the scene, in recent days, of violent fighting between Ukrainian forces and mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised on Thursday to provide everything necessary for his army, which is resisting the Russian onslaught in Soledar and Bakhmut, which Russia has been trying to conquer since last summer.
kyiv has not released data on its casualties in the battle for Soledar and Bakhmut, but Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak admitted “significant losses” in an interview on Wednesday.
The information released by the two sides about the course of the war cannot be immediately independently verified.
Donetsk is one of four regions that Russia annexed in late September, along with Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia.
Russia had already annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine and the international community in general do not recognize these annexations.
Source: TSF
